Legislative panel favors bingo bill

[The Judge]

Montgomery Advertiser

A bill that would direct millions of dollars in new bingo taxes to the state Medicaid program received a favorable recommendation Wednesday from a committee of the Alabama House of Representatives.

House Bill 527's sponsor, Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, portrayed the proposal as an attempt to legalize but limit electronic bingo to racetracks in Birmingham and Mobile County.

"I'm hoping this will stop the situation we have now where every time you go to fill up your gas tank at the convenience store, you've got these illegal machines," Black said.

But M. David Barber, district attorney for the circuit that includes Birmingham, read the bill differently. The prosecutor said the wording of the legislation was so broad that it could encourage Internet gambling.

"The devil is in the definitions," Barber told the House Tourism and Travel Committee. "This, in my opinion, opens it up for anybody at home to play bingo -- anywhere."

Barber said it appeared whoever drafted the bill took almost identical language from an Alabama Supreme Court decision last year that outlawed video gambling at a Birmingham track and inserted it into the legislation expressly to negate the court ruling.