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Message: <blockquote data-quote="80ist" data-source="post: 2054140" data-attributes="member: 731130">See if u can use thisIn Florida the state lottery supposedly helps the schoolsystem but i do not believe that crap coz why then do they need still more and more funds and taxes? They have build a huge casino a few years after they brought in penny gambling on Indian territory but with the history of gambling in Florida always in the hand of org.crime i have a feeling more is going to corrupt cops than to school lunches.Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, will try to turn that slogan on its head in 2010 by pressing for a statewide vote on whether to abolish gambling entirely from Alabama. That would mean no charity bingo, no betting at dog tracks and certainly no gambling halls with bingo machines that look and work much like slots. "This would just be a straight up-and-down vote on gambling," Beason said. "It's just become such a quagmire now. It is expanding everywhere, and this is an election year. I would think that legislators would want to have some sort of closure." For now, even gambling opponents said the bill faces very long odds . "You're never going to see that coming out of this Legislature," said Bryan Taylor, policy director for Gov. Bob Riley. In December 2008, Riley created a task force to shut down gaming parlors with electronic bingo machines -- slots in Riley's view -- by way of law enforcement and the courts. The machines play bingo, which is legal in many areas of the state, but function in ways similar to slots, which Alabama law staunchly bans. After Riley formed his task force, Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, urged a state constitutional amendment to allow electronic bingo at certain places, set up methods to tax it, and establish a regulatory body to oversee it. Constitutional amendments can be adopted by a simple majority of voters, but only after winning three-fifths approval of the state House and Senate. Beason said he thought that the ad campaign for Black's amendment unfairly portrayed gambling opponents as trying to silence the voting public. His gambling ban would also take the form of a constitutional amendment. By eliminating even paper bingo, Beason said, the state might force federal regulators to bar bingo machines from casinos owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, which are outside the state's gaming jurisdiction. An official with the Poarch tribe declined to comment. Sen. Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, who favors taxing and regulating electronic bingo, said he would oppose Beason's effort. But Bedford said he would support a constitutional amendment that gives voters a clear-cut choice of whether to legalize and tax gambling statewide, or ban it in all forms.</blockquote>

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