Casinos in Alabama
Every time I drive up to my parent's lake house in Jasper, AL, I drive through the barrage of bingo halls on Highway 78. It makes me a little sick to see 5+ bingo halls in the space of a mile on an otherwise fairly deserted stretch of road. Jasper allows bingo for charitable causes as long as prizes rewarded were less than a certain dollar amount. The specifics of bingo can be read on the City of Jasper site. Whatever the case, in these hard economic times, many cities and towns in Alabama are looking at bingo to help ease or erase debt. Argo, AL, a small town near Trussville and near my house, recently planned to have a controversial vote to allow bingo. Fortunately, the city realized bingo may be gambling, which may be illegal. So, the vote was put off.
I recently was telling Erin (and even more recently I was thinking about in the shower) that Alabama should legalize gambling. We already have a dog track in Birmingham that allows betting. We have bingo halls springing up like herpes, and there is no way of stopping the random raffles at churches, baseball fields, etc. So, we should embrace the concept and slide the rest of the way down the slippery slope.
Obviously, a lottery would be an obvious place to start. Profits would go to schools or paving roads or whatever. I don't care much about lotto. We should already have one. I want casinos and not bingo halls. So, here is my proposition.
Make gambling legal. However, in order to open a gambling facility in Alabama, the individual or company opening the establishment must pay an annual $500,000 license fee. Part of it would go to the state for big projects and part of it would go to the municipality the casino is in to help pay off debt and fund local projects.
For a huge casino owner, half a million each year is nothing. For a stupid bingo hall, half a million is probably too much. With all the bingo halls out of business, municipalities could court casino owners by offering some sort of incentive, like dedicating a portion of their share of the licensing fee to public works projects to make public centers around the casino (parks, malls, better roads, more cops, whatever as long as it doesn't end up back in the pockets of the casino).
This would create more jobs through the casino, gaming commission, public workers, construction agencies, etc. The Alabama economy and government would get a cash injection from license fees and increased tourism. There would be no more bingo halls (unless they were inside casinos) and people would have new and interesting things to do like gamble, socialize in a new atmosphere (like going to Paris or New York in Vegas), see shows, etc.
I think we'd all come out better.
I recently was telling Erin (and even more recently I was thinking about in the shower) that Alabama should legalize gambling. We already have a dog track in Birmingham that allows betting. We have bingo halls springing up like herpes, and there is no way of stopping the random raffles at churches, baseball fields, etc. So, we should embrace the concept and slide the rest of the way down the slippery slope.
Obviously, a lottery would be an obvious place to start. Profits would go to schools or paving roads or whatever. I don't care much about lotto. We should already have one. I want casinos and not bingo halls. So, here is my proposition.
Make gambling legal. However, in order to open a gambling facility in Alabama, the individual or company opening the establishment must pay an annual $500,000 license fee. Part of it would go to the state for big projects and part of it would go to the municipality the casino is in to help pay off debt and fund local projects.
For a huge casino owner, half a million each year is nothing. For a stupid bingo hall, half a million is probably too much. With all the bingo halls out of business, municipalities could court casino owners by offering some sort of incentive, like dedicating a portion of their share of the licensing fee to public works projects to make public centers around the casino (parks, malls, better roads, more cops, whatever as long as it doesn't end up back in the pockets of the casino).
This would create more jobs through the casino, gaming commission, public workers, construction agencies, etc. The Alabama economy and government would get a cash injection from license fees and increased tourism. There would be no more bingo halls (unless they were inside casinos) and people would have new and interesting things to do like gamble, socialize in a new atmosphere (like going to Paris or New York in Vegas), see shows, etc.
I think we'd all come out better.