Official says dog tracks now in gambling compliance

Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2005 | 8:53 a.m.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama Attorney General Troy King said all electronic gambling machines at the dog tracks in Macon and Greene counties are now in compliance with his view of what's allowed under state law.

On Dec. 1, King announced that after reviewing all the state's gambling statues, he had come up with criteria for electronic bingo machines in Alabama. He said the machines must be based on the traditional five-by-five grid for bingo cards, but some machines at the two dog tracks used cards of different sizes. King said he would give the tracks an appropriate amount of time to remove or reprogram the machines.

Members of King's staff recently visited both tracks and found no problems. "I was very pleased the machines there were in compliance," King said in an interview Friday.

Milton McGregor, operator of VictoryLand dog track in Macon County, said fewer than 5 percent of the track's 1,800 machines were based on bingo cards that weren't the traditional size, but that's the way the manufacturer made them. McGregor started changing the machines shortly after King's announcement and finished around Jan. 1.