As if Alabama lawmakers needed another reason to pass legislation to properly regulate and tax gambling in this state, Greene County Sheriff Jonathan Benison gave them one anyway.
An audit by the Alabama Examiners of Public Accounts released last Friday found that Benison misspent about $5 million in electronic bingo revenue he was tasked with overseeing and doling out. He’s been told he has to repay it.
I know what you’re thinking: Why on earth is a county sheriff tasked with overseeing millions of dollars in gambling revenue?
Prepare yourself for a brief crash course in the convoluted and idiotic way Alabama has decided to legalize gambling.
First off, it’s probably a shock to you that Alabama has legalized gambling, since each year when the gambling debate pops up all you hear from some lawmakers and special interest groups is that we just can’t legalize gambling. Except we have. In 18 counties around the state, bingo amendments allow for some form of gambling on bingo.
In some of those counties, the citizens specifically approved bingo gambling that they understood to be of the electronic variety. That’s why you have electronic bingo casinos in some counties, even though the attorney general and others will swear to you that they’re illegal games. But that’s a whole other rabbit hole that we don’t have time for today.
The 18 bingo amendments require that the games be operated by a charitable organization and that the proceeds collected by the county from taxes on the games go to the good of the county. Since, under Alabama law, there is no county official with higher standing than the sheriff, those amendments put the sheriffs of the counties in charge of overseeing the entire operations. That includes controlling the money and dishing it out to the appropriate recipients.
Many of the sheriffs do a fine job and there’s never an issue. Some, like Benison, seem to have recurring problems remaining within the bounds of the law. I’ve written about him before.
According to the audit report, Benison gave more than $3 million in payments to various county employees – in addition to their salaries – with little or no documentation or explanation. In addition, there was another $2 million-ish in spending from the bingo account that had no documentation whatsoever. The auditor was able to determine that a bit more than half went to consultants, attorneys and other service providers and the rest went to various stores.
All of that is, of course, terrible. And hopefully, the state is on the way to recouping some of that money.
But there are two parts of this thing that deserve more attention. The first is that many of these same issues, the audit report notes, were flagged in 2014 and 2018 audits. And the second and bigger issue: This audit covered the time period 2018 through 2024.
That means some of this took place more than seven years ago.
Let me tell you how insane that is in the world of regulated casino gambling. Last night, over in Mississippi, where casinos are legal and regulated, each casino’s financial transactions were available for the state gaming commission to access.
Each casino has its own auditing department. Each casino presents detailed quarterly reports to the commission. Each casino is required to report certain transactions immediately to adhere to federal anti-money laundering laws. And each casino is required to report immediately any suspicious activity. (This record keeping is how independent watchdogs, in conjunction with sports betting websites, were able to spot and report a massive points shaving scandal in college athletics last year.)
Want me to make it more absurd?
At the Poarch Band of Creek Indians’ three electronic bingo casinos that operate in the state of Alabama but do so under federal gaming laws, the regulations are much the same. The National Indian Gaming Commission conducts routine audits and inspections, and tribal casinos are subjected to the federal Bank Secrecy Act that requires other actions to prevent money laundering and other illegal acts.
In both the tribal casinos and the traditional casinos, the commissions also ensure the integrity of the games being played and protect customers. They do that through routine tests of the machines and responding to customer complaints and allegations.
But wait, I can make it more absurd.
At Alabama’s three dog tracks, which all now offer historical horse racing games that operate under the pari-mutuel wagering laws, there are other requirements for owners and workers. Those include background checks and other financial controls.
All of those are monitored by other entities, since Alabama hasn’t legalized gambling and has no gambling commission to oversee its gambling establishments.
Look, this is absurd. Gambling is a business. It is a business that makes a lot of money and that requires oversight and regulation and punishing wrongdoers and a basic set of rules that everyone should follow.
But instead, through our purposeful inaction, we continue to allow this mess of a system to reward the crooks, punish the customers and leave the state with almost nothing in the way of tax dollars to combat any of the problems.
Maybe we should fix that.
