By Bob Howell – WSFA 12 News Anchor, Montgomery, AL

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Score a second round for Governor Riley in the “bingo battle” with Country Crossing near Dothan.  First, the State Supreme Court gave the green light for the governor’s Illegal Gambling Task Force to raid the electronic bingo operation at Country Crossing.  The high court voided a circuit judge’s restraining order blocking the raid.

 And, late this afternoon, a federal judge turned down a request by Houston County Commission Chairman Mark Culver for an injunction to keep the task force agents out of the newly opened entertainment and bingo center.  There’s no word on when the task force plans to conduct the raid and seize the machines that Governor Riley contends are slot machines.

In a similar raid at a bingo operation in Whitehall in Lowndes County last year agents confiscated 100 machines and seized a half-million dollars – reportedly about three days “take” at the center.  That March 17, 2009 raid is the basis for the case pending before the Alabama Supreme Court.  The Whitehall gaming center closed for a short time after the raid, re-opened and closed again for two weeks in November 2009 while its machines were “reconfigured” before the center re-opened for a second time in December 1, 2009.

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