Suspect charged with promoting gambling
The Limestone County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) broke up two illegal gambling operations near Athens, Alabama, seizing over $11,000 in cash and 63 gambling machines.
Deputies on January 16 arrested and charged a Tanner woman, Judy Wilson, 69, for promoting gambling. Warrants are being secured for another suspect, the LCSO announced Sunday on its Facebook page.
BREAKING: A Tanner woman has been arrested and warrants are being obtained for a second suspect after LCSO investigators…
Posted by Limestone County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday, 17 January 2021
The two establishments raided on Saturday are in Tanner, an unincorporated community in Limestone County, central southern Alabama.
Raids followed 2020 warning
The LCSO said it “served notice from the [District Attorney’s] Office to the two establishments in 2020 that their business operation violated the law.” Despite quitting their gambling enterprises for a while, the two later resumed their previous activities.
The LCSO raid came after it began receiving complaints. Limestone Country Jail records reportedly state that the office has now released Wilson from custody.
legalized gambling in Alabama could add up to $700m to state coffers per year
Under Alabama’s constitution, gambling is illegal. The Cotton State is one of only five in the US not to have a state lottery. A December 2020 report by the Study Group on Gambling, a body formed by Governor Kay Ivey earlier in 2020, posited that legalized gambling in Alabama could add up to $700m to state coffers per year, and create 19,000 new jobs.
Machines under the spotlight
Crimes and illegal activities involving gambling machines have been making headlines recently. Far to the east of Alabama in Las Vegas, police have asked the public for help in tracking down four slot machine cash box criminals still at large.
suspects worked the slot machine locks before exiting gambling premises with the cash boxes
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD)’s Northeast Area Command published a crime alert notice last week, describing how the suspects worked the slot machine locks before exiting gambling premises with the cash boxes.
Also last week, a court in Pennsylvania arraigned a Philadelphia man on charges of destroying a gambling machine to steal around $11,000 at a Sunoco in Bensalem, a township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The other suspect, who is still at large, appears on video surveillance attacking the gambling machine with a sledgehammer.
