The price of Alabama's efforts to find and prosecute illegal gambling operations has left the state holding the bag for $538,115. The argument is instead of taxing the activities
the Governor’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling has run up legal bills for this large sum of tax payer's dollars. The Montgomery Alabama Advertiser has reported that administration contracted with the law firm Matt Lembke and Michael Pennington, attorneys based in Birmingham, Alabama. According to the current administration, the money was well spent as $1.3 million dollars was taken after raids on bingo halls. Unfortunately the accounting doesn't make a lot of sense when the costs of the police task force also include salaries of the police involved as well as administration and benefits. The head of the Governor’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling John Tyson, has stated under oath in court that he does not benefit financial at all from his duties as the head of this force. Online gambling continues to attract many players in Alabama as well as other states in the USA without compensation to local tax authorities. It is costing money for the Department of Justice to enforce an unenforceable activity. Even with the seized assets and funds from illegal bingo halls and cyber cafes the numbers don't add up. Millions of dollars leave for offshore companies without a trace left behind for the local communities where the money was originally generated. The online gambling industry in the USA must be regulated in order to control that flow of funds to out of country operations. Instead of creating criminals out of people that just want to play bingo online or otherwise seems unjust and in need of some review. The America where the citizen has the right to sit down to a friendly legal game of poker for money online looks to be a long way off on the political horizon.
