Guest: Nobody knows who owns half of Alabama’s would-be casinos (do the powerful hope to keep it that way?)

The house always wins.

But when it comes to half of the casinos that may open across Alabama if the current gambling bill passes, the public will have no idea who actually owns the house.

The public will have no idea who is raking-in all of those profits.

And the public will have no idea which casino owners are spreading campaign cash across the state, potentially corrupting oversight (if they haven’t already), and further degrading transparency and accountability within state government.

It stands to reason that if the State of Alabama, on behalf of its citizens, is going to give a few private business owners the right to operate casinos — and then prohibit anyone from competing against them — we should know their names.

And not just the company names, their officers, or agents, but the names of the actual owners — the living, breathing people who’ll be pocketing the hundreds of millions of dollars that Alabamians are guaranteed to lose annually at their businesses.

The Casinos

The bill that State Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Atmore) has proposed would allow 10 casinos to legally operate across Alabama:

• Four at the state’s old dog tracks in Birmingham and Mobile, and in Macon and Greene counties,
• One new facility in the state’s northeastern corner, either in DeKalb or Jackson counties,
• Two smaller ones only offering electronic games in Dothan and in Lowndes County,
• and the three electronic bingo facilities in Atmore, Montgomery, and Wetumpka that are currently run by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians would expand to include full-blown casino games.

The Owners

Records show that the Poarch Band of Creek Indians also owns the dog track in Mobile, and Albritton’s bill would give them the casino in the northeastern corner of the state, too (why, one wonders?).

But who currently owns the track in Birmingham and the ones in Macon and Greene counties? Wouldn’t it be interesting to learn which politicians they’ve been donating to?

I searched through the public records of the state’s business entities that are maintained by the Alabama Secretary of State’s office, and here’s what I found:

Nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

Corporations aren’t currently required to report who their owners are, an official from the Secretary of State’s office explained.

“Yeah, it’s kind of strange,” the official said.

There are rumors of who owns them, for sure, that span from nationally known “reverends” to the children of once powerful Alabamians to the heads of major companies operating in the state, but there aren’t any public documents that clearly show who they are (and thus, show which lawmakers they’ve been contributing to).

We know that the late Milton McGregor once owned the track in Macon County and that Paul Bryant, Jr. (yep, son of the “Bear”), once owned at least part of the track in Greene County, but it looks like he sold at least parts of it. Who owns them now, and who owns the Birmingham location?

We just don’t know.

In fact, we don’t even know the legal names of these would-be casinos, let alone their owners.

Albritton’s bill gets around officially identifying them by using their “commonly known” names. For instance, part of the legislation puts it this way (emphasis mine):

“The owners of the locations in Greene County, commonly known as Greenetrack; Jefferson County, commonly known as the Birmingham Race Course; Macon County, commonly known as VictoryLand; …”

Commonly known as.

Those are some awfully suspicious weasel words.

How about calling them what they’re legally known as because what they’re proposing is, after all, a law.

And speaking of the law, there’s nothing in the bill’s text that would require the owners to be named, just the company names. If past is prologue, we shouldn’t expect to know who owns the Dothan or Lowndes County casinos, either.

Sunshine Amendment Needed

If the state is going to grant a few people regional casino monopolies — which basically grants them the power to print money forever — we ought to know who they are.

Some LLC-in-a-Box document filed with the Alabama Secretary of State’s office showing that the Birmingham Race Course (if that’s even its real name) is owned by the “ACME Corporation of Delaware” with some faceless attorney as its agent doesn’t cut it.

And neither does naming the company owned by a company that’s owned by yet another company. That’s how people hide true ownership.

We need names.

Of actual people.

And all of them.

Someone needs to offer an amendment to Albritton’s bill requiring these casino operators to produce an annual public report detailing the names of all owners of the company, to include any and all parent and subsidiary companies, and the percentage of ownership of each individual.

Until that happens, we will have no idea who the “House” really is.

Well, our lawmakers and lobbyists probably do, but the public won’t.

You won’t.

And the powerful want to keep it that way — the casino owners don’t have to personally face public scrutiny for their business practices, and the politicians don’t have to show the voters what gambling interests are funding their campaigns.

The potential for corruption is nearly a guarantee.

Whether you support or oppose gambling, the fact is that if this bill becomes law, a bunch of rich and powerful people are about to get much more rich and powerful.

We should know who they are.

(J. Pepper Bryars is Alabama’s only reader supported conservative journalist. You can support his writing by subscribing here.)