Posted by kwsrgraves (anonymous) on March 20, 2009 at 10:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)

So Goober Riley walks in, steals half of a million dollars and files no charges. NO ONE CHARGED WITH A CRIME! Just theft by the Goober. This should concern EVERY business owner in Alabama. Because he THINKS these machines MIGHT be illegal, he steals their money. Has this stark raving IDIOT lost what little brains he had left? Why not take a core sample of each different machine to test their authenticity and operation? Then go back with a writ of seizure. Man, I thought backwoods underhanded justice in Alabama ended with crooked sheriffs voted out of office and crooked politicians going to jail.

Posted by ATC1962 (anonymous) on March 21, 2009 at 8:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Lets see in writing the amount of money Whitehall has donated.WSFA from Montgomery reported about Whitehall in the midst of Montgomery County's closure of 3 schools. Would Riley be willing to place the 560K into the hands of those who have lost their investments in PACT? The State legally gambled through bad investments, millions of tax payer dollars. Tax payers in good faith placed money in what should have been a safe investment for education. Efforts to have a lottery have been blocked for years. The same efforts for legalized gambling blocked. Neighboring states have prospered with sales of lottery tickets. While the government has allowed our banking industry to go unmanaged to the point we are in a financial crisis. At the tax payers expense we have bailed institutions out and the same bailed out institutions have gambled our tax dollars inappropriately.Tax payers willingly walk into Whitehalland place money in a machine. No one forced to gamble. However, if a person places their hard earned dollars in a legal institution or program in good faith, and the money is misappropriated in the form of million dollar retention bonuses,or poorly invested, the tax payer is on the short end. I say audit the business, if Whitehall is pumping money back into the economy and can prove such ... leave them alone. Would the State walk into their own and remove the money left in the PACT program and safe guard the remaining funds and demand the closure of a business which badly invested funds? These seizures only take place when people like Ronnie Gilley step up to help form the group Sweet Home Alabama to introduce legalized gambling. We never hear about seizures when gambling is not being discussed. How long has Whitehall remained untouched? Shut down,100 employees will be drawing unemployment,Medicaid and food stamps. It is being introduced now to remove money from Medicaid funding when unemployment is at its highest to help assist placing the money back into the PACT. Honest people are without jobs and cannot find jobs. Layoffs taking place daily in all businesses and we are concerned about Whitehall? Where was the concern when our taxed dollars invested properly were being pocketed illegally and placed the common person in financial ruins.Whitehall has not ruined our economy. Audit the business, if Whitehall can prove the monies placed into machines has gone to benefit the economy leave them alone. Instead place effort into restructuring institutions which have legally gambled and lost investments. I bet the owners of Whitehall did not contirbute to the downfall of PACT nor did they obtain a large bonus from bailout money.

Posted by getbizi (anonymous) on March 21, 2009 at 10:10 a.m. (Suggest removal)

"Neighboring states have prospered with sales of lottery tickets."
What states are you referring to ATC?

Posted by ATC1962 (anonymous) on March 21, 2009 at 10:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)

FL, GA and TN ... FL has certainly made profits. It appears however there is a decline in legalized casino gambling in MS relating to the fact some of their casinos are now only open on the weekends. FL and GA both have respectfully placed dollars toward education in their states. Is it not a shame the citizens of AL cross state lines daily to buy lottery tickets?

Posted by Edward6 (anonymous) on March 21, 2009 at 11:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)

The only real winners from gambling are the casinos.

Posted by getbizi (anonymous) on March 21, 2009 at 12:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I lived in Florida for 24 years before moving to Alabama in 1994. The Florida state lottery came in around 1988 if I remember correctly. All the commercials proported that the lottery would solve all the funding problems in education. I know several teachers who were among the thousands laid off last year in Florida. As for gambling itself, I'm actually divided on the issue. I've stood behind many people buying lotto tickets who reeked of body odor, beer, and wearing rags for clothes.

"to sacrifice the essentials of life in the hope of acquiring the luxuries.".......Alexander Pushkin

Posted by kwsrgraves (anonymous) on March 21, 2009 at 2:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Edward, I will respectfully disagree with you. An AVERAGE casino/resort employs between 1200 to 3000 servivce oriented jobs. Along with construction and maintenance personnel. Those people benefit also. I worked a whole year on the ENCORE casino. Never spent ONE dollar in the place. But I sure benefitted from it. And my daughter will have a nicer wedding because that particular casino was built. There are many aspects to a casino business other than knuckleheads losing money. The accounting, marketing, cooks, waiters/waitresses, entertainers, window washers, landscapers, laundry, maintenance, floor sweepers, security, etc....Then there are all of the companies that manufacture the materials to build and continually maintain casinos. The list goes on. And NO, it's not the answer to all of the irresponsible fiscal problems Alabama has. But ONE casino/resort would employ more people than 100 fastfood grease pits.

Posted by ATC1962 (anonymous) on March 21, 2009 at 3:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Point taken getbizi. Those who generally sacrifice essentials of life are also the ones who take to the beach for vacation and cannot afford to do so. People who use and abuse the system,will do so whether gambling is legalized or not. The other side of the coin is for those of us who can relate to losses in 401K plans at the rate of more than half during the past year. Those parents who could and did afford to contribute to the PACT plan for their children to go to college and now are being told the funding is gone. The problem appears to be more in the form of a corruption in our government. To raid an establishment on the heels of voting to legalize gambling in this state is unfair. With thousands being sacrificed with loss of employment, those who have worked and paid taxes for years being forced into the system is also unfair. With unemployment on the rise, our state officials have come to the conclusion, we should cut back on funding for Medicaid along with other areas which are soon to be hit the hardest by people who have never been in rags. Jobs today are becoming few and far between. Hourly and Salaried employees are being forced into the system. Those who cannot afford to live off of unemployment and pay COBRA rates to remain insured. These are among my concerns. While raiding an establishment and publishing the negative and the great possibility of displacing yet another 100 people in a rural community. It just seems to me,in the past it has been announced the high dollars Whitehall has placed back into society. Whitehall has to answer for the 560K removed from their business in which people walked freely through the doors and placed money in the machines. Whitehall is not operating without a business license. Once upon a time someone determined Whitehall was legal and granted the establisment a license in which to operate. Unlike the state who cannot give a straight forward bottom line answer to the reasons why our PACT program is in financial ruins today. We are dealing with government that has closed their eyes to situations which have placed us even closer to the bottom. Thank you for reminding me of the quote in your comments above. Apparently while the average tax payer is getting poorer each day, those who can make a difference have also lived by the same quote. They sacrificed our essentials of life by taking dollars to acquire their own luxuries.