Victoryland, Birmingham Race Course ‘treading water’ until Alabama changes gambling laws, CEO says

Victoryland has been betting on the future of gambling in Alabama since it opened 40 years ago. And it’s still searching for that winning combination.

When Victoryland opened in 1984 in rural Macon County, the $10 million facility offered live greyhound races at its track about 300 days a year.

Forty years later, the dogs are gone. After a brief period in which it transformed into one of the largest casinos in the United States with electronic bingo before being shut down by state courts, it now stays afloat mainly with the help of horses.

Instead of electronic bingo that was banned by the court, Victoryland has more than 1,000 historical horse racing machines.

From the player’s perspective, the historical horse racing machines look and play much like the machines they replaced, essentially like slot machines.

But the machines function differently, with results based on the outcomes of past races. They fall under the law that allows pari-mutuel betting at what was once a booming track for live greyhound racing.

Victoryland also offers betting on live simulcast races from other dog and horse tracks around the nation.

Victoryland first got the machines in February 2023. The Birmingham Race Course Casino rolled out its historical horse racing machines in October 2019 and has about 1,000 also.

Dr. Lewis Benefield, a Montgomery veterinarian who is president and CEO at Victoryland and Birmingham Race Course, said he wants to bring back live greyhound racing and fully reopen Victoryland. That would include the 300-room Oasis Hotel, which first opened in 2009, when Victoryland was the nation’s sixth largest casino, with more than 6,000 electronic bingo machines.

Benefield said a return to a roaring business at Victoryland is unlikely unless Alabama lawmakers pass a plan for voters to approve full-scale casinos at the state’s former greyhound tracks and establish a statewide commission to crack down on illicit gambling establishments, two components in a bill that barely failed in the Legislature in May.

“I’m going to be able to pay my power bills,” Benefield said. “I’m going to be able to keep my employees employed. But it’s a struggle. I’m not going to be able to do any economic development.

“I’m basically treading water; however you want to term it. It’s better than not having anything. But it’s not going to allow me to develop out what Birmingham is supposed to have and it’s not going to allow me to grow bigger at Victoryland.”

Benefield is the son-in-law of Victoryland founder Milton McGregor. The McGregor family is majority owner at both casinos. McGregor died in 2018.

Besides Victoryland and the Birmingham Race Course, the state’s other former greyhound tracks are the former Greenetrack in Greene County and the Mobile Greyhound Park.

Greenetrack lost in the Alabama Supreme Court two years ago in a case involving $76 million in unpaid taxes over what the court said were its illegal electronic bingo games. The facility in Eutaw is now called Greene County Entertainment and features historical horse racing machines and simulcast betting.

The Mobile Greyhound Park is owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and offers wagering on simulcast horse races and dog races.

Efforts to contact officials with Greene County Entertainment and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians for this story were unsuccessful.

Historical horse racing machines

Customers at Victoryland do not need knowledge of horses or betting on races to play the historical horse racing machines.

They put in their money, pick the amount of the bet, and hit play. After a few seconds of spinning reels, sounds, and anticipation, the machine shows whether the player won and how much.

The outcome of each spin is based on the results of past races the machines have stored in an electronic library of thousands. On each play, the final few seconds of the races appears in a small portion of the machine’s screen. The player does not need to pay attention to that, though, and the machines do not require the players to bet on a specific horse or race. That happens randomly when the player hits the play button.

But the machines offer players the option of going slower and handicapping the races. Players can pull up information on the performance of the horses in previous races, like they would read in a racing form at a live race. The horses are identified by numbers, not names. And, for obvious reasons, the machines do not the show the time and place of the race until after the player bets and hits play.

“I don’t want you to go on the internet and look up a Churchill Downs race that happened five years ago and you find out who won,” Benefield said. “But I’m going to give you all the information, just like you would in a racing program, and you can sit there and handicap that race or races. And if you are successful in your wagering, you can win just like you would win by having a ticket watching a live horse race.”

Benefield said he knows that most players opt for the faster method of play that does not involve handicapping or picking horses.

“The majority of the folks going in there are not choosing to sit down and spend three or four minutes handicapping each race,” Benefield said. “They’re there for the entertainment value of hitting that quick pick and playing it and getting the entertainment value of the spinning wheels.”

That is not drastically different from the betting patterns when the tracks had live races, Benefield said.

“The thing that half of the people did, is they never looked at a program, they never looked at a dog, they never handicapped,” Benefield said. “They bet their mama’s birthday, or they bet the numbers of their house address. Or they hit a function called quick pick, where the machine picked tickets for the amount of money that they had put in there.”

Benefield said he is confident the historical horse racing machines are legal. That is based on opinions from Alabama attorneys general and the approval of the racing commissions in Jefferson and Macon counties. The casinos pay pari-mutuel taxes on the amount bet on the machines, as they did on live racing and as they do on simulcast wagering.

“I know law enforcement is well versed on what I’m doing, and I’ve never been questioned that what I was doing was not following the law,” Benefield said.

Attorney General Steve Marshall has issued two letters on the machines but no formal opinions. The letters, issued in 2017 and 2019, confirmed two previous AG opinions in 2001 and 2009, noting that the law had not changed since those opinions.

“If the new machines offered at the Birmingham Race Course are in compliance with these opinions, then they are presumably legal,” Marshall’s office said in statement in 2019. “If they are not, then the opinions will offer no defense to a violation of the law.”

William Califf, a spokesman for Marshall, said Marshall’s position has not changed since the 2019 statement.

Historical horse racing machines are found in other states, including Kentucky, the heart of horse racing country, where the machines have operated since 2012. Last year, Churchill Downs opened a downtown Louisville casino, Derby City gaming, which features historical horse racing machines.

In 2021, Kentucky lawmakers passed a bill expanding the definition of pari-mutuel betting to include historical horse racing. That came in response to a ruling by the Kentucky Supreme Court that the games did not constitute pari-mutuel wagering under the state’s laws.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, who has supported efforts to pass a comprehensive gambling package in the Legislature, said he believes the Alabama Legislature needs to pass a bill to define historical horse racing.

Leave when you’re ahead

Benefield said the machines are a hit with customers.

“HHR to the public is wonderful,” Benefield said. “They love the machines. The machines are very, very nice, a lot nicer machines than the bingo product that we were running at Victoryland.”

Most of the machines at Victoryland were idle on a Thursday afternoon in early August, but there were customers trying their luck, including some for the first time.

Myong Murray of Dublin, Ga., said she normally goes to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians’ casino in Wetumpka but decided to try Victoryland.

“The feeling we got when we came in here, it’s the same feeling we get when we go into Wetumpka,” Murray said. “It’s a good feeling. And I feel like I’m safe. I like it.”

Murray said the machines are about the same as those in Wetumpka.

Mike Holmes of Opelika said he was making about his fifth visit to Victoryland.

“I wish I could win more but it’s a pretty good casino,” he said and laughed.

He said he also goes to the Poarch Creeks’ casino in Wetumpka but noted that Victoryland is closer to home.

Tyeisha Lott of Opelika hoped to cash in like she has before at Victoryland.

Lott said she won about $2,500 on a machine a few weeks ago and used her winnings to buy a car. She tried the same machine on her first return since the big payout but came up empty.

Lott’s first visit to Victoryland was about two decades ago, she said, when the greyhounds were still running.

“I came with $2,” she said. “I won $800 betting the dogs. I didn’t know how to bet, didn’t know nothing. They said just pick a number and told me to go bet the way they told me to bet, and I won $800 the first time I came.”

Lott said that big win caused her to gamble too much but said she learned to get that under control.

“Once you win big or get enough money to do something with, it’s addicting,” Lott said. “I was having a problem with gambling. Once I slowed down and learned how to leave when you win something, that’s when you know you’re doing better.”

With that in mind, Lott said she made a fast exit after her $2,500 win a few weeks ago.

“You should have seen my speed walk out of here,” Lott said. “It was like I was Speedy Gonzales. And went and got me a nice car, too, thank God.”

Two years ago, the Birmingham Racing Commission, the regulatory organization that oversees the Birmingham Race Course, distributed more than $4 million to Jefferson County and Shelby County charities, schools, hospitals, fire departments and municipalities as required by law based on percentages of revenue. Benefield said at the time it was the largest yearly distribution the casino had ever done and attributed that to the popularity of the historical horse racing machines.

One vote short

Gambling legislation that could have brought a surge of customers at Victoryland and Alabama’s other greyhound tracks fell just short of passing this year.

In February, the Alabama House of Representatives approved an ambitious plan that would have allowed, with voter approval, full-scale casinos in the counties with the four former greyhound tracks, as well as three other new casinos, legal sports betting, and an Alabama lottery, all regulated by a statewide gambling commission. The Senate scaled back the proposal, and a compromise version fell one vote short of passing and going to the ballot for voter approval.

The failure of the plan, which was backed by the Republican leadership in the House and by Gov. Kay Ivey, prolonged more than two decades of futility for Alabama lawmakers in trying to establish a lottery and replace a patchwork of local laws that allow bingo.

Benefield said he did not support every version of the plan as it moved through the State House but did support the one that passed the House and the final version that lost by a single vote.

“I make no bones about it,” Benefield said. “I am an Alabamian. I want what’s best for Alabama. But I also have a big investment in Birmingham and Victoryland. So, any legislation that I support has to take care of my investment at Birmingham Race Course and Victoryland. Just like anybody else that was a business owner.”

The Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling on electronic bingo two years ago was not a surprise. The court had ruled back in 2009 that electronic bingo did not fit the legal definition of bingo, which the justices said requires players to hear numbers announced at random and mark a card.

Benefield says he still believes the constitutional amendment that Macon County voters approved in 2003 covered electronic bingo. But he said he conceded that battle after the 2022 ruling.

“When we got that final ruling, I stopped bingo completely, electronic bingo, even though our constitutional amendment in 2003 authorized us to do all forms of bingo,” Benefield said. “But we do not have electronic bingo.”

The Birmingham Race Course has never offered electronic bingo because Benefield said he has never believed it is legal in Jefferson County.

He said he does not begrudge the Poarch Band of Creek Indians offering electronic bingo at their casino resorts in Atmore, Montgomery, and Wetumpka. Alabama tried to shut those down a decade ago, but federal courts said the state had no jurisdiction on the tribal lands.

Benefield says he is frustrated by what he called widespread, illegal electronic gambling machines “in back of gas stations and in rented-out buildings.” The Republican lawmakers who sponsored the gambling package this year said illegal slot machines are commonplace around the state.

“If I’m not allowed to do them, I don’t know why everybody else outside of the Native Americans are allowed to do it,” Benefield said.

“I fully agree with what the Native Americans are doing, the Poarch Creeks. I realize they are able to offer that the way the law is. But I don’t feel like other commercial businesses ought to be able to do electronic bingo.”

Benefield said he hopes the Legislature will try again next year to pass a gambling package similar to the one that passed the House this year. He said he supports having a statewide gaming commission, a state lottery, and full-scale casinos at certain locations, including the dog tracks. He said he supports increasing the penalty for illegal gambling from a misdemeanor to a felony.

“The gambling issue in Alabama can be solved,” Benefield said. “And as an Alabamian and as a parent of kids that are growing up in Alabama, I hope Alabama can capitalize on the gambling that is already here and I hope it can be controlled and I hope it can be regulated and taxed fairly.”