Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000 | 9:33 a.m.
Investigators from the district attorney's staff entered the park's empty clubhouse before noon on Tuesday, examining and labeling 50 machines, which were then hauled away in three trucks.
The track is the third and the highest-profile Mobile County business to be raided in the past two weeks following a judge's ruling that the machines' payoffs were too high for them to be considered amusement devices.
District Attorney John M. Tyson Jr. said Tuesday that the seizures are only beginning. "We intend to get to every machine that is illegal in this county," Tyson said.
Racing Commissioner Eddie Menton said Tuesday that payoff amounts had been lowered and he believes the machines complied with state law before the raid began. Menton said he had talked to the track's manager about the machines at Tyson's request.
Messages taped to the front of many machines seized Tuesday warned customers that a single play award cannot exceed 500 points under the provisions of the Alabama Redemption Act.
The law is intended to ban gambling machines without outlawing children's games found in family pizza parlors.
On most of the machines, a point is worth a penny, so the legal maximum payoff is $5.
The track's owners have lobbied unsuccessfully to change state law to allow a referendum on legalizing video poker machines in Mobile County.
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