The McGregors sell the Birmingham Racecourse to the Poarch Creek Band of Indians

November 18, 2024 – BIRMINGHAM, AL – after two decades of business the McGregor family is finally selling the old Birmingham Racecourse. A company owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians (PCI) are purchasing the facility.

The Birmingham Racecourse was originally built in the 1980s to host Thoroughbred racing. After that venture failed, the Thompson family sold it to the late Milton McGregor who owned a dog track in Macon County. McGregor reopened the failed racecourse as a dog track. After a while that venture morphed into simulcast racing of horse races and dog races occurring in other places. The facility expanded into the paper bingo business and then that morphed into electronic bingo.

The Alabama Supreme Court eventually ruled that electronic bingo is illegal in Alabama under the Constitution of 1901.

Today the McGregor family operates the facility as the 777 Birmingham Racecourse Casion with illegal electronic gambling/bingo machines in open defiance of Alabama law. .hey claim the machines are "historical horse racing machines."

https://www.birminghamracecourse.com/

Gambling in Birmingham was a major sticking point in the gambling bill that failed in the closing days of the Alabama Legislative session. The City of Birmingham and PCI announced their intent to build a new casino near the site of the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center (BJCC) and Protective Life Stadium.

The sale to Wind Creek Hospitality, owned by PCI, is expected to be finalized by early 2025 – right before the start of the 2025 Alabama Legislative session.

The move means that a gambling bill that failed last year would have cracked down on illegal gambling facilities across the state while authorizing the Governor to negotiate a compact with the Poarch Creeks licensing casino gambling at the Wetumpka, Montgomery, and Atmore facilities currently operated by PCI under the 1980s era Indian Gaming Act. It would also have allowed licensed gambling facilities at the Birmingham Race Course, Macon County, the city of Whitehall in Lowndes County, Mobile County, Houston County, and two casinos in Greene County. It would also have allowed PCI to build a new casino somewhere in North Alabama. Everyone else would be shut down and a new state police agency created to enforce the authority of the new Alabama Gaming Commission. The new North Alabama casino would have gone to PCI as an incentive for them to agree to the compact – presently none of their three electronic bingo casinos pay state taxes because they are on tribal land.

If a version of that bill were to pass today, then ostensibly PCI would own their three facilities, plus the new North Alabama casino, the Mobile Greyhound Course site, and now the Birmingham Race Course. Essentially six of the 11 legal casinos would be PCI owned or controlled.

This will be a major issue moving forward if gambling legislation is introduced in the upcoming legislative session.

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