Big League Guns

Luther Strange Killed Fantasy Sports in Alabama

Published

3 years ago

Sep 19, 2017

Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed to fill Jeff Sessions’ vacated seat, is now locked in a run-off to win the seat outright.

Christian evangelical hero Roy Moore is galvanizing conservative voters ahead of next Tuesday’s runoff election, and the split is already forming a divide in Trump-World. While Sebastian Gorka and Sarah Palin campaign for Moore, Vice President Mike Pence is heading to Alabama to stump for Strange.

Strange finds himself weakened down the stretch. Fantasy football lovers might be the demographic that will doom him in the final days.

Strange led the charge to ban fantasy sports in the state, according to Yellowhammer News in May 2016:

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“Alabamians who participated in fantasy sports like DraftKings and FanDuel will no longer be able to access those sites beginning today.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange announced last week that FanDuel and DraftKings had reached a settlement to cease all operations in the state starting May 2. Both companies are now required to block access from any Alabama-based IP address and must process requests to withdraw account balances within seven business days.

“I am pleased to report that fantasy sports operators DraftKings and FanDuel have complied with my order that they halt paid contests within the State of Alabama,” Strange said.

The settlement from DraftKings and FanDuel comes one month after they received cease and desist letters from Strange. The Attorney General argued that fantasy sports betting sites are illegal according to Alabama law. Strange says that in Alabama, an activity constitutes illegal gambling if a person stakes something of value on a contest of chance, even when skill is involved, in order to win a prize.

Over 700,000 Alabamians — roughly 20% of the state’s population over the age of 18 — played fantasy sports last year, with the vast majority participating in various NFL and NASCAR fantasy leagues.

Some Alabama sports fans are sad to see DraftKings and FanDuel go.

“You know, won some, lost some, but it was all in fun,” one fan told WVTM 13. “I mean, you don’t put all your hard-earned money into it.”

Big League Guns

150 Firearms Stolen From Albuquerque Gun Store by “Sophisticated” Thieves

The thieves were “sophisticated.”

Published

2 days ago

Jun 4, 2020

Richard Moorhead

150 pistols and rifles were stolen from an Albuquerque gun store earlier this week, in what authorities are calling one of the biggest thefts of firearms in the southwestern United States in recent history.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms state that a group of thieves made off with more than 115 handguns and 35 rifles during the heist, which occurred early on Monday morning. Authorities are claiming the thieves, who worked in a group, acted with a “level of sophistication,” cutting the power to JCT Firearms and disabling the building’s security system before getting inside and stealing the guns. The thieves also disabled the gun store’s surveillance system.

Authorities have entered the serial numbers of all the stolen firearms into a national database, but are saying it ranges from possible to likely that the guns will be taken to Mexico. “That’s a tremendous amount of firepower in the hands of criminals,” said Tom Mangas, an ATF spokesman. “This is a priority for us.”

Albuquerque police are saying there’s no indication that the massive theft is linked to the nationwide race riots that have surfaced in the city, but the timing is conspicuous. More than two million Americans have become legal gun owners in the past two months, and the theft appears to indicate that criminals are seeking to arm themselves as well.

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The ATF is offering a $10,000 reward to information leading to criminal charges in the burglary, a sum that is being matched by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

In a national moment where racial tensions are boiling, the theft of the firearms by criminals poses a serious danger to the Albuquerque community, and the American public broadly.