Executive Assistant District Attorney Neal PinkstonLEGAL GAMINGTennessee’s Charitable Gaming Implementation Law states that a charity can host one gaming event each year to raise money.• Authorized types of gaming: Raffles, reverse raffles, cakewalks and cakewheels.• Unauthorized types of gaming: Bingo, pulltabs, punchboards, lottery video games, keno and “games of chance associated with casinos,” including slot machines and roulette wheels.• For more information or gaming applications, visit www.tn.gov/sos/charity/gaming.Source: Tennessee Secretary of State
About three dozen people slid into the pews of the small courtroom, folding their hands and craning their necks to look at prosecutors standing in the front, holding up a large stack of paper citations.
They were the group – mostly middle-aged and older men and women – arrested June 7 in a gambling sting conducted by the Chattanooga Police Department at a Lee Highway joint called “The Poker Depot.”
Nearly all 41 pleaded guilty Monday. Those without prior criminal records will be eligible for judicial diversion, which means the charge and the guilty plea may be expunged from their records if they meet requirements set up by the judge.
Those who didn’t plead guilty set up new hearings to give them more time to make their decisions.