After an unsuccessful attempt last year, Alabama legislators appear ready to submit another gambling package this session. However, what should be included in the legislation to give it the best chance of passing is currently being debated.
Formulating a Game Plan
Sponsoring a gaming bill in Alabama is fraught with peril considering Alabama is just one of five states without a lottery. It is also in the middle of the Bible Belt, and although those opposing gambling based on moral grounds have waned precipitously over the last several years, there are still constituents who hold steadfast to that belief.
Therefore, deciding what can be included and what cannot is a tricky proposition for proponents of bringing additional revenue into the state via taxes on gambling operations. Representative Russell Blackshear led the charge last year, and his gambling bill, which included sports betting, passed the House but not the Senate.
Blackshear has a powerful ally in the Senate, Republican Senator Greg Albritton, chair of the Senate’s General Fund budget committee, who ultimately voted against Blackshear’s Senate version of the bill, which had been stripped to the bare bones. However, he is willing to give gaming legislation another chance but wants to make sure his Senate colleagues are on board.
“The problem hasn’t gone away,” Albritton said. “In fact, it is getting worse, particularly the sports gaming. It continues to grow in Alabama, and it is growing completely unregulated. We are just sitting around and watching it grow. Whether I can get the votes to get it out of the Senate to do something different, I don’t know that yet.”
Senate Must Lead
Representative Blackshear has decided to let the Senate lead this time around, and hopefully, the upper chamber can create a bill that will be satisfactory enough to most of the state’s legislators that it will pass both chambers.
“Any gaming legislation in the 2025 session must originate in the Senate,” Blackshear said. “If the Senate does choose to take up a gaming package and they pass something and send it to the House, then and only then will we in the House engage and determine how we move forward.”
“The House proved, on two separate occasions, to be able to pass a comprehensive gaming plan out of our body to allow the citizens to vote,” Blacksher added. “We also saw, on one occasion, we were not able to see that same thing in the Senate, so there is no need for us to tie up time, our members’ time, and other important bills to address something we have already done until the Senate is able to do the same.”
However, whether that yet-to-be-proposed gaming bill includes sports betting is still unknown, but Senate President Pro-Tem Garlan Gudger is determined to find out just how big his colleague’s appetite is for a gaming bill in 2025.
“I’m going to be polling my colleagues in the Senate to make sure that they want to tackle this situation and this issue,” Gudger told a local radio station. “And if they do, then we’re going to make sure that we have the votes before we take it to the floor. I don’t want any of my colleagues to take a bad vote when it gets there just because there’s not enough votes.
“But if they do want to tackle this and get it behind them for once and for all, then I’m going to allow them to do that. If they don’t, then as the leader, I would not allow them to do that. So, I think it’s very crucial that if we’re going to do it, we’ve got to do it early, though.”
