Alabama State Senate Pro-Tem Garlan Gudger announced on a Huntsville radio show why he has decided to extinguish all gaming discussions this year after much traction had been made.
House Says Yes…Again
Last year, the Alabama House passed Representative Russell Blackshear’s sports betting measure, but it could not gain quite enough votes to pass in the Senate. It was a stinging defeat for pro-sports betting advocates and left the sponsor wringing his hands, wondering what, if anything, could be done to sway what appeared to be an intractable Senate.
“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.”
Blackshear was clearly frustrated by his colleagues in the upper chamber, but five of his House colleagues decided to try once again and this year drafted HB 490, which included appeasements to those senators who voted against Blackshear’s bill.
The bill also includes a 10% tax on sportsbook revenues and establishes the Alabama Gaming Commission, which would govern the industry. The taxes collected would send:
- 40% to the state general fund.
- 40% to an Education Trust Fund.
- 20% to an NIL Trust Fund.
Senator Greg Albritton released copies of a sports betting bill he has in mind, which is a much more comprehensive package that would expand the state’s footprint to not only include sports betting but also electronic gambling at the state’s former greyhound tracks to be taxed at 24% on revenues, as well as a state lottery and a compact that would allow the Poarch Band of Creek Indians to have four casinos.
Not So Fast
Senate Pro-Tem Garlan Gudger had issued a warning early in the session that if he felt the requisite 21 votes in the Senate were unattainable, even by a narrow margin, he would not allow the bills to be discussed.
“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 that time is now, and Gudger announced on Friday of last week that the needle has not moved far enough in the Senate for the topic to be discussed.
“We ended up pulling our consensus together of all of our colleagues in the Senate doing an independent vote count and just looking at the numbers there. We just don’t have the votes. There were just two less votes to even get into that topic. And so we decided we needed to shut it down, or we’re going into it.”
Gudger stated there are lots of topics to be discussed, but little time to do it, and he wanted to be fair to sponsors of bills concerning other issues that have a chance of being passed.
