The Alabama gambling expansion bill that easily and quickly cleared the House last week doesn’t have enough Senate to move in that chamber, despite proponents Rep. Chris Blackshear’s and Sen. Greg Albritton’s attempts to recruit backers.
The bill, mobile betting apps, as well as in-person, commercial casino gambling and a state lottery.
In total, the bill would allow for seven new casinos to be built, including six owned and operated by commercial companies and one owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, which already has three brick-and-mortar casinos in Alabama. Sports betting sites would have to be tethered to casinos.
Albritton told the Alabama Daily News Sunday that there is currently not enough among Republicans to get the bill out of committee in the Senate.
“There is a lot of interest in trying to find a path [to age],” Albritton told the Daily News. “The concern is, what can we put together that is palatable and able and also able in the House and acceptable by the governor? And that’s going to be for my friends to figure out because I’ve already got the solution in hand.”
Is the bill too big? 91q6w
Among the issues going forward are how sports betting tax revenue would be spent and whether the Poarch Creeks actually the bill.
Those issues aside, Blackshear said in an interview with WTVM Monday that the goal would be to stamp out the black market. He added that there are currently “several hundred” places to gamble illegally in Alabama and that “we would be eliminating 90% of those” with his bill.
HB 152 would usher in a massive expansion of gambling in the state, which only offers gambling on tribal lands. Alabama is among five states with no lottery, but it is nearly surrounded by states that offer legal sports betting.
Neighboring Florida went live with retail and digital sports betting late last year.
The only border state without legal wagering is considering multiple proposals to legalize.
The scope of the Alabama bill may be what stops it. In most cases, since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was overturned in 2018, states that have legalized sports betting have done it as a standalone issue. In a few cases, the legalization of daily fantasy sports and online casino (Michigan) were also part of the package, but in no newly legal state was lottery paired with sports betting.
Wyoming, none of which traditionally had gambling, added wagering, it was digital-only.
Alabama Senate Majority Leader Steve Livingston said there isn’t currently a consensus in the State Senate, and if the bill does move, he would expect amendments, which means the bill would have to go back to the House for approval. Other senators are pushing for continued negotiation.
“The focus is getting something the majority is comfortable with,” said Sen. Chris Elliott, one of the Republicans who opposes the bill. “Now we back it up to the point where we get the votes to .”
Alabama’s session is set to adjourn May 20, and bills from this session won’t carry over to 2025.
