Alabama legislators discussing gambling
Once again, Alabama legislators are talking about gambling.
And once again, the House and Senate appear to be talking past each other.
Legislators are discussing the possibility of addressing the topic, which has defied resolution attempts for decades. No legislation had been filed as of Wednesday afternoon, but a senator said he will file a bill that would take a comprehensive approach to the issue. House members, meanwhile, said they want to enforce existing laws.
“We’ve got to analyze what we need to do to try to prevent this unwarranted expansion of gaming,” said Rep. Joe Lovvorn, R-Auburn, the chair of the House Rules Committee.
Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, who has sponsored bills to establish a lottery and address gambling in the state, said he plans to make another attempt on the issue.
“Have you talked to the House members about this?” he said in an interview Tuesday. “They’re the folks that should be running the show, I thought.”
A CONSTITUTIONAL BAN
Alabama’s 1901 Constitution officially bans lotteries and games of chance, though local amendments have allowed some form of gaming around the state, typically at dog tracks. The Poarch Band of Creek Indians, a federally recognized tribe, also runs gaming facilities in Atmore, Montgomery and Wetumpka. None of the facilities have slot machines or table games, which are illegal under state law. Most have used some form of electronic bingo.
But Alabama Supreme Court interpretations of local amendments allowing gambling at dog tracks have led to legal battles.
Messages seeking comment were left Wednesday with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, Victoryland in Macon County and Greene County Entertainment in Greene County.
The state is one of five in the nation, and the last one east of the Mississippi River that does not have a lottery. Efforts to establish one have usually died in the face of opposition from members of the
House Republican caucus or due to fears from dog track owners that a state lottery might allow the Poarch Band access to gambling machines that would be denied to the dog tracks.
“The whole gambling issue in Alabama is so convoluted,” said Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Geneva, whose attempt to establish a state lottery in 2019 failed a procedural motion by a single vote.
Clouse, first elected to the House in 1994, was one of a handful of Republicans who supported Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman’s proposal for a state lottery in 1999. That measure, a constitutional amendment, failed to win approval from voters. No other statewide lottery proposal has advanced to a public vote since.
Other attempts to address gambling have run into difficulties. Last year, Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, filed a local constitutional amendment that would have authorize some forms of gambling in Greene County. The bill passed in the Senate but did not make it to the first committee in the House.
Messages were left with Singleton on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Bills making it through the Senate and dying in the House follows the historical trend of attempting to pass gambling legislation in the state.
In 2021, a comprehensive gambling package brokered by then-Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, that would have created a lottery and established some gambling moved out of the Senate despite debate over which existing gambling establishments would be grandfathered in. But House Republicans refused to move the bill, and an alternate proposal to create a lottery failed amid confusion in a late-night session.