Alabama lawmakers took official action on proposed lottery and gambling legislation for the first time in four weeks Thursday.

The House of Representatives voted to non-concur with the version of the two-bill plan passed by the Senate on March 7.

That sends the bills to a conference committee, where three representatives and three senators will try to reach a compromise that could win approval by both chambers.

If that happens, voters would have the final say on whether to approve the constitutional amendment required to approve a lottery or other gambling.

The House passed the gambling package first, on Feb. 15. It included a lottery, casinos, and legal sports betting.

The Senate scaled the plan back to include a lottery but no sports betting, and no casinos other than those that would be operated by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Instead of full-scale casinos, the Senate plan would allow pari-mutuel gambling on horse racing and dog racing, simulcast races, and computerized historical horse racing machines at the state’s four former greyhound tracks and three other locations.

Both plans called for a gambling commission to regulate gambling statewide and for a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Both plans would repeal 17 local constitutional amendments allowing bingo in certain counties and put all gambling under regulation of the new commission.

The House had a team of legislators who worked more than a year on the plan.

“From the very beginning, we had three key goals with the House’s comprehensive legislation,” House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said in a news release Thursday. “Those included eliminating illegal gaming operations in the state of Alabama, developing a framework for the taxation and regulation of facilities that obtain licenses through an open-bid process and establishing a lottery that benefits education and education only. If one thing has been made clear throughout this process, it’s that the people of Alabama want and deserve an opportunity to vote on this issue. I am hopeful that members of the House and Senate are successful in finding a compromise that positions them to do just that.”

The House version of the plan called for the proposal to go on the ballot for voters in November. The Senate version changed that to a special election in September.

There are 11 days remaining in the legislative session after Thursday, enough time to pass the bills if an agreement can be reached.