Alabama lottery, gambling bill not likely to advance this week
A plan for an Alabama lottery and other state-regulated gambling apparently will not advance in the Legislature this week.
Rep. Chris Blackshear, R-Phenix City, the House sponsor of the plan, said the House is in the early stages of reviewing the extensive changes the Senate made to the legislation two weeks ago. Lawmakers returned to Montgomery on Tuesday after taking last week off.
Charles Murry, communications director for House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, said Tuesday he does not expect the House to act on the bill this week.
The next move on the two-bill package is up to the House.
Blackshear’s bills, which passed the House Feb. 15, would allow voters to decide whether to authorize a lottery, legal sports betting, and up to 10 casinos. That would include casinos in Birmingham, Mobile, Macon County, Greene County, Houston County, and Lowndes County. The other four casinos will come through a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. They would be the Poarch Creek casinos on tribal lands in Atmore, Wetumpka, and Montgomery, which now offer electronic bingo, as well as a fourth location on non-tribal land in northeast Alabama.
The Senate version, approved on March 7, kept the lottery but does not include sports betting. The Senate took out most of the casinos, except that it also calls for a compact with the Poarch Creeks for full-scale casinos in Atmore, Wetumpka, and Montgomery. The Senate plan would allow gambling at seven other locations, the state’s four former greyhound tracks and three others in Greene, Lowndes, and Houston counties. Those seven facilities could offer pari-mutuel betting on dog racing and horse racing via simulcast, as well as gambling on computerized machines called historical horse racing that operate similar to slot machines.
Both the House and Senate plans would create a gambling commission with a law enforcement arm to regulate gambling statewide.
It is up to the House to decide whether to concur with the Senate plan or send the legislation to a conference committee to try to arrive at a compromise that both chambers can approve.
“I just obtained a side-by-side of the legislation that passed the Senate and what we passed in the House,” Blackshear said Tuesday. “We are in the early stages of reviewing that document and determining what direction we’re going to move.”
Bills to authorize gambling require a constitutional amendment that would be subject to approval by voters.
The Senate bill moved that vote from the general election in November to a special election in September. The estimated cost of the special election is $5 million. House Democrats said the change was an effort to reduce Democratic turnout in November in Alabama’s redrawn 2nd congressional district, where Democrats have a chance to flip a Republican seat.
Read more: Why did election date change on Alabama lottery proposal? How much will it cost?