Alabama gambling bill stalled after Senate changes

Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, the chair of the Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee, listens to a budget presentation from the Alabama Community College System on March 7, 2023. The presentation came on the first day of the Alabama Legislature's 2023 regular session. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

A senator who carried a gambling package in that chamber said Thursday that the legislation is running into trouble. 

Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, a longtime proponent of legalizing gambling, told reporters Thursday that the gambling legislation remains in the House basket, meaning the chamber has not taken action on changes made by the Senate. 

“That may be indicative of the difficulties that this fine piece of legislation faces,” said Albritton.

The House and Senate are sharply divided over the legislation, particularly over how much gambling each chamber is willing to accept. 

The House version of the package — a constitutional amendment authorizing gambling and enabling legislation on regulation, enforcement and distribution — was developed by Reps. Chris Blackshear, R-Smiths Station, and Andy Whitt, R-Harvest. It would create a state lottery and authorize casino-style gambling and sports betting at seven locations around the state. 

The legislation also created a state commission to regulate gambling and directed Gov. Kay Ivey to negotiate a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, a federally-recognized tribe that operates casinos in Atmore, Montgomery and Wetumpka. 

Supporters said the bill could add up to $1.2 billion a year to state coffers. The House package would have allocated money from the lottery to education programs, including postsecondary scholarships, and casino and sports betting revenues to other programs, including mental health and a “rural health care” program that used language similar to Medicaid expansion. The Legislature would have the final say in spending the money. 

The House focused almost exclusively on the gambling legislation from the beginning of the session on Feb. 6, until the bills passed the House on Feb. 15. 

The bills lingered in the Senate for weeks, passing on March 8 after a tense floor session. The Senate significantly altered the legislation, cutting out sports betting and changing casino gambling to historic horse race betting. The bill kept the lottery and compact language but required the money to be split three ways between education, the General Fund and roads and bridges. It dropped the “rural health care” program. The Senate version is expected to generate $350 million a year.

The Senate also moved an election on the constitutional amendment from the presidential election in November, expected to generate high turnout, to a special election in September, which would be unlikely to spark the same amount of interest. 

The House can concur with the changes or send the bill to a conference committee, where a joint-chamber committee will make changes amenable to both sides.

But Albritton said Thursday that it seems doubtful.

“The House sent us up a comprehensive package that covered a great deal and the Senate sent to them a much reduced package and with very specific instructions about potential changes that appears to have had a chilling effect on advancement,” he said.

Messages were left with Blackshear and Whitt Thursday.

Historically, gambling packages have passed out of the Senate but stalled in the House. Albritton said that one of the concerns in the Senate was about casinos.

“Which surprises me because we passed this twice before, but there seems to be no taste for the traditional Class III gaming,” he said.

He said he was sports betting has also been a problem in the Senate.. 

“Seems to be, which is also surprising,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, who supports legalized gambling, said Thursday that he thinks the machines authorized by the Senate would keep gambling facilities like VictoryLand in Macon County and Greene County Entertainment in Greene County open. Greene County Entertainment uses historic horse racing machines.

“And so we’ve seen the technology in those machines has grown tremendously over the past years, so I think they are good enough to survive,” he said. “Not casino machines, but I think so.”

Albritton said he has had informal discussions with House members, but he has not specifically met with them on gambling.

The package passed the House with the support of the minority Democrats. Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, has said that he will not support a gambling bill that does not fund Medicaid expansion or lacks a cost-of-living increase for state retirees. 

Rep. Sam Jones, D-Mobile, who is handling much of the gambling negotiation for House Democrats, said Thursday that he could not speak to why it has not come out of the basket, saying House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, makes the decision.

“There are tremendous differences between what the House passed and what the Senate passed,” he said.

He said the caucus still needs to do an analysis and side-by-side comparison. Jones said he expects discussions about the Senate version, but no dates have been scheduled.

“We’re working to find a path forward that shuts down illegal facilities and positions Alabamians to vote on this issue for the first time in 25 years,” wrote Ledbetter’s office in a statement.

Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Reed, R-Jasper, told reporters Thursday that the Senate had made a number of changes based on what was important to Senators, so the House is going through the changes.

“I think they wanted to take some time to do that and I welcome that,” he said. “I think that’s important for them to take their time. We will see what the definitions are going be moving forward once we get back after the break.”

Albritton said that while they need to pass gambling legislation, it’s less clear they will.

“We still have the time and we still have the need,” said Albritton. “The flexibility may be the determining factor in whether we accomplish something this year.”

The post Alabama gambling bill stalled after Senate changes appeared first on Alabama Reflector.