Why Sports Betting Stays Illegal in Alabama: Insights

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00:00Okay, well, no sports betting in Alabama, as it looks like here again, another column

00:04you can read over at legalsportsreport.com.

00:06Pat talks about this and, you know, Pat, not a huge surprise here.

00:09I guess, though, at the one point here, we have learned maybe why the reason why they

00:14are not legalizing sports betting in Alabama.

00:16I guess constituents want to know where the tax money is going before they approve it.

00:21But that would seem to be something easy to get past, shouldn't it?

00:24You would think, but Alabama's just been this crazy market for gambling.

00:29I mean, they are one of five states without a lottery, and that's kind of in the crux

00:32of the issue.

00:33The past 20, 25 years is they've constantly tried to somehow legalize or at least bring

00:37up legislation to start an Alabama lottery.

00:41And just more recently, they've started rolling in casino gaming, sports betting, and it just

00:47has not moved the needle.

00:49And there is a lot of concerns for the local, yeah, taxes, where that money goes.

00:55And yeah, it seems like that's something that the legislators could work out and make happen,

01:01but just hasn't.

01:04Last week, it looked like we were going to get a bill from Senator Greg Albritton, who

01:09has championed sports betting in the Senate in the past.

01:13A couple of years ago, we had a Senate bill that passed with casino gaming and online

01:17sports betting and the lottery.

01:19It then fell on deaf ears in the House a couple of years later.

01:24The House passed over basically the same legislation to only fall flat on the Senate floor.

01:32And then this year, yeah, Albritton came out last week and said, you know, I'm close.

01:36I'm trying to get the votes.

01:37They need 21 votes to get through the threshold.

01:40They had about 19 from what we were hearing.

01:44And so he didn't end up dropping it.

01:45And then all of a sudden, just out of nowhere, the Senate president says, nope, this is dead

01:52this year.

01:54This weekend, Albritton basically came out and said, because we've had so much trouble

01:59passing this, that he feels that this issue is kind of dead for another 20 years.

02:04And again, they've been talking about expanding the lottery or entering the lottery for the

02:08last 20, 25 years.

02:10So Alabama is a very, very tricky state when it comes down to this gambling issue, any

02:16gambling issue.

02:18And it doesn't seem like there's any end in sight.

02:21Especially when the main sponsor is coming out and saying, this is just not happening.

02:25This isn't working out.

02:26So really interesting down there in Alabama and surrounding it, Georgia's not doing anything

02:32in sports betting anymore.

02:35There are barely any sort of murmurs out of there this session.

02:38Mississippi, of course, the online expansion just keeps falling on a deaf ears.

02:43South Carolina can't get anything started.

02:45The Southeast, besides your Florida, kind of slow there in gambling.

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