Alabama's Struggle with Sports Betting and Lottery Laws

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00:00uh all right so sports betting in alabama this is an uphill battle just like it is in georgia

00:04but over at lsrlegalsportsreport.com you have a column out about how alabama's trying to

00:10incorporate sports betting maybe through one of the tribes which honestly i mean not a bad idea

00:15maybe the only way this thing gets going yeah i mean for the last 25 years alabama's been trying

00:21to get a lottery they're one of five states without it and they've been trying lawmakers

00:26have been trying for the a large portion of alabamians want it and just there's some sort

00:31of blockage for a lot of lawmakers who believe their constituents don't want it even though

00:36showing they do and last year the porch band of creek indians started getting involved a little

00:44bit more they bought in they you know they have a couple of uh bing electronic bingo casinos in

00:48alabama they also just bought a racetrack and have huge expansion plans should gambling casino gambling

00:55get passed which of course in recent years sports betting and casino gambling have been kind of

01:00lumped into that lottery uh efforts and in 2000 or 2021 there was a bill that passed uh the senate and

01:07and fell apart and then since then there's just been kind of a push and pull between the chambers

01:12saying you know you got to do it you got to do it and so even though they're basing it on different

01:17on the basically the same uh language they can't get it through because of course there's those

01:23lawmakers who believe their constituents don't want it and the the the tribe came back or recently

01:29said you know we haven't really been trying that hard uh during this outside of the session we come

01:36in we try to lobby talk about things during the session outside of that they don't so this year

01:41they're saying you know what maybe we're gonna up it we're gonna do some more polling we're gonna

01:45share with lawmakers that our constituents our districts want it um more so than maybe thought of

01:52in the past uh but we'll see if it changes you know one of the main sponsors uh senator greg albert

01:58written after this session uh passed with no movement of any sort uh he said you know this issue

02:04even just the lottery might be dead for another two decades um which is a long time and and you know

02:10you have to believe those residents of alabama who want it are kind of not excited about that thought

02:16so we'll see if uh you know the tribe really does amp up their push and really share their constituent

02:23hopes um then maybe lawmakers will start changing their tune and work harder to get it um you know

02:30alabama in the past has been one of those states that i'm like okay it could get done because there

02:33have been serious pushes from both the senate and the house um but yeah then ultimately it falls apart

02:38every year so we'll see uh it could be dead for two decades or could go strong to the finish line

02:46next year we'll see

02:47next year we'll see