The Alabama Senate passed a two-bill proposal for a lottery and state-regulated gambling on Thursday after about eight hours of debate.
The vote was 22-11 on the first bill, a proposed constitutional amendment, which required 21 votes.
The Senate Tourism Committee on Tuesday approved a substitute plan that did not include sports betting or casinos. It would include a lottery. That’s the plan that passed Thursday.
Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said he liked the plan that came out of the House but that changes were necessary to get the votes to pass the bills.
“That’s true with any legislation, is trying to find what we can pass,” Albritton said. “The effort was trying to get control of this (gambling) industry. With this bill, we didn’t get complete control. We got some control. And that’s a beginning, assuming we can get this passed by the people and through the House.”
The bill is called the Alabama Gambling Control Act. It would set up a new nine-member Alabama Gambling Commission that would oversee the lottery and the pari-mutuel betting establishments. The plan would repeal 17 local constitutional amendments that allow bingo and put all gambling in Alabama, including charity bingo and raffles, under the regulation of the Gambling Commission.
The plan would allow pari-mutuel gambling on horse racing and dog racing, simulcast races, and computerized historical horse racing machines at seven locations. The historical horse racing machines operate similarly to slot machines.
The pari-mutuel betting and machines would be at the state’s four former greyhound tracks in Birmingham, Mobile, Greene County, and Macon County, at what are now bingo halls in Houston County and Lowndes County, and one additional site in Greene County.
Those facilities could not offer casino games or electronic bingo.
The plan calls for the governor to negotiate a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians that would allow the tribe to offer the full range of casino games at its casinos on tribal lands in Atmore, Wetumpka, and Montgomery, facilities that now offer electronic bingo.
The fiscal note estimates the lottery would raise $305 million to $379 million in net revenue, and the seven pari-mutuel facilities would raise $99 million to $132 million.
Most of the net revenue would equally three ways for education, general government needs, and roads and bridges.
If the plan is approved by the Legislature, it would go to the voters in a special election on Sept. 10.
The plan goes back to the House, which could concur with the Senate’s changes but is more likely to send the legislation to a conference committee to work out differences.
Asked about the legislation’s chances of winning approval and going on the ballot, Albritton urged people to contact their lawmakers and let them know what they want.
“We have gotten so far but we’ve still got a long ways to go because the variances are so great,” Albritton said. “I would suggest that people let us know if they want us to get something worked out. We’ve got a lot of hard hammering to do in the next few days, because they’re very different.”
Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said he expects the plan to go to a conference committee to iron out the differences between the House and Senate versions.
“We’ll sit there like men and women and work it out,” Singleton said. “I don’t know what that’s going to look like. But we will have a comprehensive game plan hopefully.”
Singleton said he was concerned that the pari-mutuel betting and the historical horse racing machines might not be a strong enough draw for customers for the seven facilities.
But he said he was optimistic about chances for successful legislation.
“I feel good about where we are, that we’ll work with the House and come up with something that everybody will like,” Singleton said.
About 5:30 p.m., the Senate adopted an amendment by Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, changing the rate of taxation on pari-mutuel gambling from a range of 24% to 32% to a range of 20% to 28%. The amendment was approved by a vote 27-6.
Earlier on Thursday, Smitherman had expressed concerns about the long-term business viability of the pari-mutuel facilities, especially if they have to compete with Poarch Creek facilities that have a full assortment of Las Vegas-style games.
The Senate amended the companion bill, HB152, to partially address Albritton’s position that some of the net revenues should go to help build a new prison in Escambia County, which the Legislature has approved but not funded. The amendment by Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Centre, would allocate revenue from the potential compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians to be used for capital projects, which could include the prison.
The plan approved Thursday is scaled back from what the House approved three weeks ago.
The House plan included a lottery, seven new casinos, and sports betting. It was sponsored by Rep. Chris Blackshear, R-Phenix City, and Andy Whitt, R-Madison, and hailed as an achievement by House Republicans who said they worked on it more than a year in an effort to resolve the state’s long legal stalemate on gambling and a lottery.
Net state revenues were estimated at about $600 million to about $900 million. The casinos would have been in Birmingham, Mobile County, Greene County, Macon County, Lowndes County, and Houston County. The seventh would have been in northeast Alabama and operated by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. That would be contingent on the governor negotiating a compact with the Poarch Band.
https://www.al.com/news/2024/03/debate-slows-to-crawl-on-alabamas-lottery-gambling-proposal.html#:~:text=The%20Alabama%20Senate%20passed%20a,amendment%2C%20which%20required%2021%20votes.
https://alison.legislature.state.al.us/senate