The winding road of who starts sports betting discussions begins again in Alabama.
Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels told 1819 News last month that any AL sports betting discussions must start in the Senate this year. Last year, the House passed a bill based on a previously successful Senate effort, only to see it fall flat.
“I suspect that it will come up [but] it will have to be led in the Senate,” Daniels told the paper. “We ended with the Senate last time, and so it will have to begin with the Senate because we want to make certain … we laid the foundation. It went back and forth, and we didn’t get to where we need to be. And so, in the end, it died in the Senate.
So, our senators will likely take on the issue. But, before, I’m certain they will count the votes and try to negotiate down to getting the votes that they need so that we will have something workable. Hopefully, they’ll start with the foundation that was laid by the House.”
The Senate ultimately punted on the bill after a conference committee. This year’s session begins Feb. 4.
Alabama sports betting background
Alabama has extremely limited gambling options and is one of five states without a lottery. The legislature has attempted for several years to expand the gambling industry.
Heading into the 2024 session, Sen. Greg Albritton told LSR the House would craft language similar to his previously successful legislation. The package included a state lottery, casinos and online sports betting, along with a constitutional amendment. Once the legislation reached the Senate, however, lawmakers stripped some of the casino language and online sports betting.
This fall, Albritton told local media that illegal gambling is prevalent and the state needs to take control of it.
Failure to agree in Alabama
It was made clear in the conference committee that sports betting would not be part of the final passage. Regardless, the package did not pass the Senate.
The Senate will likely remain more conservative on gambling than the House in 2025.
“Was the attitude of the Senate willing to do gaming legislation during this session? And the answer is yes — it’s just that we weren’t willing as a Senate, based on the feedback from our membership, we weren’t willing to embrace all of the concepts that the House of Representatives had proposed,” Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed told the Jeff Poor Show over the summer. “As time went along, we wound up in a place to where this is the House position, this is the Senate position, and we pretty much weren’t going to move off those positions to get to an overall compromise.
“We’ll have to wait to see what the attitude is going to be of the membership and those that are interested in moving some of this legislation again in the next session. That will remain to be seen.”
