A very nice man at the Montgomery Costco, who knows that I willingly enter the Alabama Statehouse, often asks me when we’ll get a state lottery.
It’s a question we ink-stained, bill-beaten wretches get a lot. After all, Alabama is the last state east of the Mississippi without a lottery. And our laws on gambling would confuse a Dadaist.
Legislators know this, too. There’s always talk of resolving the issue.
As Jemma Stephenson reported recently, a senator is planning to bring a comprehensive gaming package for the coming session. House members are looking at some sort of bill to strengthen enforcement of existing laws, with slot machines (which are unquestionably illegal in Alabama) a likely target but probably not the only one.
Does this mean we’re finally going to get a lottery and put decades of confusion and conflict over gambling to rest?
I’m doubtful.
Laying my cards out here: I have very mixed feelings about gambling.
By and large, it’s bad public policy. Lotteries target poor people. A 2022 report by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism found lottery retailers tend to cluster in low-income neighborhoods. Very little of the money spent on lottery tickets returns to those communities.
Supporters of an Alabama lottery have argued it could be a boon to Alabama public education. A governor’s commission in 2020 estimated that a lottery and legalized gambling could bring upwards of $700 million a year into state coffers.
Let’s say that all of that went to public schools. $700 million sounds like a windfall, until you open up the education budget.
That’s $8.8 billion in the current year. The highest estimates on returns wouldn’t amount to a tenth of what we already spend. Even if you put all of it toward state K-12 spending (roughly $5 to $5.6 billion), that money would be at most a 12 to 13% bump. If you only do a lottery — bringing in a maximum of $300 million — that percentage slides still further.
And that’s one year. After the initial rush of cash, lottery revenues show slow annual growth, maybe not enough to keep up with natural cost increases.
But if you want to argue that many Alabamians want government to provide this service, whatever the costs or benefits, and that they should have the chance to vote on it — I don’t disagree.
After all, we’ve had local ballots on the issue. In the early 2000s, residents of Macon and Greene counties approved constitutional amendments to bring gambling to their areas, mostly in the form of electronic bingo, and mostly in the hopes that the authorized casinos would create jobs.
But those mostly Black voters ran into the all-white Alabama Supreme Court, which in 2009 ruled that bingo could only be played on paper. In 2016, the court declared electronic bingo illegal — even in Greene County, where the amendment not only preceded the court decision but expressly permitted electronic marking devices.
After the courts affirmed those rulings in 2022, VictoryLand in Macon County laid off hundreds of employees, and GreeneTrack in Greene County shut down. (The site is now home to Greene County Entertainment, offering historic horse betting.)
I’d be happy to see the legislature intervene to uphold the outcome of those democratic elections, just as I’d expect them to respect the result of a lottery and gambling vote, if they put one on a state ballot.
But there are many obstacles to that happening.
Doubling down
We have two camps of gambling in Alabama: dog tracks like VictoryLand and Greene County Entertainment and facilities operated by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, a federally recognized tribe that runs casinos in Atmore, Montgomery, and Wetumpka.
Dog track owners operate under state law and are subject to the whims of legislators and elected judges. The Poarch Band operates under federal law and has rights to certain kinds of gaming that state courts can’t touch.
They’re competitors and suspicion has often made it hard to come up with a statewide approach on the issue. A 2015 lottery proposal collapsed amid concerns from dog track owners that it would allow the Poarch Band to have gambling machines that the state would deny to dog tracks. Experts have been skeptical of that argument, but it was enough to doom the bill.
Then there’s the Republican divide.
Democrats are almost all in support of a lottery and, at a minimum, a gambling settlement. Senate Republicans generally support a comprehensive gambling package, though they often clash over the details. But the House GOP’s Borg-like consensus on most matters falls apart when gambling comes within range. For every supporter of gambling there, there’s someone with objections, whether on moral grounds; over distribution of proceeds, or some other issue.
Casino-style gambling is especially unpopular in the House caucus. In 2021, the last time any gambling legislation came reasonably close to passage, House Republicans first stripped out provisions on casino gambling, then tried to push through a lottery-only bill in one of the more chaotic nights I’ve ever seen in the legislature. The legislation failed.
It’s hard to see how this year will be any different. A lottery bill introduced late in the 2022 session went nowhere, and the legislature didn’t consider any statewide gambling proposals in 2023. The House and Senate don’t appear to be working together on a proposal, and there’s been no sign that any of the parties have been able to address their old disputes.
Now, it’s unwise to predict certainties in Alabama politics. GOP lawmakers could come to agreements over enforcement, depending on the scope of the proposal.
But unless something radical happens in the next few weeks, gambling in Alabama will remain where it’s been for decades: tied up in political and business infighting, and beyond the reach of state voters.
This article was published by Alabama Reflector.
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