Alabama may not be done with gambling this year, and that should concern every voter paying attention. With lawmakers signaling a possible special session before the November election, the push to expand gambling is not slowing down — it’s accelerating.
Which means now is the time to ask a simple question: If gambling is supposed to fix education, why hasn’t it worked anywhere else?
We’re being told that gambling will fix Alabama’s schools. It’s a simple argument that sounds practical. And on the surface, it feels like a win-win: more revenue for education without raising taxes.
But the moment you look past the talking points, the argument falls apart. If gambling revenue actually improved education, we would already see it working in states that have relied on it for decades. But we don’t.
The biggest misconception in this debate is that gambling creates new money for schools. It does not.
In state after state, lottery and gambling revenue simply replace existing education funding. Lawmakers shift general fund dollars elsewhere, then point to lottery proceeds as if they’re adding something new. Gambling doesn’t fund education; it reshuffles it.
Supporters of gambling often point to states like Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida as proof that lottery-funded education works. But according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal government’s most authoritative measure of student achievement across states, the long-term outcomes do not support the promises being made.
Georgia saw gains for a time, but those gains didn’t last. In recent years, scores have declined.
Tennessee offers an even clearer example. Before the lottery was introduced, fourth-grade reading scores sat at 212. Two decades later, after years of lottery-funded education programs, that number stands at just 215.
And even Florida, often held up as a success story, has seen reading scores fall from their peak.
Three different states. Three different paths. No lasting transformation.
If gambling revenue were a real solution, we wouldn’t see the same pattern repeated over and over again.
There’s another truth that rarely gets discussed.
Gambling revenue doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from people – and disproportionately, it comes from those who can least afford it. Lower-income households spend a higher percentage of their income on lottery and gambling products. That means the funding stream being pitched as a solution for education is largely built on the losses of struggling families.
We’re not funding education – we’re funding it with losses. The system only works if people keep losing. And when they do, it’s not just their finances that suffer. Financial stress leads to missed payments, mounting debt, and instability at home – the very conditions that make it harder for children to succeed in school.
Alabama is not facing an education funding crisis. We have seen strong revenues flow into the Education Trust Fund in recent years. But our schools don’t have a revenue problem. They have a priority problem.
We’ve drifted from core academics, allowing distractions to take hold in the classroom. And we’ve spent more time expanding programs than ensuring students are mastering the fundamentals.
No amount of gambling revenue will fix that.
Legalizing gambling doesn’t solve the problem – it changes the incentives. It ties education funding to a system that depends on financial loss. It creates long-term reliance on behavior that, for many families, leads to instability and addiction.
We would be tying the future of our schools to the financial losses of our own citizens. And in an increasingly digital world, those losses are becoming easier to trigger – and harder to escape.
We already know what gambling does to families. Now we’re being told to rely on it to fund our schools. That’s not a solution. That’s a tradeoff – and it’s one Alabama shouldn’t make. You don’t build strong schools by betting against your own people.
Emily Jones is a native of North Alabama and founder of the first Moms for Liberty chapter in the state seeking to fight for the preservation of parental rights and the protection of our children. Emily is a candidate running for State Board of Education in District 8.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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