With little time left in the 2024 legislative session, a proposed comprehensive gambling package is still on the table.
A lottery and gambling constitutional amendment that passed the House but fell one vote short in the Senate could come up for a vote again.
With the legislation still looming, Donald Trump, Jr. recently jumped into the fray and asked why the Alabama Senate was refusing to pass what he deemed a "clean bill."
I’m excited to be in Alabama next week for a fundraiser for my dad, but whenever I ask anyone from there what's going on in the state this is all they talk about. Why's their senate refusing to let the people vote on a clean bill to legalize the lottery & fund education when 45… https://t.co/g6rWOvAWJC
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 2, 2024
During an interview with Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5's "The Jeff Poor Show," former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Glenn Murdock pushed back on the notion of the lottery bill being "clean."
"[G]iven our dynamics in Alabama, I don't know if it's possible to have a clean lottery bill, but I can say this for sure: This is not it," Murdock argued. "This bill will definitely expand gaming in Alabama."
"It almost reminds me of the border issue where President Biden says, you know, we've got a border crisis, and we've got to fix the border, and to do that, we're going to legalize some immigration, and we're going to legalize some asylum, instead of just clamping down on what the problem is. And so this bill does legalize gaming that we don't have in Alabama right now," he added.
According to Murdock, the legislation "basically creates full-fledged Vegas casinos" across Alabama at sites that have "have defied Alabama law the longest" and rewards them for doing so.
“Let me tell you what this constitutional amendment specifically expressly does that we don't have now in Alabama. It takes the three Poarch Creek sites in Atmore, Wetumpka and Montgomery, which are now only slot machine operations. Electronic bingo is the name of them, but they're really just slot machines," he explained. "You put your money in and you find out in a few seconds whether you've won your game of bingo. ... It mandates the governor to give them a contract that under federal Indian gaming law that allows them to do full-fledged Vegas casinos: table games, dice games, roulette tables, a sports book operation inside their facilities. Anything that's at Caesars in Vegas is going to be in these three sites."
Murdock continued, "The other thing it expressly does is it picks some winners and losers, and it gives a monopoly basically to seven other sites and basically creates, and this has sort of been confused, I think, in some of the press reports, Jeff. It basically creates full-fledged Vegas casinos in seven other sites spread around Alabama, because it says these other seven sites, and by the way, it's picking the electronic slot machine operations that have been in business the longest and who have defied Alabama law the longest and rewarding them with this law that says those seven sites in particular can now have electronic games of chance, but it doesn't define or limit electronic games of chance.”
“And so this bill explicitly creates 10 Vegas-style, full array of Vegas game casinos spread all over the state with all of the bad things and ill effects that come with putting casinos in a place like Alabama," he added.
He went on to say that the gambling interests would "absolutely control our state politics" and even "supplant" the Business Council of Alabama.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email trent.baker@1819news.com.
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