(The Center Square) – A bill that would put a lottery to a vote in Alabama is in a holding cycle in the Senate this week.
Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth said the bill needed 21 votes for passage since it was a constitutional amendment, but Senate secretary Patrick Harris disagreed since concurrence of a conference report needs only a simple majority for approval according to Senate rules.
The chamber voted 20-15 for the conference report for House Bill 151 on Tuesday. The conference report will be carried over and could be voted on again.
Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, carried the conference report and said on the floor the bill was trying to “control matters we already have.”
“Lotteries are all around us,” Albritton said. “People are traveling to play in the lotteries. This is our first and best attempt at being able to control an industry that we right now are letting run wild.”
The conference report, which was approved by the House earlier in the day, would put a lottery measure on the ballot for voters to decide in a special election on Aug. 14. The election would cost $5 million.
According to the formula, the revenue from a potential lottery would be divided equally between “education-related activities,” non-education, general governmental activities and the state Department of Transportation.
Alabama voters in 1999 rejected the last attempt at a lottery.
The conference report would also expand gambling at three casinos owned by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. It would also allow some limited gaming at horse tracks statewide but won’t implement sports betting.
HB151, as originally written, would have created an expansive gambling industry with a lottery, sports betting and table games at multiple locations statewide.
Also is limbo is House Bill 152, which would would create the Alabama Gaming Commission to manage the state’s gambling industry. This new commission would also have a law enforcement division designed to stamp out illegal gambling. Senators didn’t take up the bill during Tuesday’s session.