U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, the far-and-away frontrunner to become the next Governor of Alabama, says he’s open to a state lottery if lawmakers can get it on the ballot for the first time in nearly three decades – and the voters of the state approve it.
Speaking to reporters before the Gulf United Metro Business Organization’s chairman’s dinner in Orange Beach on Wednesday night, Tuberville (R-Auburn) said that while he’s personally not a gambler, “everywhere I go, everybody wants it.”
He made it clear that a governor can’t do it by themselves, however.
“The state legislature is going to have to put it on the ballot – and we need to let people vote for it,” Tuberville said.
“I want to do it early because I don’t want anybody complaining. ‘Well, can we do this or that?’ I think the legislature needs to get it done and let the people vote on it,” he added. “And if it passes, it passes. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. And that way, we don’t have any complaints about it.”
Alabama voters last saw a lottery on the ballot in 1999, when they rejected Governor Don Siegelman’s education lottery.
The state’s constitution bans gambling, so a lottery can only happen if the legislature votes to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot and the people of Alabama approve it.
“But again, that’s not that’s that’s not the governor. You have to sign off on it at the end of the day,” Tuberville said. “But I’d sign off on it if the people voted it in.”
Alabama lawmakers came closer in 2024 than at any point since 1999.
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The House passed a comprehensive package with a lottery, casinos and sports betting, the Senate stripped it down to a lottery and limited electronic gaming – and the compromise died one vote short of the 21 needed in the Senate.
Speaker Ledbetter said afterward, “At the end of the day there just wasn’t enough time.” State Rep. Andy Whitt (R-Harvest), who carried the bill, called the result a loss for “the citizens of Alabama.”
A 2025 attempt barely got off the ground.
State Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Atmore) introduced a comprehensive bill in the back half of the session, and newly-minted Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman) shut it down within days as “too little, too late” with “too few votes to pass.”
Gudger said the issue had “exhausted everyone” in 2024 and predicted it would not return in earnest until after the 2026 elections.
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No lawmaker even tried in 2026.
Gudger said a year in advance that he did not want gambling to come up in an election year, warning it would create “mass chaos times four” and “take all the oxygen out of the room.”
No bill was filed, and Ledbetter said after adjournment that the lottery’s fate “has a lot to do with whoever’s sitting in the chair across the road,” referencing the next governor.
“But let’s let them do it,” Tuberville said last night.
“Let’s don’t play dictatorship.”
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
