State Rep. Chris Blackshear joined joined Sports Radio 740 in Montgomery last week to discuss the push by the Alabama House during the 2024 legislative session to pass a comprehensive gaming and lottery bill, which has become a perennial feature of many legislative sessions past. In 2024, Blackshear (R-Phenix City) said the House-approved version was similar to what was in the Alabama Senate in 2021.
Blackshear drew a tie between the sports betting environment in Alabama and former Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon as a reason for why legalized sports wagering is necessary from a regulation standpoint.
“So here’s the part of sports betting that nobody gets and it’s coming from a politician. They think it’s not true. But it truly is the only piece of this whole comprehensive package if you had to legalize to regulate,” Blackshear said, referencing the fact that Bohannon was caught in Ohio, which is a legalized gambling state with regulations.
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“The only reason the coach got tied up into that is because the individual that was placing the bet was in a legal state where sports betting is regulated. If the bet was placed in Alabama on Bovada, or on some of these other sites, neither one of them would have ever been caught.”
The host underscored statistics identifying Alabama as one of the largest illegal sports wagering economies in the United States. Blackshear said Alabama will remain unable to regulate and tax those revenues for at least another year until lawmakers can consider the topic again in February 2025.
“It blows my mind we’re not trying to profit off of that from a tax base,” he said. “Make no mistake about it, there is influence out of state, but 90 plus percent of the influence to fight against this legislation is from within the state of Alabama.”
He criticized the Senate for gutting the comprehensive gambling package that the House had passed, which included provisions for sports betting and casino gaming.
“I mean, it was an absolute beat down, bludgeoned to the point where it should have had a different bill number and different sponsors,” he said of the Senate’s amendments. “They heard things from entities within the state, like scare tactics from organizations that claimed they wouldn’t support officials who voted for the bill.”
Blackshear said the unsuccessful attempt is particularly frustrating given the level of public support for gambling legislation, citing polls indicating that 71% of Republicans wanted to vote on a comprehensive gaming plan, and 89% supported voting on a lottery.
Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP
