An Alabama legislative committee has approved a bill to create a state lottery and it now moves to the full state Senate.
The state Senate Tourism and Marketing Committee voted 6-5 to advance the bill by Republican Sen. Greg Albritton of Atmore.
The bill specifies that a lottery would be played with paper tickets and would not involve video gambling terminals.
“This is a paper lottery,” Albritton told the Associated Press. “It’s all by paper. It does prevent video gaming.”
The bill faced opposition from senators who wanted to see video lottery terminals allowed at state dog tracks, which are facing competition from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, which have become the dominant gambling entity in the state.
“I think we need to be dealing with electronic,” said Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro. “We need to do a complete lottery that will grow and get the maximum amount of dollars that we possibly can for the state of Alabama.”
Singleton added an amendment aimed at protecting the tracks’ current electronic bingo operations.
Alabama voters would have to approve any lottery measure.
