In a recent interview with Capitol Journal, Alabama Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter discussed the unsuccessful effort to expand gambling in the state. Gambling legislation to allow a lottery passed the House but failed in the Senate by a single vote.
Ledbetter said, “Well, there was a lot of conversation. I don’t think it ever came to fruition. It was just talk that we’d got with the Senate and some conversation that was going on. At the end of the day there just wasn’t enough time.”
Ledbetter affirmed that Alabamians are purchasing lottery tickets in neighboring states.
He told the Journal, “The money is going out of state. We got almost half of our counties that border another state that has got it as far as the lottery is concerned. So I think the voters really want a chance to vote. That was one of the things I wanted to try to do and I’m the last person to know anything about gambling.”
Ledbetter discussed an investigation into illegal gambling conducted by a state-appointed study group. “It’s all across the state,” he told the Journal.
“Every county has some. I didn’t realize until the committee we put together went around the state and found out the types of illegal gaming we had and how much of it there was. I think everybody was shocked to know that.” He added, “You know that all kinds of things happen in those facilities that shouldn’t. So we put the commission together to regulate it and stop it.”
However, he noted, although Alabamians want tougher laws to fight illegal, unregulated gambling, “the problem is you got to have people enforce it.”
In addition, Ledbetter said the study revealed law enforcement in certain counties is involved in illegal gambling activities. “In some of these counties, actually, the sheriff they are the ones that does the licenses for them. Then we got one county where the sheriff’s brother had some. So it’s hard for county sheriffs to do it because they don’t have the facilities to put the machines in and they don’t have the manpower,” he told the Journal.
Ledbetter said the attorney general’s office and other prosecutors may have increased legal resources in the near future. But, he noted, without enforcement, “nothing will change.” In fact, he said, because the 2024 legislation didn’t pass, “we’re gonna see an expansion of more illegal gambling. The problem we had is you get a lot of people that’s making money off of it illegally, and some of it I think, is organized crime. You can tell just by how the facility is set up. They showed me those pictures. So I think this has given them a runway to be honest with you.”
Ledbetter concluded, “I don’t know if we upped it, who’s gonna enforce it. You say, ‘well the local people will.’ Well a lot of them may have people that are involved or engaged they think it’s legal. I know the Attorney General said everything’s illegal. I guess it depends on who you talk to. There’s different opinions on that.”
