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SportsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - All right, now on the flip side,
00:05 we're gonna get to Alabama now.
00:07 And we thought maybe potentially some good news
00:09 was coming for them, like there was for Georgia
00:11 a couple of weeks ago.
00:12 Now we're headed the other way.
00:13 Doesn't look like Alabama's legalizing sports
00:16 anytime soon, Sam, does it?
00:17 - No, it doesn't, unfortunately, if you're in Alabama
00:22 or anywhere in the deep South, for that matter.
00:24 It's been much tougher to get sports betting passed
00:27 than it has in the Northeastern states
00:29 and even North Carolina, which is still South,
00:31 but it took them a few years to get things done.
00:33 But technically the hopes are still alive
00:36 for sports betting in Alabama this year.
00:38 There's a bill which would essentially create a lottery.
00:42 Alabama's one of the few states that doesn't have a lottery.
00:45 It would allow casinos to be created.
00:47 Alabama's also one of the few states
00:49 that doesn't have casinos.
00:50 And then, obviously, if you don't have both of those things,
00:52 you're probably not gonna have online sports betting.
00:54 So this was sort of an attempt to have,
00:57 shove it all in one bill, a three-pronged approach
00:59 to really embrace gambling in the state,
01:01 which is hard to do in a place like Alabama too,
01:04 where religion is very important, right,
01:06 to a lot of politicians and just in the messaging
01:08 behind a lot of things.
01:09 So as hard as it is to get sports betting passed,
01:12 it's harder to get all three.
01:14 States like Michigan were pretty much the only ones I know
01:17 of that were able to do this all kind of,
01:19 these three things together, but even Michigan,
01:21 it took them a while to do that.
01:22 So the bill is still alive,
01:24 but it looks like it's been stripped down
01:26 to just one of those three gaming changes will happen.
01:31 Likely the lottery will make it,
01:34 casinos and sports betting won't.
01:35 We'll have to wait probably for next year.
01:37 So the industry, the lobbyists around there,
01:41 they're kind of not as optimistic,
01:43 which means it's probably not going to get done.
01:45 So it was kind of a long shot when the year started,
01:50 but the bill actually passed the Senate,
01:51 which made it kind of a 50/50 approach.
01:53 But now that you kind of have, you know, opening the hood
01:56 and seeing how the sausage is made,
01:58 negotiations boiling down to what's actually
02:00 going to get done, what's not,
02:01 it seems like they're more comfortable with, you know,
02:03 having a lottery, which is, frankly,
02:06 it's something that's viewed differently as sports betting.
02:09 It's much more tenable for states to do.
02:12 You know, it's been a part of the American tradition
02:15 for a long, long time.
02:16 It's not viewed in the same way, maybe for right or wrong,
02:20 to have the kind of the same problems of problem gambling,
02:22 where you can just unload, you know, money into your phone.
02:25 You have to go physically, in most cases, buy a ticket.
02:27 So I would say that that's, you know,
02:30 a good thing in the sense of it's moving them
02:32 towards that realm or idea where they're embracing gambling
02:36 more in the future.
02:38 But the bad news, you know,
02:39 is it's just not going to be this year.
02:41 And obviously the region in general,
02:43 Mississippi has been tough to crack.
02:45 They were one of the first states
02:46 that even legalized sports betting,
02:47 but they've only had it at casinos.
02:49 And for years, they haven't been able to get online done.
02:52 And Georgia, obviously,
02:53 has been a big letdown this year as well.
02:56 So the region is going to have to continue
02:58 without online sports betting, I imagine.
02:59 There'll be a lot of people still betting in the region,
03:01 you know, whether it's fantasy apps
03:03 or whether it's an unlicensed sports book.
03:05 So you're going to have to wait
03:06 until next year in Alabama, unfortunately,
03:08 but you will have lottery probably.
03:10 So I guess that's silver lining, if you really like to bet.
03:12 (upbeat music)
03:15 [MUSIC]