As the 2023 legislative session comes to a close, one issue that didn’t make it on the agenda was gambling. House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) said he purposefully didn’t take it up because he didn’t want it to distract from other things that needed to be accomplished.

State Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Atmore) believes it’s past time for the Legislature to regulate gambling in the Yellowhammer State.

“[T]his is what happens and will continue to happen as long as Alabama does not take control of this industry,” Albritton said on the Senate floor. “We have lost hundreds of millions of dollars and will continue lose hundreds of millions of dollars and the industry will continue to grow and change without any regulation and without any benefit coming in.”

The senator lamented over failed attempts to pass something that would really address this issue.

“We have it in the state now,” he said. “We’re suffering from the effects of it, and we have no means of which to deal with it. Now, we tried this several times, this is going to continue the way it’s going … but it’s our fault, ‘our’ meaning the state and this Legislature, for not taking control of this industry when we should.”

Albritton said gambling is already happening across Alabama, which means the state is losing a lot of potential tax revenue because it’s completely unregulated.

“[W]e have $100 million on the table that we are going to collect, and we’ve got $800 million out there at least left out there,” he said, “and we’ve got gaming occurring every single day, every single minute, right on your phones, pull it up right now any play. And it goes completely unchecked, completely unregulated.”

While not wanting the body to take up the issue this session, Ledbetter has put together a committee of lawmakers to discuss potential proposals to be taken up in future sessions.

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee