Rep. Richard Wingo says sports gambling would corrupt fans’ pure love of the game.
Now that Mississippi is set to legalize sports betting on August 1, Alabama residents are asking why their state is so much different than Mississippi.
Alabama does not have commercial casinos or a state lottery, much less land-based sportsbooks.
At first glance, Alabama and Mississippi have more in common than they don’t. One would imagine they share similar values on religion, politics, moral issues, and Southern culture. In fact, they do.
That does not translate to the gambling issue. Mississippi has dozens of land-based casinos — and has for 26 years. Those casinos are a draw to tourists. They employ thousands of Mississippians. They generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
The Mississippi State Lottery generates more than that. All in all, Mississippi has embraced gambling like few southern states have.
Alabama Gambling Laws
Alabama has gone in the opposite direction. Of all southern states, Alabama has the least gambling. The last time a statewide gambling referendum was on the ballot, in 1998, the state’s voters voted against a state lottery.
Alabama is one of 9 US states which bans fantasy sports. Even most southern states few fantasy sports as a harmless pasttime, not least because many state lawmakers play fantasy sports (along with 50 million other Americans).
Of all states, only Utah and Hawaii have less gambling. (Both have none.) The only reason Alabama has three land-based gaming venues is the fact they are tribal casinos on reservation lands and thus protected by the 1988 Indian Gaming Act — a federal law.
Danny Sheridan on Alamaba Sports Betting
Danny Sheridan, who will attend the grand opening of Beau Rivage’s sportsbooks in Biloxi on Wednesday, said legal sports betting will not happen in Alabama anytime soon. Sheridan, a former NFL and SEC star football player, said, “President Trump will kneel for the National Anthem before Alabamians will get to vote on lottery, casinos and sports betting.”
Sheridan says that a lot of Alabama gamblers’ money flows out of the state, because of Alabama’s strict gambling laws. The Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi is less than an hour’s drive from downtown Mobile.
Because the twelves Gulf Coast casinos in places like Biloxi and Gulfport are so close, Sheridan said Alabama bettors make countless trips to Mississippi casinos in a year. They lose a lot of money there. Alabama residents near the borders of Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia spend a lot of money on those states’ lotteries, too.
Joe Godfrey: Anti-Gambling Forces
Joe Godfrey, the director of the Alabama Citizens Action Program, said that isn’t the point. Alabama Citizens Action Program, which is funded by the Southern Baptist Convention, is against the expansion of gambling in Alabama.
Each time over the past few years that a lottery initiative began, Joe Godfrey’s group lobbied heavily agains the bill. Alabama Citizens Action Program cheered heavily when former Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange directed raids against Milton McGregor’s VictoryLand — and attempt to turn a commercial racetrack into a slots parlor.
Godfrey says his group sees gambling for what it really is: an attempt to take money from everyday Alabama residents and give it to a few casino owners. Godfrey said, “The pro-gambling forces are always pushing for more and more and they always use the ‘other state around you’ as an excuse that other states are going doing it so why can’t we? The reality is that the whole thing is just a way to make money for the gambling bosses. They are the big winners.”
Richard Wingo on Sports Betting
State Rep. Richard Wingo (R-Tuscaloosa), a former coach and player at the University of Alabama, said sports betting corrupts the purity of a football game. Wingo opposes Alabama sportsbooks, stating, “Now all of a sudden, people will be watching Alabama and Auburn because they have money on the line and then the field goal kicker misses the field goal.”
Like a fantasy football owner who gets upset when his team’s fullback wolfs his fantasy football team’s running back’s touchdown, sports betting gives fans a different reason to cheer or boo plays. Wingo added, “It puts it in a different perspective with money on the line rather than a sport and an enjoyable event versus something you could lose on financially.”
Jess Brown, a onetime Athens State University political science professor, said the difference in Mississippi and Alabama is due to the legislature. Brown said, “The fly in the ointment in Alabama is that we have a constitutional provision involving lotteries and games of chance that other states do not. The legislatures have more freedom in other states.”
“The Legislature…Are an Embarrassment”
That is the point that Danny Sheridan makes: let the people decide whether sports betting will be legal or not. Through a trick of lawmakers, voters are never given a chance to voice their opinion.
Most agree that a statewide referendum on lottery betting now would pass by a wide margin. Sports betting legalization might, too. Yet, according to Danny Sheridan, the state-level lawmakers assume the people of Alabama don’t have the sophistication to make that decision.
Sheridan said, “The bottom line is the people who are elected, they think that we are smart enough to elect them and they think we’re not smart enough to vote on casino gambling or a lottery. The Legislature, those with that mentality, are an embarrassment.”
