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SportsTranscript
00:00Well, I hate to see this, especially living in the South, in Florida, that Alabama just, you know, just can't get going here.
00:08And now there's, I saw a report and a column over you guys, a legal sports report, that maybe no sports betting in Alabama for decades?
00:18Oh, my gosh.
00:19Why are you so South here?
00:22Yeah, nice pun there.
00:23But it's tough with these states.
00:26You know, you're going to talk about a place like Hawaii, which maybe we thought never would get legalized.
00:31But you're always going to have, when you have 50 states, you're going to have really resistant ones.
00:34Everyone wants to do it their own way on their own terms.
00:36And unfortunately, in Alabama, that's been the case.
00:39It's not just off the table for this year, but maybe for up to 20 years, according to two of the state's top lawmakers,
00:46who now say they see no path forward for gambling legislation in, you know, the next couple of decades.
00:52One of the largest or biggest proponents of sports betting in the state, Senate President Pro Tem Garland Gudger,
00:59he declared the effort dead for this year.
01:01And then he said he doesn't see anything changing.
01:04He says it's basically been the same thing over and over again for the past 20 years.
01:07Alabama is one of these states that doesn't really have much gambling in general, just one of five without a lottery.
01:13So they've been trying to push forward these patchwork proposals that would legalize lottery, legalize sports betting.
01:19But it's just run into a lot of resistance in the legislature who, you know, their deep religious ties down south really don't want to move anything forward.
01:28So, you know, it's tough when you talk about a state where 80 percent of Alabamans say they support creating a state lottery.
01:35You have overwhelming numbers saying they want to at least vote on sports betting in general.
01:40But it seems to be the same story over and over in Alabama.
01:43But we'll be monitoring to see if it ever changes.