If I told you that a company was relocating its production factories to Alabama and would bring about a billion dollars in tax revenue annually, along with 12,000-15,000 permanent jobs, and create development hubs, around which other businesses would locate - and that this company would do these things in some of our most economically depressed areas, providing unprecedented revenue increases for cash-strapped school districts - our politicians would be tripping over themselves to offer up incentives packages that stretched into the tens of millions of dollars. And you’re doing it without promising a dime of taxpayer money in incentives. Now, all you’re doing is creating jobs and tax revenue. Hell, we’ve got gambling all over this state and all around us. You’re not doing something controversial and bold anymore. Kay Ivey to include gaming in a special session so confusing.īecause without the bickering between the track owners and the Poarch Creeks, and without a strong pushback from the religious right, this is less of a gambling bill and more of an economic development bill. The inability to get this done is, quite honestly, mind boggling.Īnd that’s what makes the reluctance of Gov. We’re talking potentially around $1 billion annually to pay for college scholarships, broadband internet expansion, rural health care expansion and money for K-12 classrooms. But the actual lost revenue could be more than that for the state, given it will also miss out on the payroll taxes generated by the new casinos and the revenue from a compact that will be negotiated on the Poarch Band of Creek Indians’ three currently operating casinos. The ads put the lost revenue at around $700 million - the estimated amount that a 2021 gaming and lottery bill would have generated, according to a number of studies.

On Wednesday, the owners of Alabama’s four dog tracks - VictoryLand, GreeneTrack, Mobile Greyhound Park and the Birmingham Race Course - launched a new statewide advertising campaign to highlight the tax revenue that Alabama is losing every year because its lawmakers simply refuse to pass comprehensive gaming and lottery legislation.

Revenue from taxing gambling in alabama