On Thursday afternoon, Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R–Cullman, detonated any hope that Alabama’s long effort to pass a comprehensive gaming bill would survive the 2025 session.
“With 12 meeting days remaining in the session, both budgets still awaiting approval, and other important bills and measures demanding focus and attention, the comprehensive gaming bill released today is simply too little, too late, and has too few votes to pass,” Gudger said in a terse, 77-word statement that landed like a hand grenade to months of behind-the-scenes efforts.
“I believe that passing a comprehensive gaming bill in the Senate will require engaging in long-term and intense negotiations among members and securing the needed votes and commitments well before a legislative session even begins,” he added.
The timing of the blow was particularly jarring. Just a day prior, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and the McGregor family announced that Wind Creek Hospitality — PCI’s gaming and hotel arm — had acquired the Birmingham Racecourse. The high-profile deal was seen by many as a signal that a gaming compromise might finally be within reach. But if Thursday proved anything, it’s that nothing ever quite reaches the finish line in Alabama when it comes to gambling.
The legislative wreckage around gaming has been building for nearly two decades, with countless bills dying just before a final vote — sacrificed on the altar of special interests, backroom squabbles and lobbyists who benefit from the chaos.
“Until voters prove that cleaning up gambling in this state is important enough to cost someone an election, nothing will change,” APR columnist and investigative reporter Josh Moon wrote earlier this week. “They’ll keep right on dangling these oh-so-close debates in front of everyone and pretending that these are really complicated, tough issues that they just can’t get together on.”
“In reality, the only thing that is necessary for a decent gambling bill to pass will be up to voters in 2026,” Moon continued. “Someone is going to have to lose an election over it.”
“The fact is it’s not a hard issue at this point. The people support it — it’s the number one issue in most polls among likely voters — and the nuances and facts have been kicked around so much by now that they’re not mysterious or confusing, even to the casual observer,” he concluded.
As for what drove Gudger’s sudden detonation, the theories are already circulating: it could’ve been the infighting within the Baldwin County Senate delegation, or perhaps he simply realized the bills — and there were many — being floated behind the scenes were never going to survive a floor vote. Whatever the reason, the result is the same — another session collapsing under the weight of familiar dysfunction.
Like it or not, Gudger showed leadership — cutting through false hope and political theater to declare the gaming bill dead on arrival in the 2025 session.
As Moon said, “Until the people hold someone accountable for these constant failures, it’s highly unlikely anything will change.”
