Opinion | Want to vote on gambling, lottery? This is your year

If you want to vote on gambling and a lottery, this is your chance. 

If you’re tired of being jerked around by disingenuous lawmakers who always make it seem as if passing gambling legislation is just fingertip out of reach, this is your year. If you’re tired of watching Alabama dollars go towards sending other states’ kids to college, fixing other states’ roads, keeping other states’ hospitals open and paying for other states’ food taxes, this is your time to shine. 

Because this is the year before an election year. 

Later this year, you’re going to start seeing the first of what will be seemingly endless campaign announcements and ads. You’re going to start to hear the stories of who’s going to save Alabama and serve Donald Trump and cut your taxes and your costs while giving you a better job and mowing your lawn. 

You’re going to start to hear the desperation from a bunch of people you wouldn’t hire to pressure wash your driveway but who really, really need your vote to keep them in these cushy jobs where they do the stuff major donors want 90 percent of the time. 

You’ve got ‘em right where you want ‘em. 

Because this is the year you – the majority of voters – can actually force the people you’ve elected to office to do things you want done. Because nothing scares an incumbent politician more than a bunch of voters motivated to back the candidate who supports their cause. 

And in this over-gerrymandered state, it’s insanely easy for such a movement to take shape. 

Look at the voter turnout numbers for state house races in midterm elections. They’re abysmal. In some cases, less than 30 percent of the eligible voters in a district are casting ballots. We’re talking about a few thousand people out of 40,000 potential voters deciding these races. 

If an issue catches fire and motivates a decent number of those disenchanted voters … that’s a big problem. 

Gambling should be that issue. 

Don’t scoff at this. Don’t start thinking about it in terms of shiny lights and jackpots and all-night parties. Because it’s much, much more than that. 

Take the comprehensive gambling bill that passed the House last session. That bill would have given Alabama citizens the opportunity to vote and authorize up to seven casino licenses, sports wagering, a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, a statewide lottery and a gambling commission to oversee it all and shut down these ridiculous gas station casinos we currently have all over the place. 

It would have generated somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars per year in tax revenue. 

But it was more than that. 

It was also 12,000 to 15,000 permanent jobs. It was an economic impact on Alabama’s tourism industry well into the tens of billions of dollars annually. 

It was an expansion of health care services in Alabama’s rural communities, potentially saving hospitals that are right now operating at or near a loss. It was a scholarship program that would have sent underprivileged kids to college. It was an infrastructure package that would have fixed our decrepit roads and faltering bridges. It was a boost to public school funding, paying for things such as enhanced security and teacher supplies. 

All for doing nothing more than simply better organizing and properly taxing things we currently have in this state. 

I mean, come on – we all know the reality here. There are casinos all over this state right now. Most of them are really crappy casinos located alongside a laundromat (or in at least one case, in one). We’ve got sports betting literally everywhere, since anyone who wants to place a bet can do so on a phone with an off-shore sportsbook. Millions of Alabama residents venture into Florida, Georgia and Tennessee to buy lottery tickets every year. 

We know all of this is true. We could reap a billion dollars per year and pay for all of those things above, create all of those jobs and do all of that work by simply correcting what we all know should be corrected. 

Now, tell me another issue out there that’s anywhere close to as impactful. You can’t do it. 

But if you want it to get fixed finally, it’s going to be up to you. We should all also know by now that these folks in the legislature aren’t going to do it on their own. They’re making too much money keeping this fight going, playing one side against the other, pretending that every other year is the year that they finally do right. 

If it’s something you care about, you’re going to have to call them. You’re going to have to write them. You’re going to have to let it be known that there will be consequences for not getting this done.