Moving Forward With Online Casinos In The U.S.
Added: Aug. 17, 2015
Oddly, this bit of welcome news come from a state not so much in the news, at least concerning online gambling and online casino action. Would you believe that this is happening in the state of Alabama? Yes, that’s right, Alabama. Not so much a hotbed of gambling activity to be sure. Yet that may not even matter since early signs are pointing to more proactive action in Alabama.
Consider what only recently just happened in the Alabama legislature. You see, in the Alabama legislature there is a committee named the Senate Tourism and Marketing Committee. Get this: the Committee just voted 6-2 on a proposal for two gambling options. The first of these is to go ahead and establish a state lottery system. You may not be aware of this, but Alabama is one of the few states remaining in the United States without some form of lottery in place. So that’s proactive step number one.
At the same time, the Committee wants to take a serious look at allowing what it calls Vegas style casinos. This proactive stance is being championed by none other than the Senate President. For those of you who may not know how the system works down in Alabama, suffice it to say that the Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh is viewed by many observers to a powerful legislator. In other words, when Del Marsh puts his muscle behind an issue, chances look really good for it showing up.
Get this; it’s not just the Senate President and the Committee that is behind this new proactive gambling push. None other than the former coach of the formidable Auburn University football team Pat Dye spoke out on the issue. Per Coach Dye, gambling already exists in the state of Alabama at the Indian casinos. Coach Dye was very quick to point out that the Indian Casinos have no competition at all to contend with. The coach took it a step further when he pointed out that: “….the problem with that (current Indian casino gambling) is we don’t get any revenue for it.”
Well there you go. Yet another state is waking up to the very real fact that there is a tremendous revenue opportunity with the legalization of casinos, both online and land based. At at time when quite a few state budgets are struggling to make ends meet, a new source of revenue is readily available. The only thing missing is the state legislature making the decision to go ahead and make this sort of thing a reality. Remember, times are different now. States like Alabama merely need take a look at the examples of proactive states such as New Jersey to see what is possible.