Alabama Legend Supports Legal Betting In The State

There’s a swath of betting in Alabama helping right now. It’s football season, how could there not be when Alabama and Auburn are having exciting seasons?

But none of that money is flowing through Alabama’s controlled infrastructure. By that, we mean locals are either using popular prediction markets like Kalshi or Polymarket — which the state of Alabama has no power over — or offshore sportsbooks. By doing this, any betting money poured in doesn’t get taxed and kept in the state, it just goes to these platforms.

Welp, that missed revenue has caught the attention of arguably the state’s most famous product — Sir Charles Barkley. Born and raised in Leeds, he went to college in Auburn, and then went on to a dazzling career in the NBA and now in media. When he speaks, people on the state listen and Barkley recently came out in favor of legalized betting. Keep on reading and we’ll tell you what he said!

Barkley Says The State Is Falling Behind

Not only does Alabama not have sports betting, it’s actually one of five states without a state lottery either. This combo makes the state one of the most stingy against gambling. But as we said, there’s a cost to it — less tax money for the state.

The vast majority of states that tax gambling use it for education initiatives. The revenue is funneled back to the public school system, and spent on teachers, classrooms, and so on. Obviously, Alabama doesn’t have this luxury and that’s caught the ire of Barkley. Speaking on The Next Round podcast, Barkley had this to say:

“First of all, we should have had the lottery 30 years ago, but it would really improve our public school system….those programs raise so much money for the school system, and people are gonna gamble.”

Never one to mince words, Barkley outright blamed the state’s politicians for the lack of legal betting. Many of them have clutched their pearls at the thought of allowing folks to bet at will, but Barkley says they’re just not affected by the lack of school funding. Here’s his zinger of a quote:

“Those people who block it, their kids don’t go to public school, they go to private school,” he said.

Classic Barkley. But… his comments come with a caveat. That podcast he was talking on? It’s sponsored by The Sports Betting Alliance (SBA) — a group that’s essentially a mouthpiece for the top sports betting apps (BetMGM, DraftKings, FanDuel, and more). The group’s goal is to expand sports betting, and Alabama is a clear target, as we’ll get to in the next section.

Legalized Betting Is A “Disinfectant”

We’ve been covering the legalization of betting in the United States for years now. We’ve heard it all, until this doozy of a line from SBA’s CEO Joe Maloney.

“The best disinfectant to the illegal market monopoly is legalization,” Maloney told The Next Round (the same podcast Barkley spoke to, albeit in different interviews).

While he didn’t share any specific data, he did say Alabama and other non-legal states are hotbeds for illegal betting. He echoed a lot of the things we said at the start of this article:

“Right now in states like Alabama, Texas, Georgia, California, illegal market operators basically have a monopoly,” he said. “Whether that is a neighborhood bookie or that is an offshore website domiciled in some country like Curacao or Costa Rica, they’ve got the ability to reach customers.”

Maloney, being the salesman that he is, also said these platforms can treat bettors badly, at least compared to licensed sportsbooks who have to answers to regulators. If someone gets scammed by an operator out of Curacao, welp, that person is out of luck. That wouldn’t be the case if the operator had to report to Alabama regulators.

These are all sound arguments, but it’s not like they haven’t been made already. They have, and Alabama has come close to legalizing. But why hasn’t it crossed the finish line yet? We get into that next.

What’s Really Stopping Betting In Alabama?

So just how close has Alabama actually gotten? In 2024, the House passed a package that included a lottery, casinos, and sports betting. But… the Senate stripped out the sports betting initiative, and the eventual compromise still fell one vote short. That’s the closest things got, but there have been initiatives in 2025 and 2026 as well.

An issue that continuously pops up is who gets to control betting as a whole. You see, the state actually has three casinos — all run by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Alabama lawmakers have been split on whether they too should control sports betting… or whether commercial betting apps should be allowed in.

If Barkley and the SBA want to get betting legalized in the state, they need to address this issue. SBA obviously wants its clients — the betting apps — allowed in. But there’s strong opposition to that.

The upcoming midterm elections will shake up Alabama politics and who occupies office. This will be the biggest tell on whether the state legalizes betting anytime soon — not podcast quotes, despite how entertaining they sound.