There’s a jobs bill in the Alabama Legislature right now, but you’ve probably heard absolutely nothing about it.
It’s a jobs bill that would create upwards of 1,000, maybe 1,500 jobs in Macon and Mobile counties, where such jobs would be considered a godsend. Good paying jobs with benefits.
The sorts of jobs that politicians typically hold press conferences about and fork over buckets of “economic incentive” dollars to make sure they happen.
The reason you haven’t heard about it is because it involves gambling. Legal gambling.
To get those jobs, all we’d have to do is alter the way we collect taxes on historical horse racing (HHR) games that are popular at VictoryLand and the Mobile Greyhound Park.
Essentially, the primary legislation would impose an 8-percent tax on the net revenues collected by operators of HHR machines. (There are other bills—one by Senator Bobby Singleton and one by Representative Kelvin Lawrence—that also change tax rates in three other counties, but those bills also contain other initiatives.)
Currently, there is a mishmash of state and local taxes that combine to form different rates for games played in different counties. Those rates, typically around 3-5 percent, are calculated based on the amount of money wagered. The proposed change would impose the 8-percent tax rate on net revenue.
That change would be a win-win for the state and operators, because it would allow those operators to purchase better HHR machines for use in their casinos. Currently, most HHR manufacturers program their machines to operate on a net revenue basis, because that is the preferred tax system in most other states where HHR machines are legal.
That means that the better, newer machines, with top features and more intuitive game play, are unavailable to the operators in Alabama. If they could get those machines, though, it would drive up customers and revenues, creating significantly higher tax revenues for the state.
And it would allow the tracks to significantly expand their offerings, make renovations and hire more employees. Lewis Benefield, who is the CEO of VictoryLand, said the tax rate change would allow him to reopen a hotel at the track and add in more food options.
Benefield predicted that the change could bring 1,000 more jobs to his location, bringing the total number of employees to around 1,500.
That’s in one of the consistently most economically depressed counties in Alabama.
The same would be true in Mobile, where the Poarch Band of Creek Indians have already started renovations on the state’s oldest greyhound track.
There’s also one other thing to mention here—these are legal games. Two different Alabama attorneys general, including the current one, have issued opinions stating that fact unequivocally. And despite being pressed on the issue a few times, AG Steve Marshall has maintained his position on the matter.
That’s because those games are nothing more than replays of previously run horse races. All of the outcomes have happened before. And those races were legal under pari-mutuel betting laws, including at certain locations in Alabama.
So, this tax change would be akin to altering the way lumber or other building materials are taxed in order to spur more economic development in some areas. It would help longtime Alabama businesses and boost local economies.
In 2025 alone, even without the new, better machines and the expansion, VictoryLand forked over nearly $10 million in taxes to the state and Macon County. The $6.6 million that went to Macon has paid for all manner of infrastructure.
Do you know what a thousand extra jobs in Macon County will mean to schools or roads or other infrastructure there? Do you know what it would mean to those thousand people?
Same in Mobile.
We have to move past this attitude we have about everything associated with gambling, as if it’s somehow tainted or improper. There are millions of people invested in multi-billion-dollar gaming companies—companies that are now household names. The current president is invested, and he owned several casinos. His son is. It’s all around us every day. Those gaming companies employ thousands of people and bring revenue to states all over the country.
The same has been true in Alabama for more than 50 years now. That’s how long we’ve had legal pari-mutuel wagering in this state. That’s how long we’ve been getting tax dollars from these legal, respectable businesses operated by Alabama citizens and Alabama businesses and employing Alabama residents.
It’s long past time we started treating them like all other respectable businesses and treated their expansion the same as all other businesses.
In other words, as job growth.
