Was there really a will to make lottery happen?

Once again, despite much talk and hope building otherwise, Alabamians won’t get a chance to vote on the institution of a state lottery.

The proposed constitutional amendment that would’ve put the measure on the ballot for the first time in a generation, which passed the state Senate a month ago, met an immovable wall in the House and won’t be revisited during the 2019 session.

Its backers said they were a vote shy of being able to bring the bill up for debate and didn’t have the votes to pass it even if got to the floor. So it probably was a wise move to pull the plug. The Legislature still has some important things left on its to-do list before the session ends and doesn’t need to waste time on something that isn’t happening.

Of course there will be a jillion different opinions offered on why it isn’t happening, many of them carrying at least some validity.

The lottery bill that got out of the Senate was criticized as a sellout to the politically powerful (and loaded) Poarch Creek Band of Creek Indians because it included only paper lottery tickets, rather than the increasingly popular and lucrative video lottery terminals (that conceivably would’ve been competition for the Poarch Creek casinos).

It was criticized for — unlike the lotteries in surrounding states that Alabamians are most familiar with, which fund college scholarships and grants — directing most of its proceeds (three-fourths in the bill’s final incarnation) to the state’s General Fund.

Plus any lottery bill in any form would not just be criticized, but would be fought by social and religious conservatives who carry a lot of clout in this state, and believe gambling is a sin that cannot be abided regardless of any earthly or secular benefits its revenue might provide. Lottery backers needed Democratic support — there are some things supermajorities can’t impose — to overcome that part of the opposition in the House, but didn’t get it because of concerns over what the revenue would be used for.

We’ll offer another reason a lottery isn’t happening — and it may be the biggest one. Despite all the talk, we don’t see a legitimate will to make it happen.

Of course there will be sputters of disagreement and “we tried” from the bill’s advocates. We’ll simply ask, if this was a real legislative priority for Republicans, why was there not a unified effort from the start of the session behind one bill that would focus solely on providing the maximum amount of revenue for the state, ignore any external interests and attract the necessary bipartisan support?

And while it’s unrealistic to expect the General Fund not to benefit from potential Alabama lottery revenues — a lot of folks have become lottery advocates because they know the state needs money to fund things like making our prison system less medieval — not at least splitting the money with education is a guaranteed loser. Why did the bill’s backers go there?

Lottery players in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee (and Alabamians who cross the borders when jackpots get astronomical) aren’t morons. They may be trying against microscopic odds to get rich, but they know the money they’re forking over sends kids to college.

We sound like we’re advocating a lottery. We aren’t. Check our archives — literally for decades, we’ve said it’s no quick fix for any economic issues. Any state that centers its economy around a lottery is foolish.

However, we have consistently supported giving Alabamians a chance to vote on one. (For those who say they already had one in 1999, that’s a generation ago, that proposal was a monstrosity and we’re in a whole different world.)

We still do. We just wish those who can make it happen would get serious.