Nine Alabama Groups Want an Investigation Into the Sports Betting Industry’s Dark Money
Nine Alabama groups want the state to investigate a sports-betting-funded PAC flooding the state with mailers without disclosure filings.
Nine Alabama-based conservative groups led by the Eagle Forum of Alabama sent a coalition letter on May 5 asking state officials to investigate the American Conservative Fund, a federal super PAC that had been blanketing Alabama voters with campaign mailers ahead of the May 19 primary. The signatories want to know how much the PAC has spent in the state, on which candidates, and why it has not filed financial disclosure reports with the Alabama Secretary of State as required under the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act.
The answer to the first part of the question is largely already known. Gaming America traced the political spending of DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics last month, and the trail leads directly to the PAC that the Alabama coalition is asking the state to investigate. The American Conservative Fund is 100 percent funded by Win for America, a federal super PAC that has received at least $41 million from the three sports betting companies in the 2026 cycle. The harder question, and the one the coalition letter is really pushing, is whether Alabama’s existing campaign finance law will be enforced when the spending originates from an industry the state’s voters have repeatedly rejected.
The Alabama Legal Question Is Extremely Straightforward
Alabama’s Fair Campaign Practices Act has a specific provision for situations exactly like this one. Section 17-5-14.1 of the Alabama Code states that any federal PAC giving money to state or local candidates must register as a PAC with the Alabama Secretary of State and file campaign finance reports under the FCPA. The PAC Filing Guidelines published by the Secretary of State’s office repeat this requirement in plain language. Federal PACs that report to the FEC may file copies of those reports with Alabama, but the registration and disclosure requirements are not optional.
The American Conservative Fund has not registered with the Alabama Secretary of State. It has not filed FCPA disclosure reports. It has, by its own FEC filings and by extensive reporting in the Alabama press, spent significant money on direct mail, digital ads, and television advertising in support of and against named Alabama state legislative candidates. Under the express advocacy standard that applies in Alabama under the Buckley v. Valeo framework, mailers that name candidates and urge their election or defeat clearly fall within the FCPA’s scope.
The coalition letter does not really require interpretation of the law. It simply requires its enforcement.
What the PAC Money Has Actually Funded
The reporting on what the American Conservative Fund has been doing in Alabama is, at this point, well documented. Alabama Reflector columnist Catherine Dorrough cataloged the mailers arriving in her own mailbox in a May 13 piece, counting roughly 14 separate mailers in a five-month period targeted at state Senator Chris Elliott’s district. Nine came from the American Conservative Fund. Five came from Elliott’s own campaign. The remaining mailer came from a state-level PAC associated with the Alabama Farmers Federation.
The pattern repeats across the state. Mo Brooks, the former U.S. Representative, released an investigative report alleging that the American Conservative Fund and Win for America operate from the same Staples store mailbox in Alexandria, Virginia, and have moved more than $1.65 million through Alabama-linked PACs since November. State Senator Garlan Gudger, who has appeared on at least one American Conservative Fund flyer styled to portray him as a Godfather figure, told local media he had never seen the mailer before constituents began contacting him about it.
The industry’s interest in these specific races is not always immediately obvious. Elliott voted for a 2024 Senate version of an Alabama gambling bill that removed the sports betting section the House had approved, which makes him an awkward target for a sports-betting-funded PAC. The most likely explanation is that the spending is less about specific gambling legislation and more about installing legislators who will be friendlier when the industry’s next push comes.
Alabama Is Not Unusually Strict, Just Unusually Organized
One thing worth noting about the Alabama story is that the state’s disclosure requirements for federal PACs’ spending on state races are not unusual. Most states have substantially similar provisions. What makes Alabama different is the political environment around enforcement. The state has repeatedly rejected casino expansion and a lottery in the legislature. It has an organized network of conservative and faith-based groups that have made gambling opposition a long-standing priority. The Eagle Forum of Alabama, which led the coalition letter, has been working on gambling-related campaign finance issues for decades.
That combination of factors is what made Alabama the place where this issue surfaced first. The legal architecture is broadly available in most states. The political will to actually push for enforcement is rarer. The Alabama coalition is essentially asking the state’s enforcement apparatus, which has had subpoena power and the authority to assess fines since 2015, to do what the statute already requires.
What Could Happen Next in Alabama?
The practical question now is whether the Alabama Ethics Commission, which has interpretive authority over the FCPA, or the Secretary of State’s office will move on the coalition’s request. The Ethics Commission has the tools. The statute is reasonably clear. The political cost of enforcement against an out-of-state, industry-funded super PAC is, on paper, low. However, the timing is awkward. The primary took place on May 19. So obviously, any meaningful enforcement action will come after the mailers have already done their work.
The broader question is whether Alabama is the leading edge of a pattern or an outlier. The sports betting industry has spent at least $42 million on political activity this cycle, with significant deployments in multiple states. The legal architecture in most of those states would, in principle, support similar disclosure demands. Whether other states pursue them depends on whether organized coalitions exist to advance the question.
For Alabama, the immediate ask is enforcement of laws already on the books. The longer-term ask, embedded in the coalition letter without quite being stated, is whether out-of-state commercial interests will be allowed to influence Alabama elections through PACs that decline to identify themselves to Alabama regulators. That is a question the state’s law already answers. The coalition is asking the state to mean it.
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