By Kim Chandler | The Associated Press

MONTGOMERY (AP) — For the briefest moment, victory seemed within the governor’s grasp.

Then it all fell apart.

Republican Gov. Robert Bentley had proposed starting a state lottery in Alabama, one of six states without such games. After clearing both chambers in the Alabama Legislature, the bill was overwhelmingly defeated in the final concurrence vote Friday, doomed by a fatal mix of a turf war over gaming machines, longstanding opposition to gambling from Republicans and perhaps legislative cold feet.

“The lottery bill for the 2016 legislative special session is dead. The people of Alabama have been denied the right to vote on a lottery,” Sen. Jim McClendon, the bill’s sponsor said.

The bill had barely cleared the Alabama Senate last week with the needed 21 votes, provided by a mix of Republicans and the few Democrats in the GOP-controlled chamber. Some Democrats withdrew support Friday after House changes to the bill, citing concerns for state dog tracks and that the Poarch Band of Creek Indians would have a monopoly on gambling machines. GOP support also peeled off, in the end leaving just seven senators voting to pass the bill with House changes.

“It’s such a fragile vote anyway. It’s a tough vote,” Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, said.

Some Senate Democrats raised concern about House language limiting a lottery to paper tickets, at aim at forbidding video lottery terminals. An earlier bill that failed would have allowed the machines at state dog tracks. They also wanted to take the bill to conference committee — which Republicans objected to— seeking an amendment that would guarantee state dog tracks could have the same casino or machine games as the tribe if the state’s governor ever negotiated a compact.

“If the governor did nothing, it would still be a clean lottery. That’s all we were asking, to put more money on the table,” Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said.

Marsh said he thought there was another factor in the bill’s defeat.

“I believe there are people in this body who never thought that bill was going to get out of the Senate, and when they got the chance, when it came back to the Senate they were going to sit down on it,” Marsh said.

Bentley, after twice defeating opponents who ran on the idea of creating a state lottery, in July proposed it as what he called a last option to get additional money to the state’s perpetually cash-strapped Medicaid program.

This was the closest a lottery got to a public vote since 1999 when the state overwhelming rejected a lottery to fund education proposed by then-Gov. Don Siegelman.

The 2016 lottery push reignited simmering tensions and turf wars over gambling. The state has waged a long legal battle over electronic bingo machines which resemble slot machines with their whirling chiming displays, shutting down operations at dog tracks while being powerless to stop similar games on tribal land. Siegelman’s 1999 lottery bill traveled in tandem in the Legislature with a bill to allow video poker at dog tracks. The bill died at the last minute because of last-minute vote switches. Siegelman’s lottery was then defeated under opposition from churches and out-of-state gambling interests.

Republican Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said people wrongly think the issue is pro-gambling versus anti-gambling.

“There are multiple factions,” Ward said.

“Make no mistake the casino interests in this state are what killed that lottery,” Rep. Phil Williams, R-Rainbow City, said after the defeat.

Singleton said the blame shouldn’t be placed on Democrats since there are only eight in the 35-member chamber. “You’ve got the supermajority over there. They’re carrying the bill. I take it back to the governor when he refused to expand Medicaid,” Singleton said.

The lottery was the centerpiece of a special session called by Bentley on Medicaid funding. Lawmakers year after year have struggled to fund the program that provides health care for more than one million poor, elderly and disabled Alabamians. Medicaid officials have said they need at least an additional $85 million to maintain services.

“That vote today was not a vote against my bill. It was not a vote against me,” Bentley said. “It was a vote against those children, those half a million children out there that are in poverty today, because their health insurance will be jeopardized,” Bentley said.