Ala. Code § 8-1-128
If any person, corporation or other association of persons, either as principals or agents, shall establish or open an office or other place of business in this state for the purpose of carrying on or engaging in any business of making contracts to sell and deliver any cotton, Indian corn, wheat, rye, oats, tobacco, meal, lard, bacon, salt pork, salt fish, beef cattle, sugar, coffee, stocks, bonds, or choses in action at a place and a time specified and agreed upon therein to any other person, whether the person to whom such article is so agreed to be sold and delivered shall be a party to such contract or not, when in fact and notwithstanding the terms expressed in such contracts it is not intended by the parties thereto that the articles or things so agreed to be sold and delivered shall be actually delivered or the value thereof paid, but rather it is intended and understood by them that money or other thing of value shall be paid to the one party by the other, or to a third party, the party to whom such payment of money or other thing of value shall be made to depend and the amount of such money or other thing of value so to be paid to depend upon whether the market price or value of the article so agreed to be sold and delivered is greater or less at the time and place so specified than the price stipulated to be paid and received for the articles so to be sold and delivered, or for making contracts commonly called "futures," as to the several articles and things hereinbefore specified, or any of them, by whatever name called, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than $100 and may be sentenced to hard labor for not less than one month, and upon a second conviction, he shall be fined not less than $500 and sentenced to hard labor for not less than six months.
Ala. Code § 8-1-128 (1975)