Predicting sports betting's Texas odds
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Texas remains a holdout in the nationwide push to expand gambling, but industry representatives are headed to Austin for the upcoming legislative session hoping for a breakthrough.
Why it matters: State lawmakers will soon consider multiple bills that could lead to legalized mobile sports betting and resort-style casinos.
- Legal casinos could be a boon to the Texas economy — with thousands of jobs in tow — but also come with documented societal ills.
Flashback: Efforts to legalize sports betting in 2021 and 2023 came up short, despite a massive lobbying operation by casinos, betting sites like DraftKings and pro sports teams.
- At the outset of the last legislative session, Las Vegas Sands was paying as much as $6.55 million to well-connected lobbyists to persuade lawmakers to ease state gambling restrictions.
- Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was hired as a spokesperson for the Sports Betting Alliance, which includes major sportsbook operators and all of Texas' major professional teams.
State of play: The state constitution restricts gambling, so even if bills loosening gambling pass, they would require a statewide referendum.
- Texas law allows for a lottery, charitable bingo, parimutuel betting on horse and dog racing, and gambling at three tribe-owned casinos — in Eagle Pass, El Paso and Livingston.
- Poker rooms are also open across the state, though the legality is murky.
What they're saying: "For me, it's not really a revenue issue, it's a freedom and liberty issue," state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican from Plano whose 2023 sports betting bill cleared the Texas House but never passed the Texas Senate, told the Austin American-Statesman recently.
By the numbers: An August Texas Politics Project/University of Texas poll found that 34% of respondents thought gambling laws should be less strict and 23% thought more strict.
The other side: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Texas Senate, has shown little appetite for more legalized gambling, despite the lobbying push.
- "The votes aren't there," he told WFAA reporter Jason Whitely in November, throwing cold water on the issue before the Legislature even convenes.
- "If a bill ever started to get close and moving, you're going to hear from the other side, from the pastors, from the business community, from the citizens who oppose it," he said.
Reality check: Texans are betting billions of dollars illegally and in other states, according to an industry study and an academic estimate.
- Legalizing sports betting, pro-gambling interests argue, would allow state officials to regulate and tax it. Tax revenue could top $350 million annually, per a study paid for by a coalition of industry interests.
- Texans made over 1.48 million attempts to log into a legal sportsbook platform during November, per data from GeoComply, a geolocation fraud detection technology that counts gaming companies like DraftKings as clients.
The intrigue: Miriam Adelson, the owner of Sands and a new owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is a close ally of President-elect Trump — a casino man himself, he awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his first term.
💠Our thought bubble: Trump may be the only person who could get Patrick, a three-time chair of the Trump campaign in Texas, to shift positions.
Zoom out: Sports gambling has swept the nation since the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door in 2018 for states to allow it.
- Nearly 80% of states have now legalized sports betting after Missouri voters narrowly approved it in November, becoming the 39th state to do so.
Yes, but: Besides Texas, California is also a holdout.
What's next: FanDuel CEO Amy Howe told Axios it could take until 2027 for Texas to legalize sports betting.
- "Tough to pinpoint exactly when it's going to happen," she said. "We feel good about the momentum, so hard to say exactly which year, but we think we feel cautiously optimistic."