Casino and sports betting companies press for a win in Texas despite Senate opposition

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Undeterred by four years of sluggish progress and certain defeat at the Texas Capitol, the gambling industry is plodding ahead with its ambitious bid to legalize casinos and sports betting in a state with some of the most restrictive gaming laws in the country.

For the third straight session, the Las Vegas Sands casino empire has deployed a murderers’ row of high-powered lobbyists to coax the Republican-controlled Legislature into authorizing “destination resorts” with casino gambling in Texas’ largest cities.

Also part of the lobbying blitz is the Texas Sports Betting Alliance, a coalition of the state’s pro sports teams, racetracks and betting platforms — such as FanDuel and DraftKings — that is looking to extend its momentum from 2023, when a proposal to legalize online sports betting squeaked through the Texas House.

It was the furthest either chamber had gone toward loosening the state’s 169-year-old gambling restrictions. But it was also largely symbolic: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who runs the Texas Senate, immediately quashed the measure, citing his repeated claims that there is minimal support among the chamber’s GOP majority to expand gambling.

With the 74-year-old Patrick in office until January 2027 and vowing to seek another four-year term, supporters and opponents of gambling legalization have settled into a state of trench warfare in the House. It is a familiar playbook gaming industry leaders have used to legalize gambling in other states: patience and money, in large doses, until the breakthrough comes. In Texas, that means pursuing incremental wins until a base of support calcifies in the House, laying the groundwork for when the Senate is run by someone more sympathetic.

“The effort to bring destination resorts to Texas has received an overwhelming amount of support from Texans and lawmakers since it was first introduced, and the groundswell of momentum is only continuing to build,” Andy Abboud, Sands’ senior vice president of government relations, said in a statement. “Texans want to decide and vote on this issue, and we look forward to working with the legislature to give them that opportunity this session.”

Opponents include the Texas Republican Party, the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, advocacy groups like Texans Against Gambling, and a litany of conservative activist organizations. While Patrick’s shared opposition virtually ensures nothing will make it out of the Legislature this session, the anti-gambling contingent still wants to prevent gaming interests from establishing a beachhead in the House.

“Sports gambling and casinos are economically regressive, scholarly studies show, because they produce nothing of external value,” the Texans Against Gambling group wrote on social media last week. “They do not spur long-term economic growth. Instead they hinder it. Keep Texas, Texas.”

The comment came days after Gov. Greg Abbott voiced guarded support for sports betting legalization, telling the Houston Chronicle, “I don’t have a problem” with such a proposal — echoing comments from 2023 when he told the USA TODAY Network he would not stand in the way.

Abbott’s comments generated a burst of excitement among sports betting advocates, paired with the release of a statewide poll from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs that found 60% of Texans support legalized sports betting, including 64% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans.

Still, sports betting legislation has yet to be filed in the House, and the author who carried the measure through the chamber two years ago, Republican Rep. Jeff Leach of Plano, told the Austin American-Statesman in December he did not plan to push his own legislation again unless the Senate moved first. Leach did not respond to a request for comment.

Karina Kling, a spokesperson for the Sports Betting Alliance, said the group expects legislation to be filed soon in the House. Lawmakers have until March 14, the 60th day of the session, to file most bills, including gambling measures.

The same University of Houston poll measured 73% support for legalizing “destination resort casinos” in Texas — a prospect for which Abbott has also signaled tentative support in recent years.

Statewide backing for casinos has consistently outpaced that for sports betting, said Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor who helped conduct the survey. Still, it was sports betting legislation that cleared the Texas House in 2023 with 101 votes, while the casino measure fell short with just 92 votes.

Texas’ gaming laws can be changed only by amending the state constitution, which requires two-thirds approval in both chambers — including the 150-member House — and support from a majority of voters on the statewide ballot. Rep. Charlie Geren, a Fort Worth Republican who carried the casino amendment in the lower chamber two years ago, did not respond to a request for comment about whether he planned to revive the effort again this session.

Jones said that for the handful of Republican lawmakers who voted for sports betting and against resort casinos, it likely came down to a belief that voters would have a more muted response to online sports betting, because it is not “physically present” in the same way as resort-style casinos and the “actual visuals of people engaged in gambling” there.

“I think, from a legislator’s perspective, for at least a subset, there was the belief that the blowback for voting for online sports betting is going to be more reduced than the blowback for voting for casinos,” Jones said.

Those who support online sports betting argue that many Texans are already betting illegally and spending millions of untaxed dollars that would otherwise generate revenue for the state. Legalizing and regulating the practice, they argue, would shield those users from risky, illicit markets.

The failed 2023 casino legislation would have authorized at least eight licenses for casino gambling at destination resorts across Texas, with preference for metro areas where horse-racing has already been authorized. Geren amended the bill to set aside 80% of casino tax revenue for teacher pay raises and cost-of-living adjustments for retired teachers.

But while supportive lawmakers touted the jobs and other economic benefits of casinos, opponents argued that casinos would lead to spikes in human trafficking, domestic violence and gambling addiction, bringing more trouble than it was worth. The measure was also bitterly opposed by the Eagle Pass-based Kickapoo Tribe, which is allowed under federal law to operate a casino offering bingo-based games, a notch below Las Vegas-style options like blackjack and roulette. Tribal leaders said the legislation would have wiped out their main source of revenue — guests from San Antonio — by diverting them to a new casino in the Alamo City.

Both sides of the gambling push in Texas — resort casinos and online sports betting — could face steeper odds this session, Jones said, with the ouster of several pro-gambling Republican incumbents who were replaced by hardline conservatives opposed to gaming measures.

And the House’s new leader, Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, opposed casino and sports betting legislation last session, while his predecessor, Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, had said he wanted to authorize “destination-style casinos that are high quality.”

Even if Burrows wanted to expand gambling, Jones said, the move would provide ammunition for his critics from the Texas GOP’s rightmost flank — most of whom oppose efforts to legalize casinos and online sports betting and are eager to challenge Burrows and his allies in next year’s primaries.

“The challenge will depend in part on the legislation that he passes and does not pass this session,” Jones said of Burrows. “So, strategically, it may not make a lot of sense for Burrows to bring online sports betting and casino gambling to the floor, because if he passes that legislation, that's a potential liability in 2026.”

Thus far, the only gambling legalization measure has been filed by Sen. Carol Alvarado, a Houston Democrat who has penned similar legislation each session since she joined the Legislature in 2009. The proposal, like in past years, would impose a 15% tax on gross casino revenue and use it for public education, public safety and “responsible gaming” education for adults.

Though the measure is unlikely to go anywhere in the Patrick-led Senate, Alvarado said filing it gives her more excuses to evangelize about the tourism, conventions and other business that would flow in by way of the new high-end hotels.

“You do these things with the notion that we're in for the long haul,” she said. “This is not a sprint, it's a marathon.”

Disclosure: Rice University and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.