Texas Sports Betting Bill Faces Uncertain Future in 2025

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00:00All right, so I wish we had better news to start off with here, but we are just telling

00:04you how it is.

00:05Texas sports betting bill, we're going to find out pretty soon if this is going to go

00:08one way or the other.

00:09And unfortunately, it doesn't seem like we're making much progress here.

00:12No, and it's not totally surprising.

00:15I mean, I know I've been coming on here a lot this year talking about all the momentum

00:19that's been building, but all that's been with that caveat of, you know, in the Senate,

00:23you have Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick saying it's very unlikely that he'll bring sports

00:28betting to a vote.

00:29Because in general, it's not a majority Republican supported bill.

00:34It needs the bipartisanship.

00:36It is Republican sponsored, but you know, he is the stopgap there.

00:43Even though Governor Greg Abbott has come out and said he won't be in the way of it.

00:48So that's kind of there.

00:50What did happen, though, is kind of the House makeup changed.

00:55If you remember, in 2023, an online sports betting bill did pass the House with its hundred

01:00votes that was needed for two-thirds majority in the House, which it needs in both chambers

01:07because it's a constitutional amendment, which then goes to a public vote.

01:12And this year, you've got two bills, including one for online sports betting, one for casino

01:17destination resorts and sports betting, both introduced by Republican representatives.

01:23So that's, you know, a good sign for starters.

01:26It'll get started moving.

01:27But for those who think it can kind of take the same path and pass as it did in the House

01:32in 2023, a little bit of a problem.

01:35There's 26 new representatives that are Republicans, many of which are against sports betting and

01:40gambling expansion, which puts that 100 vote milestone kind of in limbo.

01:46And of course, you'd have to pass the House to get to that Senate because there isn't

01:49a Republican Senate sponsor for sports betting yet.

01:53So Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick still is saying, you know what, we don't have the Republican

01:57support in the Senate.

01:59It's a no-go.

02:00And the biggest quote in a Dallas Morning News story recently kind of outlining this

02:05was from a representative, Matt Shaheen, and he said, I have a whole coalition of organizations

02:10and we're going to make sure it's dead.

02:12It's six feet under.

02:13It's not going to pass the House.

02:16So if you've got to rep that, dug in against it, it doesn't look great.

02:20I mean, even though you've got lots of organizations in the state fighting for it, lots of money

02:24in from the sports teams and owners and casino magnate, Mary Maddison, you know, again, lots

02:30of momentum going, but because of that one big problem in the Senate and the majority

02:35of the Texas GOP being against gambling expansion, Texas looks like another year of long shots

02:41and it will likely be waiting until 2027.

02:44But again, you never know.

02:46Anything can happen.

02:47That's why these sessions are in progress.

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