Is Sports Betting Coming to Georgia Soon? Updates & Insights

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00:00Sam, do we say hello to the state of Georgia?

00:04Man, I feel like I've been teased by Georgia.

00:06I feel like I've been down this road before.

00:08And it is in the South where it's much harder to get sports betting legalized

00:12than in some other places.

00:13But again, thanks for coming on the show.

00:15Is Georgia a real possibility here over the next year?

00:19It's definitely a possibility, Craig.

00:21But how big of a possibility is kind of the question that remains to be seen.

00:26You mentioned we've talked about Georgia a lot over the past couple of years.

00:29And that's because they've flirted with the idea of sports betting,

00:32but never really got a deal done.

00:34And what happened this week is they restarted that whole process yet again

00:38because the legislature meets every year, considers something, doesn't do it,

00:42but it keeps getting put before its desk.

00:44It's going to be a huge state if it ever does go online.

00:47It would be about the fifth largest active sports betting market.

00:50So there's a lot of care from the sports betting companies to keep doing this

00:54and keep trying.

00:55This week, lawmakers met with what's called the House Study Committee on Gaming.

01:01It was mostly a general discussion on gambling in the state of Georgia,

01:05which is pretty restricted in general.

01:07But sports betting was also on the table as part of what's expected to be a months-long process

01:13to study how we do this, how many licenses we might give out,

01:17which companies might be involved.

01:19So the committee is going to meet through the fall and has all the way up until December 1st

01:23to make recommendations for a bill that would create the framework of sports betting.

01:28So it is still a very long road ahead.

01:30We're not even talking about a bill being made yet.

01:32We're talking about legislators coming together.

01:35But that is good news considering that there's a lot of time out in the calendar

01:39to get this whole thing through and that they're being so thoughtful in this part of the process about it.

01:44You know, again, Georgia is a huge untapped market.

01:47You've got crazy football fan bases there.

01:50You've got pro teams in pretty much every major sport.

01:53And a lot of Georgians who are into betting are driving across state lines.

01:57There was actually a 100% increase in Georgians trying to access legal sports books,

02:02which, of course, they're not able to do in Georgia.

02:05But this company, GeoComply, tracked that they were trying to access it from within the state of Georgia.

02:11So I wouldn't hold your breath here.

02:13This is sort of like lawmakers finally setting a meeting to plan a meeting for how sports betting might look.

02:19So it's very not far along in the process at all.

02:23The real question is going to be whether they can all get on the same page.

02:26In the past, they've agreed that gambling should happen.

02:29It's happening anyway.

02:30They need to regulate it.

02:30But they haven't agreed on how exactly to do that.

02:33There's religious groups, of course, which are very strong in the Georgia legislature,

02:38which have opposed legislation in the past.

02:41So they're going to have to all figure out how to get on the same page here.

02:43But it's getting late early for Georgia.

02:46They're one of only 11 states that doesn't have sports betting.

02:48So they really need to figure this out sooner rather than later.

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