00:00Let's move on to a story that we'll follow up on with you.
00:02We had Sam McQuillan on earlier this week, Pat.
00:05He said that, you know, maybe some progress being made in the state of Georgia in a year that we're making virtually no progress in sports betting.
00:12For those of you who are unfamiliar, Missouri is the only city or state this year that's going to legalize sports betting and have it go online.
00:19That will happen in December.
00:20Other than that, we're not going to get any other state legalized.
00:23Is Georgia a possibility for 2026, Pat?
00:26I think we're getting there.
00:28I think this is something, I mean, as long as I've been coming on this show for, what, four years almost now, you know, we're looking at Georgia.
00:35Georgia is one of those states that we're always, ah, the chances are pretty good because there are efforts.
00:40And every year there's multiple bills introduced to legalize sports betting.
00:44But there's different opinions from the legislators how they want to get it done.
00:49You know, some say, not want, a constitutional amendment is necessary to pass that.
00:55And that includes a vote by the voters at the ballot box.
00:59But then others say, well, no, we can just legalize it under the lottery and it's fine.
01:03It's just as simple as that.
01:04So there's that differing opinion and they clash.
01:07And then, of course, as we always talk about in the southeast, there's quite a bit of pushback from the religious right who say, you know, gambling is immoral and we don't want to legalize that at all.
01:18And so you have that going on.
01:20But, of course, you know, the last couple of years we've seen efforts get nearly to the finish line and then stall out because of these differences.
01:28Well, now we finally have a House study committee that started meeting this week and will continue to meet until they make recommendations in December of, hey, what do we need to do to do gambling in Georgia?
01:39The first meeting was largely based about casino gambling, so it didn't really touch on sports betting.
01:46That'll be touched on in the coming months and as will parimutual horse racing betting options.
01:51So we'll get come December some recommendations from legislators on how they think it's best to do it and how we go forward.
01:58There was a bill that is still alive from this last session that will get picked up in January, February, whenever they come back to the session.
02:07And we'll see what happens.
02:08That would go through the constitutional amendment process, which would include a vote in November 2026.
02:13So not doing it this year doesn't set it back very much at all, if any, based on what the timeline could be.
02:19So if that does happen, you'd see a 2027 launch.
02:23So we'll see if that goes ahead.
02:25But, yeah, slow progress in Georgia.
02:27But I think this is more progress maybe than ever because now we can finally see lawmakers come together, say, hey, this is what we like, what we don't like, why we disagree.
02:36Can we come to a nice agreement and rather than do it kind of off session and in a calmer setting maybe than, you know, trying to shove things all through the legislative process when you're trying to get things done before adjourning.
02:50So, yeah, a little bit of progress I think we're seeing in Georgia here.
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