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SportsTranscript
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.