Georgia Sports Betting Monopoly Retained by Offshore Sportsbooks After Lawmakers Fold

Posted on: March 7, 2025, 08:50h. 

Last updated on: March 7, 2025, 09:31h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.
  • Legislation to authorize sports betting in Georgia is dead
  • Georgia has no casino gambling
  • Sportsbooks say Georgia is a top market target

Georgia sports betting will remain limited to illegal offshore sportsbooks and underground bookies after state lawmakers in the Atlanta capital opted to forego voting on a sports gambling bill for yet another legislative session.

Georgia sports betting bills
Sports betting will remain on hold in Georgia after lawmakers in Atlanta folded on legislation to expand gaming in the Peach State for another year. Recent polls show a majority of state residents think adults should be allowed to bet legally on professional and college sports. (Image: Shutterstock)

Thursday night marked the deadline for legislation in the Georgia General Assembly to pass from one chamber to the other. House Bill 686, an act to authorize retail and mobile sports wagering through an extension of the Georgia Lottery, and House Resolution 450, which would have put the issue before voters, both died after not going up for a full vote on the House floor.

It came in late and I guess [lawmakers] just weren’t there yet,” said Rep. Chuck Martin (R-Alpharetta), who chairs the Higher Education Committee where both measures were forwarded to the full House late Thursday evening. “We’ll keep working with people and trying to do what’s in the best interest of the state.”

What’s not in the best interest of residents is continuing to be forced to use illegal sports betting operations to place a bet on Georgia’s beloved pro and college sports teams.

Proponents of legal sports gambling say sports betting is already happening in the Peach State through offshore online gambling websites and local bookies. Those oddsmakers, however, provide no consumer protections such as guarantees that their winning bets will be paid and responsible gaming safeguards.

Georgia Sports Betting Market

Sports betting is legal in 39 states and Washington, DC. The remaining 11 states face uphill battles to join the industry that expanded rapidly following the US Supreme Court’s May 2018 repeal of a federal law that had limited single-game sports betting to Nevada.

Many of the outstanding nonsports betting states have conservative, religious opponents. That’s true in Georgia, where powerful Baptist lobbyists seemingly won over their GOP representatives for another legislative session in advocating against new forms of gambling, which in 2025, included proposals to legalize commercial casinos and even iGaming.

Along with California and Texas, Georgia is considered by legal sportsbooks as a top legislative target. Home to over 11 million people and the eighth-most populated state, mobile gaming geolocation leader GeoComply projects that Georgia would receive more than $110 million annually in state tax revenue from legal sports gambling. GeoComply said in January that there are more than 300K online sports betting accounts registered to Georgia residents who travel into neighboring Tennessee and Florida to place their mobile wagers.

Georgians Want Sports Betting

Several polls over the past year have suggested that a strong majority of Georgians feel sports betting should be legal and regulated.  

In January, a poll from the University of Georgia reported that 63% of registered voters support allowing adults to bet on sports. More than half (54%) said their support weighed the fact that Georgians are currently crossing state lines or using illegal betting channels to participate.

Another 15% said they would support the state authorizing sports betting if all of the associated tax revenue would go to education programs such as the HOPE scholarship initiative that’s presently supported by the Georgia Lottery.

HOPE — Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally — provides scholarships, grants, and loans for students seeking higher education at state public and private universities, and public technical colleges. Since its inception in 1993, HOPE has provided more than $14 billion of financial assistance.