Texas Sports Betting 2025: Expect a Lone Star Let Down

Posted on: February 14, 2025, 11:04h. 

Last updated on: February 14, 2025, 12:35h.

Todd Shriber @etfgodfather Read More
Expertise: Financial, Gaming Business, Mergers and Acquisitions.
  • Texas sports betting legislation surfaces again
  • Odds of passage slim due to opposition from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

Earlier this week, Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth) again filed legislation to give Texas voters the opportunity to have their say on online sports wagering, but some market observers believe bettors and the industry shouldn’t get their hopes up.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R). A research firm points to him as the reason why odds are long the state will put sports betting on the ballot this year. (Image: Governing Magazine)

Geren’s bill, HJR 134, aims to put the sports betting question on the ballot in November. Under Texas law, gaming expansion requires altering the state constitution and amendments to that document must be put before voters. The Republican lawmaker reintroduced sports betting legislation after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) made encouraging comments about the issue in a recent interview.

I don’t have a problem with online sports betting,” said the Republican governor on an episode of the Texas: The Issue Is podcast. “I’m not standing in the way of legislation moving forward and I wouldn’t rule out signing [a sports betting bill] into law.”

While acknowledging Abbott’s comments are encouraging, Eilers & Krejcik Gaming (EKG) says the remarks likely represent a more neutral stance held by the governor on sports betting than an outright endorsement.

Patrick Stands in Way of Texas Sports Betting

As has been the case with previous efforts to get online sports wagering on the ballot in Texas, Lt. Gov. Patrick looms large because he controls the docket for the state Senate.

Last year, the Texas House of Representatives passed a mobile sports wagering bill, but that legislation died in the Senate. Potentially making matters worse for the near-term sports betting outlook in Texas is the point that the platform adopted by the Republican party last June included explicit anti-gaming expansion clauses.

Patrick “has nearly unilateral control over which bills are voted on in the Senate. Patrick maintains there is insufficient support for sports betting among Republican senators, and is reportedly unwilling to pass the bill with bipartisan support,” adds EKG.

The research firm also stated the obvious: if Patrick doesn’t soon change his views on sports betting, there’s little chance voters will see the issue on the November ballot.

Texas Sports Betting Hope Burns Eternal

Entering this year, the conventional wisdom as it pertained to online sports betting expansion centered around the hope that Georgia and Minnesota would join the party with Mississippi and Washington, where sports wagering is legal, moving to online models.

Though coveted by the industry, Georgia and Minnesota are states where sports betting legislation goes to die, and it remains to be seen if that changes this year. As for Texas, gaming companies’ desire for legal sports wagering there is obvious and long-running.

Not only is it the second-largest state in the country, but Texas would allow for a competitive sports betting market, free of control by tribal gaming entities. Currently, only the Seminole Tribe’s Hard Rock Bet takes sports wagers in Florida, and that form of wagering isn’t permitted in California because tribes there aren’t ready to push a new, related ballot initiative.