Just about every day of the week, high-stakes Texas gamblers from Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Midland-Odessa and other Texas cities board non-stop flights to Las Vegas for free. The casinos pick up the tab – not only for the flight but also for rooms, meals, drinks and incidentals. All the gambler has to do is agree to buy a certain amount of chips and put them into play.
Former Texas Monthly editor Greg Curtis, writing about this phenomenon years ago, suggested that the casinos saw these bettors as a good bet for two reasons: “Texans like to gamble, and they are bad gamblers.”
The high rollers aren’t the only ones, of course. Thousands of Texans pay their own way to Sin City for the pleasure of losing money on slots, blackjack, poker, baccarat, craps, roulette and other games of chance. About the only thing that actually stays in Vegas is their money.
Texans drive to New Mexico, Oklahoma and Mississippi to gamble in casinos, not to mention Texas-based casinos run by the three federally recognized Native American tribes in the state. Busloads of senior citizens from Houston and elsewhere head to Lake Charles, La., to feed their retirement money into slot machines. Countless Texans stop off at the Stop-N-Go after work and pick up a lottery ticket while paying for their bread and milk at the counter. Oh, and don’t forget the office pool; March Madness is only a few weeks away.
So, bad gamblers we may be, but there’s no doubt we enjoy our gaming ineptitude. We’ve been gambling at least since a failed congressman named David Crockett bet the Tennessee farm on a new beginning in Texas. Three-quarters of a century later, oilman Anthony Lucas bet on a nondescript salt dome south of Beaumont; Spindletop was the result. More recently, a freshman pre-med student from Houston working on computers in his UT-Austin dorm room bet his medical future on selling PCs directly. Needless to say, Michael Dell hit it big.
So, here’s the perplexing question: If gambling is in our Texas blood, why do we tolerate some of the strictest gambling laws in the country?
The answer, one gaming lobbyist told us, is not only Texas-sized hypocrisy. When it comes to social issues, he said, we’re awfully slow to change. He mentioned liquor by the drink. Most states allowed restaurants and other establishments to begin serving liquor by the drink shortly after the repeal of Prohibition. Texans still had to join “clubs” for the privilege until 1971.
“It’s slow,” the lobbyist said, “but it’s coming. And when it happens, we’ll be able to regulate gaming and derive revenue from it.”
Again this legislative session, we have an opportunity to end the charade. And well we should. In decades past, this editorial board opposed legalized gambling while backing exceptions for charity raffles and Native American casinos. The sheer scale of betting already taking place in Texas has persuaded us it’s time to let Texans decide for themselves whether gambling should be legal.
Revenue was key to the gambling argument during the last session, when lawmakers gathered under the cloud of a pandemic-afflicted economy. With state coffers overflowing this session, the need for additional revenue is less urgent. Nevertheless, powerful gaming interests still have their money on Texas, as they have for the past couple of decades. In the wake of millions of dollars in campaign contributions during the 2022 election season, more than 200 gambling lobbyists have descended on Austin.
Here’s why, as Chronicle sports writer Brian T. Smith noted in a column last week: The Texas Sports Betting Alliance, relying on a report from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, estimates that more than $8 billion is illegally bet in Texas annually. If legislation is approved, Texas could become the largest legal sports betting market in the United States.
Last session, Las Vegas Sands, the gaming empire founded by the late Sheldon Adelson, backed legislation that would have given Texas voters the opportunity to decide whether to allow “destination resorts” – casinos, in other words, as opposed to a row of slot machines in every convenience store. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate, but with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick opposed, the bill never got a committee hearing. Legislation to legalize sports betting also was unsuccessful.
This session, state Sen. Carol Alvarado, a Houston Democrat, has filed Senate Joint Resolution 17, legislation that would give voters a chance to allow high-end resort-style casinos in a limited number of metropolitan areas, including one in the Houston area, and to authorize sports wagering. Her focus, she told sports writer Smith, is on creating jobs and diversifying the state’s economy. She has the backing of Landry’s CEO and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, whose family was part of the Maceo gaming empire in Galveston decades ago. He also sits on the board of DraftKings and owns the Golden Nugget right across the Louisiana border.
“You want to use it to bring people into the state, not just the people in the state,” Fertitta said in a recent meeting with the editorial board. “Eighty-something percent of my business in Lake Charles is from the state of Texas.”
“I’m excited about it,” Alvarado told Smith. “I’ve been filing some version of this since 2009, and I’ve been very patient, and I’m going to continue to be patient because I think it’s inevitable. Eventually, it’s going to happen.”
Her prediction is likely a good bet, although so-called “mobile sports betting,” rather than “destination resorts,” may have the inside track. The Texas Sports Alliance, a coalition of race tracks, betting platforms and professional teams, including the four Houston teams (Astros, Texans, Dynamo and Rockets), along with the Dallas Mavericks, the Austin FC and the San Antonio Spurs, are backing a resolution for a general vote and an accompanying sports-betting bill sponsored by state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican and Patrick lieutenant. State Sen. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, is sponsoring a companion bill.
Capitol observers this session say the lieutenant governor may be coming around to mobile sports betting. Gov. Greg Abbott seems amenable, while his predecessor, former Gov. Rick Perry, has signed on as a lobbyist. House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, also is receptive.
“Sports betting is going to happen whether it is regulated or not,” said Astros owner Jim Crane in a statement released last week by the Texas Sports Betting Alliance. “Rather than having Texans betting illegally through unknown companies in foreign countries, this bill will allow controls and safeguards for sports betting in Texas while generating significant revenue that will be used to reduce everyone’s property taxes in Texas.”
Passage of legislation to legalize gambling doesn’t mean that Texans can immediately pick up their phones and start laying down legal bets. Legalization requires a constitutional amendment, which means legislation would need two-thirds support in the 31-member Senate and 150-member House before the proposal goes to voters in a November election. Texans deserve that opportunity.
The state’s Native American tribes have long been among the opposition – for obvious reasons, since they enjoy the exclusive right to own casinos and gaming operations in Texas. They do deserve special consideration and the state should learn from the loss of critical economic lifelines that tribes in other states have experienced.
The Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission and other religious groups also oppose expanded gambling opportunities in Texas, citing gambling addiction, crime and other social concerns. We share those concerns and urge lawmakers, and yet whether Texas legalizes gambling or doesn’t probably is of minimal significance to those determined to play games of chance. As with drinking and other potentially harmful “vices,” prohibition is rarely the answer.
Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia allow sports betting. Even more states allow casinos. It’s time for Texas to join their ranks.
Houston Chronicle
