Playing true to its singular, “onery” moniker, Texas–along with California–is the last major territory holding out against the rising sweep of legal, regulated sports betting in the USA.
Yet for many the Lone Star State–home to the storied Dallas Cowboys, “America’s Football Team”; baseball’s Houston Astros; basketball’s San Antonio Spurs and a slew of top sporting colleges–is no longer fixed on a figurative game of Texas Hold’em, blocking online sportsbooks and wider sports wagering.
Reliable sources say that if a poll were taken today some 60-to-70 percent of adult Texans would vote to legalise sports betting in their state, which, with an annual GDP of some US$2.7 trillion (£2.3tn), would be the 10th richest country in the world if independent.
Crucially, Texas’s 67-year-old governor, the Republican Greg Abbott, who has been confined to a wheelchair since a catastrophic accident while out jogging in his mid-20s, recently stated that he “has no problem with online sports betting”.
“Ironically, in Mexico Texans can freely and legally gamble on a full panoply of U.S. sports.”
And, in a wake-up and smell the coffee moment, he has conceded that many Texans already bet on sports by the simple runaround of placing wagers through online platforms — or travelling to neighbouring states Arkansas and Louisiana, where betting on sports is legal, or even to Mexico in the south, where, ironically, they can freely and legally gamble on a full panoply of U.S. sports.
In the states of New Mexico and Oklahoma, which border Texas to the north, sports betting is only legal through books tied to Indian Tribal casinos.
Abbott–himself a hardcore adherent of President Trump’s strident anti-immigration policies–and Patrick are now vying for control of the soul of the Texas Republican party in an increasingly existential contest.
Unlike most U.S. states, where the office of lieutenant-governor is largely ceremonial, in Texas the post has heft.
For here the Lt. Gov. is also president of the State Senate and has the authority to establish all Special and Standing Committees, appoint all chairpersons and members, and assign all senate legislation to the committee of their choice.
The Lt. Gov. has real power, and Patrick is using it to challenge Abbott, who has ambitions to run for an unprecedented fourth gubernatorial term in elections next year.
“Sports betting is threatening to trigger open political conflict between the two frenemies.”
Sports betting and the legal extension of wider iGaming in the state, population 30 million and three times the land size of the U.K., has now become a potential “casus belli”, threatening to trigger open political conflict between the two frenemies.
While Abbott has murmured approval, Patrick has come down hard against.
Currently, the only forms of legal gambling in the state are the Texas Lottery, parimutuel betting on horse and greyhound racing and three Native American casinos run by the federally-recognised Kickapoo, Tigua and Alabama-Coushatta Tribes.
All other types of gambling–with the exception of charity bingo and raffles–are illegal.
Which brings us to the nub of the “Legalize-it!” argument: Just who is going to control the vast bank of gambling riches on offer?
As in California–that other great prize for U.S. iGaming and online sports betting–, it could be thought of as a straight shoot-out between the Native American Tribes–who have the constitutional sanction to site gaming businesses on their reservations–and the big, hungry heavy-hitters, such as FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM, who dominate action in the majority of jurisdictions where online sportsbooks are legal and live – some 31 states out of 50, as well as the U.S. Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico and federal Washington D.C.
The big three U.S. iGaming companies form the bedrock of the pro-gambling Texas Sports Betting Alliance, along with the aforementioned Cowboys, Astros and Spurs sporting franchises.
On paper it’s a powerful alliance, and no doubt, as recently agreed in Florida, the Tribes and sportsbooks may very well come to an arrangement to share the spoils if online sports betting is legalised.
“Both men are MAGA acolytes. And both want to reside in the governor’s mansion next year.”
Recent efforts to widen the scope of gambling in the Lone Star State have failed by narrow margins.
In 2023, for example, State Representative Jeff Leach (R) introduced a bill to legalise sports betting in Texas, which passed handsomely in the House but failed in the Senate.
And last year, Texas State Senator Carol Alvarado (D) proposed similar legislation.
But despite this current of cross-party political support for gambling in the state; despite the economic heft of the Betting Alliance; and despite the favour of Native American Tribes, the outcome of sports betting and liberalised gambling in Texas will be decided on the outcome of an intra-party power play between a feisty Republican governor and his nominal subordinate.
Both men are MAGA acolytes.
And both want to reside in the governor’s mansion next year.
By failing to legalise sports betting, and 360 iGaming, Texas is literally losing billions of dollars in revenue every year.
But there again it’s always been “onery” and rejoiced in being the Lonesome Cowboy of American myth.
