Share
Proposed Texas commercial casinos are far from having enough Republican support in the Senate as the 2025 legislative session approaches, according to the state’s lieutenant governor.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who leads the Senate, has made it a tradition to dismiss prospects of gambling bills on the eve of a new session. But he’s never before put out a number showing how far off the Senate is from passing a constitutional amendment authorizing casinos.
Speaking on the WFAA podcast Y’all-tics last week, Patrick said he doesn’t expect the Senate to give casino legalization any time this year because it lacks support from his Republican colleagues:
I might have three or four Senators out of 20 Republicans who support it. That’s it.
If the legislature passes a constitutional amendment, it would still need approval from Texas voters. In Texas, constitutional amendments can only be put on the ballot for a popular vote by state lawmakers.
Rough start for Texas casino efforts in Senate
Bill prefiling for the 2025 Texas legislative session is now open.
Texas Rep. Jeff Leach, who sponsored Texas sports betting legislation last year, said gaming bills will have to start in the Senate next year.
In the last Texas legislative session in 2023, casino and sports betting bills started in the House and were called to the floor for votes in the final days of the session. The sports betting constitutional amendment passed with 101 votes.
A bill authorizing eight resort casinos received 92 votes on second reading. Needing 100, it wasn’t called for a vote on third reading.
It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Patrick quickly tweeted that the sports betting bill passed by the House would not receive any consideration in the Senate’s final days.
House members don’t want to spend time on gambling bills again until they have an indication the Senate is ready to move.
Las Vegas Sands has been the biggest advocate for building resort casinos in Texas. Last month at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, Sands SVP of Government Relations Andy Abboud agreed that the bill would start in the Senate.
Partisanship dominates Texas Senate politics
Texas Rep. Charlie Geren, who sponsored the House casino bill last year, delayed the third reading vote multiple times trying to get to 100 votes. Reportedly, he came up three short.
So why is nearly two-thirds of the House willing to let the public decide the casino issue, while the Senate appears so far off?
Patrick explained that it boils down to a philosophical difference between the Republican leaders of each chamber.
House Speaker Dade Phelan would call a bill if it had the votes to pass from the full House membership, regardless of which party those votes would come from. However, Patrick will only call a bill to the floor if it has support from a large number of Republican Senators.
Patrick explained the House vote for casinos last year included every Democrat but only, he believed, 28 out of 85 Republicans:
They say, ‘Oh, we almost passed it last session.’ You know, they almost passed it with every Democrat voting for it and about one of four Republicans voting for it. We don’t do that in the Senate.
Patrick called out Phelan for allowing the gaming votes to proceed in the House without majority Republican support. Entering 2025, Phelan is facing a challenge for House Speaker from Rep. David Cook.
“The difference between the Senate and the House is we don’t let the Democrats run the Senate,” Patrick said, “We know how to work across the aisle without ceding power to the other side to let them run the Senate like Dave lets Democrats run the House. We’re a Republican state.”
How many Senate Republican votes do Texas casinos need?
With 31 members of the Texas Senate, it takes 16 votes to pass a bill. However, putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot requires two-thirds of members, or 21.
Where Patrick sometimes is seen as a roadblock is that the Texas Senate may get close to passing a casino bill if accounting for all Democrat votes. Hypothetically, if all 11 Democrats support casinos, only half of the 20 Republicans need to be on board.
However, Patrick said that he won’t allow casino legislation to come to a vote unless it has support from about three-quarters of Senate Republicans.
“If I don’t have 15 or 16 Republicans out of my 19 or 20, then we’re not passing the bill out,” Patrick said. “It’s just not what we do.”
Senate Republican membership increased from 19 to 20 this election with Republican Adam Hinojosa defeating incumbent Democrat Sen. Morgan LaMantia.
Patrick dismisses accusations of blocking casino legislation
Patrick has heard the blame put on him for blocking Texas casinos. He points the blame back to industry stakeholders on a thus-far ineffective campaign.
“So it doesn’t have the support, and the casino people have tried to say, ‘well, it’s all about the Senate, it’s all about Dan Patrick or it’s all about whomever.’ No, they’ve never worked the vote. They’ve come in and spent millions and millions and millions of dollars and they just think magically it happens. It doesn’t.”
At G2E, Abboud also said that Patrick isn’t a roadblock. He believes what the lieutenant governor said here, that he won’t stand in the way of passage if enough Republican Senators are in support.
Patrick said both he and Gov. Greg Abbott are open to considering the casino constitutional amendment.
Greg Abbott and I have said the same thing. In his case, he has said if the legislature passes a bill to his desk, he’ll look at it. Remember, Greg Abbott back in 2016 said he wouldn’t expand the footprint at all of gaming. So now he said he’ll look at it. Well, I’ve said the same thing as lieutenant governor. If the members have a bill and they get the votes together, I’ll look at it.
Still, when Patrick wants the Texas Senate to pass legislation, it tends to get done. He’s not backing Texas casinos, which makes it more difficult to get Republican support.
“I’m not leading the parade on it; I’m not stopping the parade on it,” Patrick said. “But we do not pass bills where only 20% or 25% of the elected [Republican] officials support it. We just don’t do that on any bill.”
Constituent advocacy for casinos might persuade Senators
Industry stakeholders like Sands aren’t asking for Texas Republicans to authorize casinos. They’re merely asking for them to allow their constituents the right to choose whether or not they want casinos.
But Patrick says their constituents don’t want it:
Sands particularly, they’ve been working very hard to get it passed here. And I’ve continued to say to them that it doesn’t have the support of the members because the members don’t have support of [their constituents].
Patrick pointed to the end of last session as an indication that Texans aren’t asking for the opportunity to vote on casinos.
“When we finished the session, no one called and said, ‘Oh, you didn’t pass the casino bill.’ It’s not on anyone’s top-20 list,” Patrick said. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t people who really want it. But, like anything else, it really bubbles up from the ground to tell a House member or a Senator that they want this legislation to pass, and that really hasn’t happened.”
At G2E, Abboud highlighted the strong community support for casinos because of the economic impact they will have locally. He added that 60% of Texans support the casino constitutional amendment and 80% want the right to vote on it.
However, Patrick said he isn’t seeing that public momentum for casino legalization.
I see no support there for it. Things can change, but as of today there’s no groundswell out there. And if you poll it, you look at Republican primary voters, about half of those voters are strongly against it.
Sports betting plus casinos: an even harder sell
Abboud and representatives of sports betting operators presented a unified front at G2E.
While they support each other’s efforts, Abboud said they were still deciding whether to push for one ballot referendum for both casinos and sports betting in 2025.
Abboud made it sound like casinos were pushing for the one-resolution approach but sports betting stakeholders were undecided.
Hearing Patrick say that casino legalization needs support from 11 or 12 more Senators might make sports betting stakeholders think twice about combining efforts.
Of course, that Patrick brought up casinos in his discussion and didn’t mention sports betting could show that the casino issue is more prominent.
Texas gaming prospects appear bleak in 2025
At G2E, Abboud expressed optimism about Texas casino passing in 2025. He put the odds at “maybe a better chance than 50%.”
Abboud presented the effort as “down to just a handful of votes that we need to sway.” That doesn’t appear to mesh with what Patrick is saying. However, perhaps Abboud has more active discussions with Senators on the issue than the lieutenant governor.
Patrick doesn’t appear to think Texas casinos will gain support in the Senate anytime soon.
“If a bill ever started to get close to moving, you’re going to hear from the other side,” Patrick said. “You’re going to hear from the pastors, you’re going to hear from the business community, you’re going to hear from the citizens who oppose it. Right now you haven’t even heard from them because they know what I know, the votes aren’t there.”
Patrick said he expects that Texas casino legalization won’t even receive a hearing in the Senate next year:
I know there are people who want it. We’re not trying to tell people what they should do in their lifestyle. I’m just saying the votes aren’t there for it. And we’ll have 6,000 bills filed probably this session. We don’t give a hearing to any bill that doesn’t have [Republican] support. We don’t have the time.
