Gambling won in Texas House speaker race. That helps explain this curious Trump move | Opinion
Gambling was a winner in the Texas House speaker’s race, and that helps explain a mystery.
After two election cycles in which the president-elect endorsed candidates in Texas even down to the county courthouse level, Donald Trump went silent in the race for one of the two most powerful offices in Texas.
Speaker Dustin Burrows’ victory over Mansfield state Rep. David Cook does not mean slot machines will be coming tomorrow to the Stockyards or Choctaw Stadium.
But having business leaders running the House and not church activists might make it possible someday.
A proposal for online sports betting passed the House last session but never came to the Senate floor. A bill for eight gambling casinos was stopped short in the House of being put to a public vote.
The new MAGA House members — elected mainly because Gov. Greg Abbott wants to give parents money for private schools — seem less likely at first glance to pass gambling bills.
But sports and casino owners Miriam Adelson of the Dallas Mavericks and Las Vegas Sands and Tilman Fertitta of the Houston Rockets and Golden Nugget Casinos continue to argue their point for sports betting, now legal in all but 11 states, or destination tourist casinos.
They seem to have some pull.
Both Adelson and Fertitta are co-hosts along with Facebook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg of a black-tie inaugural ball reception for Trump on Jan. 20.
Trump also has nominated Fertitta, owner of Del Frisco’s, Saltgrass Steak House and other Landry’s Inc. restaurants, as ambassador to his Sicilian ancestors’ homeland of Italy.
But it was Adelson who donated $100 million to a Trump PAC and scattered more than $13 million to Texas candidates. That included both former Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who supports resort-style casinos, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has blocked casino bills.
It would take 10 of the 19 Republicans in the Texas Senate to pass any Republican gambling bill. That’s under informal rules imposed by Patrick, who has carefully said that he’d consider sports betting or casino gambling only if a majority of Senate Republicans want it.
Texans are split on the issue.
Gambling is the only issue on which 30% of Texas Republican voters want weaker regulation, but 28% want the laws tightened, according to a poll of 1,200 voters Dec. 9-17 by the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll.
Republicans even want softer gambling laws more than softer gun laws.
When former Texas Secretary of State John Scott of Fort Worth was asked a couple of weeks ago whether sports betting would come back this session, he told KEYE-TV in Austin, “I would be willing to put a dollar on it.”
Scott was speaking for Texas sports teams who want wagering legalized. That’s separate from the casino proposals.
Last session, Abbott favored letting Texas voters decide whether to allow resort casinos if they can be like a “gaming version of the Great Wolf Lodge.”
But that bill fell short in the House. And Dan Patrick blocked the online sports betting bill last time because it was passed by mostly House Democrats, he said then.
Scott interpreted Patrick’s position this way: “He really hadn’t heard from his members, and the Senate hadn’t heard from constituents that they wanted online gambling.”
This session, with the Legislature looking for money for a property tax cut and private-school vouchers, the Senate may pay more attention to gambling, even if just to replace the troubled Texas Lottery.
On the House side, Burrows opposed gambling last session. But the Lubbock Republican was elected speaker last week by a coalition faction that mostly supports it.
Meanwhile, it was noticeable that while some state and national Republican voices rallied loudly to support Cook for speaker to promote “Donald Trump’s movement in Texas,” Trump and his family and surrogates instead offered only silence.
That may or may not be connected to the official Republican Party of Texas platform, written by a handful of zealous hobbyists who attend party meetings.
It specifically opposes “any expansion of gambling.”
It also calls for Republicans to completely turn down all campaign money from gambling interests.
Tell that to the new president.
This story was originally published January 16, 2025 at 11:37 AM.
