Happy New Year. 2024 has arrived and in short order, a sports betting bill has already surfaced in the state of Georgia. Again. Despite growing interest and the economic spurt it will bring, such efforts came to naught in prior years.
Has anything changed since the calendar read 2024?
In the previous session, Rep. Ron Stephens introduced House Bill 237, which called for as many as 16 online sportsbooks, all regulated by the Georgia Lottery. Tax revenue would fund education. The advantage of falling under the lottery umbrella is the legislation could avoid a constitutional amendment. Still, the proposal went down to defeat.
Stephens thinks this year will bring out even more backers.
“That’s where we’re going with sports betting: to allow these folks, specifically our pro teams, the Falcons, the Hawks [to offer sports betting]. They’re asking us to allow them to do this. This is just another lottery game. It would add money to HOPE and Pre-K,” Stephens told WTOC.
State Senator Brandon Beach was convinced of sports betting’s impact on revenue plus job creation. “I’m all for sports betting. If we would have three destination resort casinos and one pari-mutuel track or maybe two, we would create a lot of jobs.”
Talk about reaching for the stars.
A new name has entered the picture this year to help propel legislation: Entain Foundation U.S. An Entain spokesperson, Bill Pascrell, reminded lawmakers of the economic benefits, including tax revenue and investments in the local community.
In earlier comments, Pascrell told the Georgia Recorder, “if you don’t regulate it, you can’t track it, you can’t monitor it, and unlike alcohol and drug use, it’s really not readily apparent whether somebody’s having a gambling addiction problem. The only way to penetrate and have an impact on problem gambling in a particular jurisdiction is to regulate it.”
Such lucid thoughts still go up against the opposition, such as the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, which rolls out the addiction and other social costs of legalization.
In an email to the Recorder, board lobbyist Mike Griffin, called sports gambling “one of the most dangerous forms of gambling because of its easy accessibility and its ability to create addiction.”
As for the argument that people gamble illegally so might as well seek a legal outlet that can raise funds for education and work to stem problem gambling, Griffin said, “Something as detrimental as sports gambling made legal will be like putting gasoline on a fire. It will make something that is already bad, just worse.”
All that said, a positive development has already emerged on day two of the current legislative session, as reported in Yogonet Gaming News. The Regulated Industries & Utilities Committee in the Georgia Senate passed Senate Bill 172, 8-3. The proposal permits Georgians to place sports bets online or at remote terminals and “kiosks.”
The state would retain 20 percent of the gross revenue from most bets and 25 percent from “high-profit” bets, such as in-game bets, Capitol Beat News Service reported. Revenue paid to the state would be spread around to various departments detailed in a constitutional amendment.
The bill introduced—and tabled—last year, has resurfaced for the 2024 session. The bill’s early presentation in the session stems from its introduction in the prior year.
“This has been a long process. It’s been multiple years we’ve been dealing with these gambling issues,” Senator Bill Cowsert, the committee’s chairman and the bill’s chief sponsor, said in the report.
Cowsert’s push for a constitutional amendment faced a setback in the previous year, securing 30 votes but falling short of the required 38. In 2023, a bill authorizing sports betting and betting on horse races without a constitutional amendment was also rejected.
The current bill creates a seven-member sports betting commission charged to select at least six licenses for sports betting operations. Provisions in the legislation aim to safeguard bettors from fraudulent operators and assist problem gamblers in avoiding financial losses, the report said.
Senate Bill 172 fills in the details of an accompanying constitutional amendment proposal. Some of the committee members suggested waiting until the constitutional amendment was drafted before seeking approval for 172.
Senator Carden Summers, the committee’s vice chairman, said he will introduce a sports betting constitutional amendment later in the session. Beach also plans to propose a constitutional amendment allowing voters to decide on the fate of casino gambling, pari-mutuel horse racing and sports betting.
