The Georgia House ended its 2021 legislative session without a vote on a bill that would have placed a sports betting amendment on the 2022 ballot. The Senate had passed the ballot measure and enabling legislation a few weeks earlier. Supporters of sports betting can try to pass a bill when the 2022 session starts next January. If lawmakers fail to pass sports wagering legislation then, the earliest legal betting can begin would be 2025. Similar measures failed in 2020.
Two companion bills sponsored by state Senator Jeff Mullis advanced ahead of competing sports betting bills. They would have put legalizing sports wagering on the 2022 ballot, and directed the Georgia Lottery to regulate it following voter approval. The state’s professional sports teams, which had lobbied for the issue for years, supported the bills.
The measure passed the Senate with bipartisan two-thirds super-majorities. But a month later, conservative and anti-gambling Republicans put the brakes on, and Democrats’ opposition to an unrelated Republican-backed bill spelled the end.
In the House, the bills hopped between various committees until a controversial Republican-backed voting regulation bill took center stage.
They passed out of the House Rules committee just a few hours before the House adjourned with no vote on the full floor.
Legalized sports betting still has the support of Georgia’s professional sports teams and affiliates, as well as several members of the Republican caucus that controls both chambers.
Advocates of legal sports betting claimed 2.3 million Georgians already bet on sports every year, illegally. “We’re not creating something new. If we make it legal, we’ll get revenue out of it,” said state Rep. Ron Stephens, chairman of the House committee.
The legislation limited sports wagering to professional sports only and betting only could be done online. Part of the proceeds would have gone to the HOPE Scholarship and pre-kindergarten programs, rural broadband access, rural health care, mental health services and attracting major sporting events to the state.
