With Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in control of the state Senate, it’s doubtful casino legislation will move forward in next year’s session, observers said. Patrick has publicly stated he will not bring gaming legislation to the floor unless it’s supported by at least 10 of the 19 Republican lawmakers.
Also, political experts said, it’s unlikely a majority of the GOP state senators would go on record in favor of passing casino legislation without Patrick’s support.
In an interview with Casino.org, University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus said, “If Dan Patrick doesn’t support legislation, it won’t pass. He effectively controls the Senate and has an increased influence in the House after the primary elections.”
Rice University Professor Mark P. Jones also told Casino.org that Patrick “remains skeptical that the economic benefits of destination resort casinos are sufficient to compensate for the societal costs of casinos such as increases in personal bankruptcy, job absenteeism, domestic abuse and other crime.
“Unless Patrick is convinced that the economic benefits of casinos outweigh their social costs, he is unlikely to put pressure on the Republican senators to vote in favor of destination resort casino legislation.”
Rottinghaus said gambling legislation would require bipartisan support, led by Senate Republicans, to advance through the legislature. But in the current political climate, “that’s a tough sell,” Rottinghaus said.
“The Republican Party platform has a plank against gambling, and because this has become a bigger feature of primary elections for Republicans, it’s hard to see a lot of Republicans bending on this issue,” he added.
Jones pointed out, “After burning energy and political capital in 2023 when, regardless of what happened in the House, casino legislation was going to be dead on arrival in the Senate, the House is going to let the Texas Senate take the lead.” In 2023, he said, House Republicans “incurred the wrath of the relatively small, but energized set of Republican primary voters who oppose casinos for nothing as the Senate’s steadfast opposition prevented casino supporters from gaining the final half dozen votes they needed to pass the casino legislation in the House.”
However, casino supporters, including Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, the majority shareholder at Las Vegas Sands, have been spending tens of millions of dollars yearly in support of Texas gambling proposals. So far this year, Adelson has donated more than $10 million to the Texas Defense PAC, which has supported multiple candidates in the primaries, as well as other pro-gambling organizations.
Jones told Casino.org, “The tens of millions donated by Miriam Adelson and others pale in comparison to the hundreds of millions companies such as the Sands Corporation stand to make annually if permitted to operate one or more massive destination resort casinos in Texas, a state whose two leading metro areas−Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston−each have more residents than three dozen states.”
