I’m a big gambler, but I only play blackjack and rarely play the lottery in Powerball or Mega Millions games, where prizes approach $1 billion. Sure, the odds are still terrible, but someone will win in the end. All fancy poker he is not a table game, but blackjack is one of those in which a gambler is most likely to win, and Lady Luck also plays no small role.
That said, the expansion of legal gambling in Georgia outside of the hugely popular lottery will most likely come under fire again this year after the Georgia General Assembly convened for the 15th to 20th consecutive time. . For nearly a decade, Georgia voters have been poll after poll, poll after poll, with a majority of over 60% on two things: the potential for expansion of the game and the revenue it would bring. The majority of voters support expanding gambling, with the most popular options being allowing sports betting and pari-mutuel gambling. There are two.
Gambling has actually been on the floor this Congress, albeit in an increasingly protracted manner, with an expansion of the Georgia Lottery passed by the Georgia Senate. Later, state Sen. Bill Cowsert of Athens (R-41st District), also the Senate majority leader, successfully attached an amendment to the bill that would require the resolution to amend the Georgia Constitution (original (as in the case of the Lottery Amendment).
Senate Bill 386 passed the state Senate by a vote of 35-15 on February 1, 2024 (meeting the two-thirds majority threshold required for proposed constitutional amendments) and is referred to the state House for consideration. was sent to. . Republican and Democratic members of the state Senate support the bill, and a similar coalition would be needed to pass it in the state House. Cowsert has long supported the expansion of gaming in Georgia and the potential for billions of dollars in new revenue, but he has only followed the path of passing the Georgia Lottery in its original form through a constitutional amendment.
Since then, the Georgia Lottery has funded the HOPE Scholarship Program and more than 1.8 million HOPE Scholars, as well as major school system technology investments across the state, including Georgia Preschool and the GSAMS satellite distance learning network. One of the nation’s most successful lotteries, by many metrics, the Georgia Lottery generates nearly $20 billion in higher education and preschool funding and is one of the Georgia state government’s most popular products. It has become. However, the proposed amendment was passed by a narrow margin.
Georgia is surrounded by states that have expanded gaming options, with 38 of the 50 states currently allowing some form of sports betting. Full-fledged casino gambling is now also available in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and North Carolina. South Carolina has a state lottery and daily sports fantasy betting league/game options. Tennessee has pari-mutuel betting and sports betting, and casino gambling destinations Tunica, Mississippi, just a short distance from Memphis, and Bristol, Virginia, a city that straddles the Tennessee-Virginia border, have new Hard Rock Casino is under construction.
While the proliferation of gambling options has diminished the appeal of some regional gambling centers in recent years, their revenue pie continues to grow exponentially, thanks in part to offshore options and online betting. The Atlanta metropolitan area is the only area in the nation’s top 10 metropolitan statistical areas that does not have full table games available.
But this is an election year in the White House battleground state, and with eight of the top 10 most populous counties moving clearly in the Democratic direction, many of Georgia’s Democratic representatives are in Georgia’s House of Representatives and Congressional Delegation. is hoping to expand into A party that started in 2016.
For SB 386, or any amendments to it, to advance to a vote, it would require a bipartisan two-thirds majority in each chamber, followed by Governor Kemp’s signature. That’s a tall order. And a simple majority vote by voters would create an infrastructure that the General Assembly could frame and more fully regulate during its next session.
Kemp has previously expressed support for letting the public decide questions about these games, but his wagon seems a bit full to take over this complex version of sports betting. SB 386 has already met the Crossover Day threshold, but I’d vote 10-1 that this bill is DOA long before the House-side cine die, and I’d say it’s a 10-to-1 decision that it’s DOA long before Cine Die on the House side, and some major horse races. Leave the transaction untouched.
Bill Crane is a political analyst and commentator in metro Atlanta and a columnist for The Champion, DeKalb Free Press, and Georgia Trend. Crane is a business owner from DeKalb who lives in Scottsdale. Contact him or comment in the column at bill.csicrane@gmail.com.
