Sports betting may have to wait another year for General Assembly to act

Posted by author February 28, 2025 Sports

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Dave Williams
| Capitol Beat News Service

Supporters of legalizing gambling in Georgia may have to wait until next year for the General Assembly to act.

With less than a week remaining before Crossover Day – the deadline for legislation to pass either the Georgia House or Senate to remain alive for the year – a constitutional amendment to legalize online sports betting a House member is planning to sponsor has yet to be introduced.

Meanwhile, a Senate committee voted down a second constitutional change Thursday aimed at bringing both sports betting and casinos to the Peach State, killing it for 2025.

Rejecting bids to legalize gambling in Georgia has become standard operating procedure in the General Assembly. While 38 states and the District of Columbia have sports betting in some form, efforts to get sports betting legalized in Georgia have fizzled for years.

A long-running legal dispute over whether a constitutional amendment is required to bring sports betting here has hampered legislative efforts in recent years. Lawmakers also have disagreed over how much to tax betting proceeds and whether to spend that money on Georgia’s lottery-funded HOPE Scholarships and pre-kindergarten programs, health care, economic development, or initiatives to reduce poverty in low-income areas.

A key talking point for supporters of sports betting is that it’s so pervasive around the country – including the neighboring states of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida – that Georgians are going elsewhere to place bets, depriving the state treasury of a lucrative revenue source.

“Tens of thousands of people are leaving Georgia every month to gamble,” Sen. Carden Summers, R-Cordele, who is sponsoring a constitutional amendment in the Senate aimed at legalizing both sports betting and casinos, told members of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee Thursday.

State Rep. Marcus Wiedower, R-Watkinsville, is planning to introduce a constitutional change into the House that would be limited to online sports betting.

“I don’t feel there’s an appetite for casinos or horse racing,” he said.

Wiedower sponsored legislation two years ago that would have legalized sports betting by statute rather than a constitutional amendment. But he said he’s going with a constitutional amendment this year.

“To avoid the legal argument, the only route to go is the constitutional amendment,” he said.

Summers said the advantage of seeking a constitutional amendment is that it would give Georgia voters a chance to decide the issue in a statewide referendum. He cited a straw poll among Republican primary voters last May that found more than 80% in favor of scheduling a statewide vote on whether to allow “gaming” in Georgia.

“This amendment does not force anyone to gamble,” Summers said. “It simply allows Georgia voters to have their say.”

Summers put a different twist on his proposal not featured in previous versions of legalized gambling: It calls for dividing the first $2 billion of the proceeds evenly among Georgia’s 159 counties. That way, the benefits from casinos wouldn’t just go to the communities where they’re located.

“This is real money that would help with infrastructure, economic development and essential services, especially in rural Georgia where they’re needed most,” he said. “Dispersing these funds evenly is the only fair way to do this.”

Portions of the proceeds from gambling in both Summers’ and Wiedower’s measures would go toward programs to help problem gamblers avoid becoming addicted.

Problem gamblers are among the consequences of legalizing sports betting and/or casinos representatives of religious groups have cited over the years in opposing gambling legislation.

Mike Griffin, public affairs representative for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, said the “social costs” of legalized gambling outweigh the tax revenue the state would raise from bettors.

“Casinos increase human trafficking, drug trafficking, and other crimes,” added Paul Smith, executive director of the Christian public policy organization Citizen Impact.

Both Summers and Wiedower are pushing standalone constitutional amendments without the addition of separate “enabling” bills, usually longer pieces of legislation that spell out how either sports betting or casinos would operate in Georgia. They reason there’s no point in working to develop such detailed measures if voters defeat legalized gambling at the polls.