There are still those in Austin prepared to\u00a0stand\u00a0against\u00a0expanded legal gambling in Texas, but\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0clear the fight is far from over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Native American tribes\u00a0in Texas and Oklahoma have been working to position themselves to open\u00a0one if the state expands legal gambling,\u00a0Berard reported,\u00a0with the\u00a0Choctaw and Chickasaw\u00a0in particular working to build trust with North Texas leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile,\u00a0the Las Vegas-based Sands Corp.\u00a0has been pushing\u00a0Austin hard\u00a0to\u00a0legalize casino\u00a0gambling.\u00a0The\u00a0company\u2019s controlling shareholder,\u00a0Miriam Adelson, who also owns the Dallas Mavericks,\u00a0has\u00a0lavished\u00a0some $29 million on Texas politics.\u00a0We\u2019ve\u00a0seen the money have an effect, softening the opposition of\u00a0conservative\u00a0candidates who\u00a0had opposed expanded\u00a0gambling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our takeaway is that the pressure bearing down on lawmakers\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0going to ease up\u00a0in the\u00a0legislative\u00a0session set to begin\u00a0next year. More likely,\u00a0it\u2019ll\u00a0do\u00a0the opposite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Money is always the loudest voice in politics, and that worries us.\u00a0\u00a0But Texas lawmakers need to remain firm in their opposition to the expansion of gambling in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Promises of rich economic development opportunities and mounds of cash for state coffers will continue to be laid out as bait.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe casinos\u00a0can generate some job growth and new revenue. But\u00a0remember that much of the money these casinos\u00a0would\u00a0generate must\u00a0come\u00a0from\u00a0Texans\u2019 pockets, and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0often\u00a0the pockets of those who can least afford\u00a0it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s\u00a0not being a nanny-state to say thanks but no thanks to gambling.\u00a0There are well-established, heavy social costs that come with\u00a0gambling.\u00a0Lawmakers should consider\u00a0those\u00a0alongside\u00a0all\u00a0the\u00a0supposed\u00a0benefits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0talking about lotto tickets here. (Though\u00a0let\u2019s\u00a0not\u00a0forget, Texas was\u00a0promised\u00a0our education funding problems were behind us when the state adopted a lottery. How did\u00a0that work\u00a0out?)\u00a0<\/p>\n
At least a casino requires gamblers to\u00a0leave their house\u00a0to\u00a0risk\u00a0their\u00a0money.\u00a0Platforms like FanDuel,\u00a0Kalshi\u00a0and\u00a0Polymarket\u00a0make it all too easy,\u00a0without even getting off the couch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You can argue fairly that adults should be free to spend\u00a0their\u00a0money\u00a0gambling.\u00a0But that reasoning only holds water if we\u00a0forget that the government restricts all sorts of activities\u00a0\u2014\u00a0from prostitution to drug dealing\u00a0\u2014 that are bad for society.\u00a0Gambling falls into that camp.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the years go on, there are ever fewer state leaders prepared to stand against casino gambling\u2019s false promises. These days, people often talk about legalization as a foregone conclusion. We can only hope those few can keep holding the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are still those in Austin prepared to\u00a0stand\u00a0against\u00a0expanded legal gambling in Texas, but\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0clear the fight is far from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[430,27,29,293,28,90221],"class_list":["post-266782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-north-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-tp-editorials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}