The road to legalizing any kind of gambling in Texas, including sports betting and casinos, just got a bit rockier.
Gov. Greg Abbott told CBS News Texas that he is “simply not there yet” on legalizing resort-style casinos or Texas sportsbooks. That is a step backward for the governor, who said he did not have a problem with online sports betting last year.
“I’m not there yet,” Abbott said in Sunday‘s interview. “I’m simply not there yet. Because we’ve seen increasingly problems that go along with gaming. Whether it be addiction or whether it be things that are happening in sporting events and athletes who are on the take. And so, there have been more red flags raised.
“That caused us to have to pause, step back, take a look at this and make sure that we wouldn’t do anything that would be harmful, either to the people of the state of Texas, the culture that we have in the state, or to sporting events that we have in the state.”
Whether Abbott wanted legal sports betting in Texas or not does not matter for 2026, as the legislature does not meet in even years.
Texas sports betting, casinos a tough fight
Sports betting legislation was introduced in 2025, but it was declared “dead on arrival” by 12 republican House members.
That, too, was a negative for the industry compared to the prior session. In 2023, legislation that would have put the question of legalizing sports betting in the hands of Texas voters scraped together enough votes to pass the House.
The 2023 effort was killed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a longtime opponent of gambling expansion. He said there is no support from Senate republicans for expanded gambling and noted they do not “waste time on bills without overwhelming GOP support.”
Gambling legalization lost an opportunity to gain support in the 2025 special elections as John Huffman, the Senate candidate backed by the Miriam Adelson and Las Vegas Sands, did not win the seat. Las Vegas Sands has been pushing for resort casinos in Texas for years and strengthened its roots in the state in 2023 when it bought the NBA‘s Dallas Mavericks.
