How about this idea? Bring casinos and sports betting to Texas to pay for the governor's school voucher program. Welcome to The Texas Take, the number one political podcast in the great state, going on nine years running now. I'm Scott Braddock. Jeremy Wallace is taking some well-deserved time off, so I'm just here with Evan today. Happy New Year, Evan. Happy New Year, Scott.
Well, it's starting on... uh not great note you saw the attack in new orleans uh which was just horrific with a bunch of people dead a bunch of people injured and they've got all of that covered for you at houston chronicle.com it turns out of course that the investigation
led to this guy who lived in Houston, the guy that was taken down by the New Orleans Police Department. So they've got all that covered for you at HoustonChronicle.com. And you can find the inside story on Texas politics, of course. at quorumreport.com. That's where we're covering the race for speaker. We're covering it like a blanket, Evan. We've got every angle of that covered, so people can check it out at quorumreport.com. Now, we'll be back to our normal show.
next week when Jeremy returns. But in the meantime, here in Austin, one of the things that I am getting all sorts of calls about, and there are different issues that will be debated during the legislative session, Evan, but one of the things that people always want to know about... is this question. Are we finally going to get legalized casinos in Texas and legalized sports betting? You know, just being able to place a sports bet on your phone.
Should be non-controversial, but it is controversial and has turned into, you know, a big money racket around here for a lot of people. That's the way a lot of folks think about it. Just the fight over it itself. is a big money racket. There's a lot of people who are really pushing for this and putting a lot of cash into it. And my friend, radio legend Jeff Ward in Austin, wanted to talk about this on his show. By the way, you can find his show, The Jeff Ward Show.
cleverly named, on all of your favorite podcast apps. However you're listening to this show, you can hear that show as well. And Jeff and others think that maybe, just maybe, this whole deal with casinos and sports betting, that it's got a real shot this time around. This time, it sounds different. And that is the legislative session of sin is coming and your political heroes are...
Getting free dinners, free table dances, free anything and everything from big time casino and gaming operators because there is a giant push. to legalize sports betting and get this now casino gambling in the state of texas but of course what stands in the way even though 85 the public would like for it to be an option doesn't mean you have to do it that it would be an option
So what really stands in the way? What's going on behind the scenes? Exactly. What are your political heroes, your moral compass for all the people of Texas? What exactly are they willing to do when it comes to gambling? There's no one better, there's no one more plugged in than the editor of the Bible of Texas Politics. That is the Quorum Report. He is Scott Braddock.
All right, Scott, here we are. Again, the legislature of sin, all about more sin. That would be gambling. I don't know how many variations of gambling debates we've had. So how realistic. But better yet, what is the behind the scenes push to get online sports betting passed? And I guess on top of that.
The potential for casino gaming to be passed as well. What's the backstory here? And is this a time period, a legislative session that gives it more of a chance than ever before? Well, I want to answer that, but can I ask you a question first? Sure. The last time I was on this show, it was to talk about marijuana.
Yeah. And now you want to talk about gambling. Is it only vices that you call me about? Yes, of course. Should I read anything into that? That's the only taxes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, man, we just want to talk about sin, all sin, all the time. gambling and marijuana. And we're going to turn this place into Las Vegas, Nevada around here. Look, sports betting.
and gambling in general uh including casinos doesn't have much of a shot and here's why here's here's why at a base level and then we can get into the behind the scenes stuff that you're interested in because i am too it's a real interesting story under the story
But at a base level, it can't pass because they don't need the money. They just don't need the money. Do you remember... in 2011 this is going way back when all of that money was cut from public education they cut about five billion dollars from public schools at that time that was the last real budget cutting session that we had
And it's over a decade ago. And so a lot of folks who are even in the Texas Capitol community don't really remember that. I think there were only I think of the 181 members of the House and Senate who are still there, Jeff. I think there are only about 30 of them who are still in office who are around for what happened back then when they had a budget cutting session. And in the last legislative session, as you know, now coming up from two years ago.
They had about 30 billion extra dollars without casinos or sports betting or anything. And this time around, it looks like they're going to have about 22 billion extra dollars, something like that. when the legislature convenes coming up on the 14th of January. So they don't need the money. If the folks who were pushing it could go to them during a lean budget time and say, hey, look, we've got all this extra tax revenue for you, that might be something they would look at.
This time around, it's just not the case. So what's going on with this? Sports betting. Very interesting. You would think that it would be just a no-brainer, right? I mean, my daughter lives in Philadelphia, and I'm bringing that up to say this. In Pennsylvania, you can just make bets on your phone like in lots of other places. I would sit down at a cigar bar in Philadelphia, PA, and there's a guy watching the basketball game. He's just making bets on his phone and just doing it in real time.
Guess what, Jeff? Everybody's fine. Nobody dies. It's cool. It's just fine. And of course, they're making a lot of money. Did you know that in New York, as they have passed sports betting, they may, I think this was the tax revenue extra for the state in New York.
It was almost a billion dollars the first year they did it. You think we wouldn't have bigger numbers than that in Texas? I'm pretty sure that we would. So they had about $900 million the first year. We would have a lot more. So what's up with this? But two, two big roadblocks. One is the little governor, Dan Patrick himself, who has been interestingly against this at one point.
But now he talks about it in a little bit different way. And we talked about this on the Texas Take podcast that he's sort of doing. You remember the governor in the best little whorehouse in Texas? He did the little sidestep. That whole dance. And that's what Dan Patrick does about this now. He just kind of does a little sidestep. He doesn't say he's for it. He doesn't say he's against it. He'll say things like this. He'll say, well.
you know for all those lobbyists who have been hired and i think at this point uh for casinos we're looking at more than a hundred lobbyists who have been hired and there's a strong lobby presence for sports betting as well patrick will say well the lobbyists haven't quote they haven't worked the vote And for the life of me, I can't tell what that means. Of course, all of those lobbyists have been visiting with.
members of the House and Senate, these big companies that want to do this, like BetMGM and some of the other sports betting companies, DraftKings and whatever else there is out there, they've all been putting money into. Texas political campaigns and trying to really push for this. So I don't really know what he means. It sounds like he's, you know, being a little, let's say just sort of deceptive with that.
because they have worked the votes. I'm being nice about it. I mean, I could just say he's lying about it. They have worked the votes on this, Jeff, but the fact is that Patrick doesn't really want to... Say where he's at on it. Now, I'm aware of some of his private conversations, so I'll share that with you. Here's what's interesting. When it comes to sports betting, I was told, and this was about a year and a half ago, almost two years ago that this apparently happened.
That some of the lobbyists and, you know, these are including folks who represent Jerry Jones, for example, who's, you know, big on this on sports betting. I was told that there was a conversation. that included patrick where where patrick basically told them this he said look i'm fine with sports betting that y'all can do this but and he pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and he said but i don't want it online and he showed
the lobbyist his phone and said, I don't want kids doing that on their phone. Well, as you know, Jeff, doing it online or being able to do it on a mobile app, that's exactly what all these companies want to do. Right. So what would be the alternative? The alternative would be to have physical locations where people could go.
Buy a ticket if they want to make a bet on, you know, you would have, you know, a retail window at, you know, the Cowboys Stadium or at the Texan Stadium in Houston or where the Rockets play in Houston or wherever. And then maybe you would have some other stores as well where you could do this, but not attached to convenience stores. I was told two different versions. One would be that you could have it inside the sports stadiums or you could have.
standalone retail locations. These are some of the proposals that were floated such that people could go do that. Now, I do know that a lot of people would do it. I happen to be in Shreveport, Louisiana on the day. that they started allowing for sports betting at the Horseshoe Casino there in Shreveport. And you had to go. You couldn't do it. If you're in Texas, you can't do it all unless you go there, right? And so there were people.
who had driven all the way from dallas to shreveport that morning to make a bet for the cowboys game that weekend um and it's about what two and a half three hours from dallas to shreveport something like that there were people who were driving all the way
to the louisiana state line to buy that ticket and then drive all the way back to dallas so you know there are people who would do it uh but to have a version of it where it uh you know wouldn't be mobile wouldn't be online it's not as attractive to these companies okay but They don't need the money, which I find, of course, I could offer up. If you've got excess, why don't you give it back to us? But that's a laugh. That's a good point.
That's a laughable. Well, that's a good point, Jeff. That's a good point. You know, when you have Abbott running around, can we pause on that for a second? When you have Abbott running around saying we've got a $30 billion surplus or we've got a $20 billion surplus, he'll say this in speeches and people will applaud.
And these folks say they're conservative Republicans. And I said, why are you applauding that? If the government is sitting on that much of your money in their account, that means they're either taxing you too much or you're not getting the services you deserve or both.
And it seems to be the case over the last few. Yeah, I mean, if you're if you're I mean, if you charge somebody an extra dollar and a half at the store, they punch you in the face if you don't give your money back. But everybody's so he's bragging about taking too much money from you. Right. OK. So but wait a second question. Yeah. What is. All right. If if Patrick, as you said, who is the little governor.
If he's generally okay with it, there's a moral obligation or a moral opposition to this, then why not? What's against it? I think he at least wants those who do have a moral opposition to it to think that he does also.
while also leaving the impression with people who want to spend a lot of money on this, including some of those companies that are lobbying at the Capitol and are putting money in his campaign account and Governor Abbott's campaign account. They're giving all these contributions. He wants those.
He wants the people who are against the second Baptist crowd in Houston. He wants those folks to think that he's just morally against it. He wants the people who are pushing this and spending money in politics to think that he's not necessarily against it, but they need to be making a better argument. So he's really trying to have it both ways. Okay. Imagine that. Yeah, yeah, of course. And it's working. I mean, I'm not even going to laugh at all because I suspect it probably works.
Well, to your point, one of the reasons that Las Vegas Sands has put so much money into Texas politics and Miriam Adelson herself bought the majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks. is because Abbott himself has gone, you know, Greg Abbott has gone on the record and said that he's open to the idea of casino resorts as long as they meet certain criteria, as long as we're talking about
you know, facilities that would be, I'll just make up the numbers, you know, something like a $3 billion facility that would be, you know, a beautiful casino resort that you'd have destination resorts and all that. He basically suggested he doesn't want to see. casinos and every gas station like you have in Oklahoma. But by doing that, by basically saying he's going to leave the door open just a crack, just a little bit for these folks to continue to come in.
And and make their case by doing that. That is why they're hiring so many lobbyists and spending so much money in Texas politics. And during the legislative session, I can tell you there probably won't be too many nights. when lawmakers from around the state are gathered in Austin where they don't have all of their expenses taken care of as far as dinner and their drinks that night, and that always goes on to a certain degree.
But really, you know, having these casino and sports betting folks put the bill quite often, I'm sure that's going to go on all throughout the legislative session, whether this is going to go anywhere or not. Talking to Scott Braddock of the Quorum Report. So there's no chance it passes this legislative session? I mean, do we do this betting thing where we do an over-under? I mean, would you say five years it happens, ten years it happens? Never?
I almost think that Patrick has to be out of office, which I do think he's coming to the end of his time in office. Knock on wood. I don't make predictions on really anything, as you know.
But his health, he doesn't seem to be doing that well health wise. He would take issue with that. But I've seen him personally recently. It doesn't look great. I wouldn't be surprised if this was his last term in office. So maybe two years from now, four years from now, six years from now. I do think that he's.
major roadblock. I don't think the governor has, I don't think Abbott has, you know, specific, you know, objection to this. I mean, look, you're dealing with someone who goes to second baptist in houston that's patrick yeah versus somebody who is catholic and that's abbott now which one of them do you think is going to have more of a problem with casino gambling or sports betting it's the baptist guy right well i mean what's the old joke about
Income taxes in Texas, we would have casinos in Baptist churches before we would have an income tax around here. And so that's where the opposition has always been. Look, when the when the folks who are making the argument for sports betting, when they when they are talking to lawmakers.
They pretty much set the revenue aside as an argument, but I'll share some numbers with you because it's interesting. I mentioned that New York, they basically had a billion dollar year with their first year of sports betting. In Texas, the projections are that if you were to allow for sports betting, the state would get something like $200 million every year in revenue, and that could grow to something like $500 million to a billion.
per year in five years. And for casinos, it would be around 3 billion to 5 billion, depending on how many casinos are built. And that's, of course, if you have those resorts completely built out. These companies are spending so much money, Jeff, to lobby the members and putting money into these campaigns that you might think that they're engaged in some exercise of futility. But as one lobbyist put it to me at the Capitol last session.
They said, look, let's say, and again, just make up the numbers, but they're probably about right. Let's say over the next decade, all of these companies put a combined... 50 to 100 million dollars into all of these efforts to try to pass casinos or and or sports betting in texas um it's really nothing to them by the time the bill would pass and the law would pass and we would have
expanded gambling in Texas, those companies would make all that money back on a final four weekend. Yeah. But it doesn't matter to them. So they'll continue to do this. And I don't see any end to that anytime soon. I've not seen it. And I don't know that I've ever seen credible polling on the general public in Texas's feeling about... passing legislation to okay either casino or sports betting is there a number out there on the on the public position on this
There have been polls over the years that show that a majority of Texans would approve of casinos and sports betting, and that those polls have come from different places. I don't have the specific numbers in front of me, but just going off of memory, it's north of 80%. of Texans would certainly support casino gambling. But this is one of the quick civics lessons we have to give everybody. The Texas Constitution, which is the foundational document of the state, it specifically prohibits
casinos and any expansion of gambling which means that to have casinos or sports betting any expansion then you have to have a constitutional amendment you have to change the constitution so what do you have to do to do that as you know jeff it means that the two-thirds of the house
And two-thirds of the Senate have to agree to put it on the ballot. And the process bypasses the governor, by the way. The governor doesn't do anything. The House and Senate, in the two-thirds vote, would send it to the people, and the people could vote. Every poll I've ever seen about this indicates that by 75% to 80%, Texans would approve of it. And so I don't think it's a question about whether it's popular.
Because it's just not a question. People want this. I think it has more to do with what we were talking about before. It has more to do with keeping these folks who are spending a lot of money in politics in Texas to have them keep doing that. It's a game that's being played. It's a game that's being played by Abbott, by Patrick, by whoever the Speaker of the House ends up being. A big lobby effort is kind of like trying to date somebody and seal the deal.
right i mean you you don't have to go ahead and do the thing for them to spend a lot of money on you right and so so if you look at if you think about it that way it's that all of these guys are trying to continue to have that
gravy train grown, of all this money coming in. I would say it's one of the largest lobby efforts that we have seen, one of the largest lobby efforts that we have had around here, to the point where these companies that are lobbying on this stuff, they have more... more of a lobby presence than AT&T which is one of the companies that has the some you know the one one of the entities that has the most lobby uh in the state so it is um big money for those folks and think globally
about why Texas is such big money for them and why we're such a big target. After COVID, when international travel was shut down, and you remember during the height of the pandemic restrictions, that folks from Asia... couldn't go to las vegas yeah and a lot of people in the united states couldn't go there either uh because travel was restricted and or it just wasn't fun people were having to you know wear masks to casinos and all of that i think it took a real
bite out of what, and you see this in the numbers, it took a real bite out of Las Vegas as the center of casinos and sports betting in the United States and what has happened in the meantime. You've seen other states go ahead and legalize Casino gaming. We've seen recent bills and laws passed in places like Arkansas, for example. It's interesting, when you go to Arkansas or Oklahoma, they have casinos and marijuana in those places.
Well, they're not any more or less conservative than we are. Right. Right. I mean, Oklahoma, I like to remind people, is the only state in the country where every county voted to have Sarah Palin be a heartbeat away from the presidency. They're pretty conservative there. But they still have, you know, medical marijuana. What do you mean? That's why they're that illegal-ass heroin in Oklahoma, to be honest with you, Scott. I mean, they don't have enough drugs there. Right.
So let me throw it. Let me throw it. So I think so. It does. It does come down. Well, but it does come down to in a lot of ways. It comes down to to the structure of the way you'd have to do it in Texas and those other places. There aren't as many hurdles in place. You know, I don't know. Maybe I'm doing the job for the lobbyists here a little bit. But I wonder if there isn't. And I wonder if there isn't some. And you can speak to this. I wonder if there's not some thought of this. And that is.
The Trump administration gets their way, which is economic disaster waiting to happen, and these tariffs go into effect. The the the economics of this state in particular are going to change dramatically. Is there an argument to be made saying, listen. Trump gets to do his tariff thing. We'd pay a price. So let's make up for that money that we would be losing in a tariff war. We can maybe make it up with gambling. I like that idea.
I have another idea. Are you ready? So you know how Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott have been, and Abbott only became hell-bent about this in the last two years, but Patrick's been pushing it for a long time. You know how they have said they really want to have a school voucher program? We've talked about this on your show. Yep. The school vouchers would be for the uninitiated would be.
coupon essentially for rich people in the big cities to be able to send their kids to private school at a discount. And Rural Republicans have had a problem with this. It's why it hasn't passed. Of course, you saw the governor go on a scorched earth campaign during this last Republican primary where he went after Republicans who disagreed with him about that. And the public school community in this state.
And I'm talking everybody from tiny schools to the largest ISDs, Austin ISD, Houston ISD, all the way down to tiny little places like the Munster ISD. People won't even know where that is. Public schools everywhere are against this because they say, and they're right, it would take money out of the public school system to give those discounts to rich people to send their kids to private school. But what if you had a brand new revenue source that you could dedicate to a...
school voucher program that would be capped and you would say, okay, look, governor, you want a school choice program. And most Republicans would say they're with you on all this quote unquote education freedom stuff. What if you took the money?
From sports betting, which what did I say? It could grow to about a billion in five years for casinos as high as three billion to five billion. What if you dedicated that revenue to your school voucher program? This would solve a whole lot of problems and do.
favors for the biggest for the biggest contributors in the state for those who are pushing for casinos they would get what they want right uh miriam adelson would get what she wants with the sports betting stuff so would people like jerry jones the public schools
would also get what they want, which is this wouldn't take any money from them. Now, I know what people are going to say. They're going to say, well, Scott, what about the lottery? Wasn't that supposed to pay for public education? I don't know why people bring that up.
But this is completely different. The lottery, number one, as you know, Jeff, it was sold to people as a way to kind of help pay for public ed and hard feelings about that. But it was never going to pay for public ed because what we have in this state. is a very complex school finance system that has been developed and forged through legislation and litigation for decades, right? I mean, you remember all of the school finance lawsuits?
with the school districts and the states fighting it out in court. We have enough people in Texas government now who don't even remember those fights because it's been a while since that went down. But when those who support public education now...
When they say, well, you know, maybe we could live with a school voucher program as long as it doesn't hurt public education. Really, what they should be thinking is what we'd be OK with is a voucher program that doesn't trigger a new school finance lawsuit. Well, if you got the money from somewhere else completely like this, like casinos and sports betting, well, you would take care of all of it at once. But that would require…
What? It would require creativity. It would require leadership. And especially on the last one, that's a little lacking with the governor. Quickly answer your own question. Why not? I question if he really wants to do it. I question if Republicans in general, because I assume the politicians know.
you know, how virtually impossible it is to send some kid in, what town did you use, Munster, wherever the hell that is, to send that kid from Munster to St. Stephen's in West Austin. I mean, most people know it's just not practical. So they really even want to do it? Well, Abbott wants to do it because he's got a giant contributor who's asking him to do it.
As you know, I've never been a school voucher guy at all, but if somebody gave me $10 million, I'd at least think about it. Here you have this guy from Pennsylvania, Jeff Yass, who wrote two checks to Greg Abbott this past year. One was for $6 million and one was for $4 million. So he has put $10 million into Abbott's campaign. This guy, Jeff Yass, who is a TikTok investor from Pennsylvania, as I mentioned, he has spent tens of millions of dollars all across the country.
in different legislative races, et cetera, to try to move forward these school voucher programs. So this is one of his pet issues. And it really, as you know, Texas government has always been for sale. to a certain degree to the highest bidder. And that has just been magnified during the Greg Abbott administration. I mean, he is just brazen. You remember that he took a million dollar check from Kelsey Warren of Energy Transfer Partners after the winter storm that left about.
700 people dead all across the state while energy transfer made off like bandits. And that became an issue in one of his reelection campaigns. But not much of one. People didn't seem to mind that. In Texas, the corruption that we have is out in the open. Let me put it this way. If that same amount or a smaller amount of money was in cash in a freezer in Louisiana, somebody would be going to prison.
But around here, just because it's disclosed, it's fine. What a description. In a freezer. I like that. Well, that actually happened. That actually happened with a congressman in New Orleans. You remember that? Oh, yes. Yeah. I like it. But around here, it's just people say, well, what's the difference, Scott? Why is it even news? Why are you even bringing it?
that up that this guy gave him 10 million dollars so we want to know why he's on the school voucher kick and i said it's not that hard to understand he got paid to be on it yeah okay but he but he but but if he did what i said which look i'm sure i'm here to help solve problems jeff if he did what i said and he said okay you know what what we should do
is have sports betting, have casino gambling as well. We'll take that revenue. We'll create a voucher program with it. That would make the big companies that are spending all this money in politics to pass. to pass gambling, uh, measures that would make them happy. That would make his, uh, school voucher sugar daddy happy. You know, he could just wipe his hand, you know, clean his hands and move on down the road. Okay. Five years from now. Let's set the five years. Is there going to be.
legalized sports betting in the state of texas i'm not well five years yeah i i'd put i'd say that's more realistic and you know i i think that the Think about this, and this is going back a little ways, but when Lieutenant Governor Patrick was first elected to the office that he's in, in a lot of ways in this state, we live with the reality of the 2014.
republican primary runoff and the reason i say that is because in that year it's when dan patrick won the office he's in and ken paxton the attorney general won the office that he's in and in that year the folks who were driving the truck politically in the state are more of the hard right evangelical right and i do think that moving forward that there is a chance that you will have folks who are not as beholden
So that wing of the Republican Party be elected statewide once Abbott is gone, once Patrick is gone. I do think that Attorney General Paxton is probably going to run for the U.S. Senate. We'll see how that goes. Maybe either against Cornyn, John Cornyn. or just run for it in an open, you know, basically for an open seat if Cornyn decides to retire. And since he didn't become the majority leader in Washington, I think that's more possible now than it was before. But because we have a...
Republican primary in this state that is the election of consequence until proven otherwise. You know, the Democrats just can't get their act together around here. The next couple of Republican primaries will show us whether or not the state will elect. Some folks to statewide office, including for the lieutenant governor's office and others. It'll show us whether or not we're going to have officeholders who are open to these kinds of ideas or if they still.
have to kind of do this little dance we were talking about the dan patrick's doing which is he's trying to keep that you know the second baptist mafia you know he's trying to keep them happy uh as well as trying to keep jerry jones and folks like that happy got it all right man as always good talking to you scott great stuff
My pleasure. Thank you. You bet. Always great to talk to Jeff. We'll be back with our normal show, our usual show, the show that everybody loves so much, Evan, next week. We'll get into it next Thursday or Friday. you know, as the news develops. If you have not checked out Jeremy's newsletter, you need to do it. If you're not signed up for it and you didn't do that in 2024, you got to do it now.
in 2025. You can find the pinned post on his X page. It's Jeremy S. Wallace. If you go find that, you just click on the link there and you'll get hooked up with his newsletter. If you're into the intersection of politics, pop culture, and the Law, we've got a show for you. It's Jeff Berg is Litigious. You can check that out at bergpc.com slash podcast. You should be a subscriber at quorumreport.com and houstonchronicle.com. And we'll see you next time.