Lt. Governor Dan Patrick's Exit Could Open Texas Sports Betting

What happened in Texas yesterday is crazy for a variety of reasons, but maybe the biggest of which is Dan Patrick is out. Dan Patrick has been a thorn in my side for a very long time. This is a wonderful, wonderful day that Dan Patrick is gone. Now, years, years of people saying that Dan Patrick would one day be defeated. We finally came to that day. It took a long time for that to happen. But the lieutenant governor, the governor, the attorney general, and the U.S. Senate races were swept by the Democrats last night. What does that mean? Well, that means that the number one guy, the guy who controlled the overall legislature in the state of Texas, because— In Texas, they've got a very unique government, but the lieutenant governor gets to dictate what gets voted on. Dan Patrick would never allow any voting on the legalization of casinos or sports gambling or DFS, never would allow it. He basically said, over my dead body, we're ever going to have casino gambling in Texas, which again, Texas is surrounded, Louisiana to the east, Oklahoma to the north, and New Mexico to the west. They all have it. They have casinos, they have sports gambling, like they have all of it. So if you live in Houston, you're completely SOL because you can't get there. You can drive an hour and a half to Louisiana, I guess. So that's one way. But like Dallas goes to Oklahoma, right? The WinStar Casino is just over the border between Dallas, between Texas and Oklahoma, just like Council Bluffs, okay? So now... There's a real chance that Texas could legalize sports gambling. It changes a lot because it's kind of weird bedfellows. The largest donor to the Republican Party is the owner of this, or was the owner of the Sands Convention Center, the Adelson family. Sheldon has passed, but his wife is still heavily involved, has given tons of money to the Republican Party. She owns the Dallas Mavericks, okay? She bought the Dallas Mavericks from Mark Cuban when he sold. There was a long thought that there was going to be a Sands-owned or a Sheldon Adelson company-owned casino Attached to a new. Dallas Mavericks facility, Dallas Mavericks practice facility and arena that would be built in Dallas. Dan Patrick was the reason why that was not going to happen. Dan Patrick was the impediment for that to go down because the rumor was if Dallas wasn't able to get a new casino, to get casinos passed or get a new building built, that the Dallas Mavericks were going to move to Vegas. And it was going to become the Vegas Mavericks, which works from a team perspective. It works. So there was a lot of thought that if this didn't go down this way, if Dan Patrick stayed, that there's a reason why we hadn't seen the Vegas expansion team be awarded officially yet. They're claiming it's all, it's a fight. There's three different warring parties. I was told, and look, this is just a rumor. But I was told that the reason why the NBA hadn't done that yet is because the NBA was waiting for this to happen. They were waiting to see if Dan Patrick was going to lose. And if Dan Patrick lost, then the Adelsons can get casino gambling onto the docket, get it passed, and then they can build a facility with a casino attached to it, and they can completely change the city of Dallas as to what happens and how much money is leaving Dallas to go to Oklahoma every damn day. And that is. The rainbow, that is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for the Adelson family and for this ownership group of the Dallas Mavericks. So there's a lot, like this is a whole domino effect to go down. And as Dom said, it takes 16 hours to drive out of Texas. It's just... It's... People don't like it. I'm not saying people like it, but they do it all the time to go gamble. And that's why WinStar is one of the biggest sponsors of the Dallas Cowboys. You don't think the oil money folks would like to bet in their backyard? That's why Houston is the number one city in America for poker rooms, because they can't have casinos, but they've got poker rooms, because if they're tied to a charity, they're able to operate. Got to give it back, like New Hampshire, when it comes to the casinos. They're building all in New Hampshire. As long as you're giving, I think it's 40% of your profits to a charity, You can go hog wild and build casinos and they are in. On the seacoast and also in places like Manchester and Nashua, New Hampshire is doing the same thing. I'm So people are like, all right, well, you have it on the books. starting We have to do certain things. You got to give up. So in Houston, it's like, well, okay, we got to give up how much to charity. Sure, let's go. So there is so much gambling that goes on in Texas. I live there. Don't tell me there's not. There is so much gambling going on. to It's unbelievable. It's just, I don't want anyone to know about it, right? speak. The underground black market in Texas is unbelievable. Billions, in my opinion, get bet. Because these oil tycoon guys, they can't help themselves. I mean, $25K to them is nothing, right? They want to go ahead and lay down massive amounts of money, get into huge poker games, get into big-time, big-time house games. Poker is rampant in Houston. So now Dan Patrick's out. His replacement is interesting because the replacement said, Her name is Vicki Goodwin, said she would leave the decision up to the voters. So she would go ahead and put it on the ballot, let Texans decide whether or not they're going to have it. I don't know if that gets followed through with.