Georgia Sports Betting Discussion to Start Up Soon in Legislature, Lawmaker Says
A leading proponent of expanding gaming inward GA said in a recent op-ed that lawmakers testament live taking up a sports betting assess soon.
State Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, wrote a guest pillar inward the Bryan County News on Th regarding what has happened inward the General Assembly. The House Economic Development & Tourism Committee chairman said he plans to occupy up a constitutional amendment that would allow the Empire State of the South Lottery supervise sports betting.
Stephens has been a vocal admirer of bringing casino resorts and legalizing sports betting inwards the say for years. He wants to ensure proceeds from gaming used to supply more funding for college scholarships.
With this beingness the 30th anniversary of the drawing ballot creating the HOPE Scholarship, more than 2 trillion Georgians have got lifted themselves upwardly thru a higher pedagogy and technical college careers,” Stephens wrote. “More than 1.6 one thousand thousand families received pre-K head word starts. We testament take up sports gaming inwards the years to come up to fill up the spread with HOPE and pre-K. Bottom line, this testament be another drawing game.”
The state Senate sanctioned a resolution finally year that would pioneer the outgrowth for a constitutional amendment on sports betting.
Opponents Prepare for Fight
Expanded gaming faces an uphill gainsay inwards Georgia, with social conservatives leading the fight.
Mike Griffin, a spokesman for the Peach State Baptist Mission Board, told WJCL-TV inwards Savannah River on Friday that the deliberate on gaming has recently gotten “a lot to a greater extent intense.” There are also concerns virtually addiction, stating that addictions to gaming are “in the same category as heroin, opioids, tobacco, alcohol, and cocaine,” he said.
“I cerebrate an ounce of prevention is ever worth a lbf. of cure,” he added.
This yr is also an election year for Georgia’s whirligig political positions. One Republican River candidate for police lieutenant regulator has said the res publica needs to city block efforts to legitimise gaming. The police lieutenant governor serves a paint legislative role as president of the senate and put up mould a tie-breaking vote.
Jeanne Seaver said others running for the GOP’s nomination inwards the run “are pawns of commercialised gaming lobbyists,” and make sponsored bills to expand gaming.
“If sports betting passes, it will undecided the door for more gaming expansion,” Seaver tweeted on her hunting expedition account statement Saturday. “We demand strong leaders to stand against ALL gambling & keep our body politic release of this vulturous industry!”
Georgia One of Seven with a Sports Betting Bill
Sports betting is dynamic or legalized inwards 33 states, positive the District of Columbia. Georgia is i of seven other states with dynamic legislation that would legitimate it, according to the American Gaming Association.
With a population of almost 11 million, Empire State of the South is also ace of the largest states in the land that has in time to tolerate it inward some form. Golden State – where single or more sports betting measures may move before voters inwards November – and Lone-Star State are the only when states with a larger universe that have yet to act as on sports betting.
Neighboring Sunshine State passed sports betting when it ratified an amended gaming heavyset with the Seminole Tribe. However, that concord has been struck down by a federal judge. Tribal leaders and the federal government get appealed that decision.