Las Vegas Sands doubles down on casino gaming in Texas

Las Vegas Sands continues to lobby and push for regulated casino gaming in the Lone Star State, as the company is building up its presence locally. First, Las Vegas Sands made news several years ago when it led the Texas Destination Resort Alliance and sought to bring Vegas-style casino resorts to the state.

The efforts have mostly stalled, but they were not immediately shut down. Las Vegas Sands also purchased the controlling share in the Dallas Mavericks, a prominent and beloved local basketball franchise that is part of the efforts to build a new landscape for gambling in the state.

Now, Las Vegas States has filed a new petition, urging legislators to allow voters to decide for themselves whether four and five-star casinos should be part of Texas’ landscape.

Following the creation of the Texas Destination Resort Alliance in 2021, Las Vegas Sands also invested $2m in a political action committee, or a PAC as these vessels of influence are known, seeking to once again sway public opinion and legislators that the time to embrace gambling expansion had finally come.

Mark Cuban, the former owner of the Mavericks, has been a vociferous supporter of the idea, and has repeatedly said that the state’s reluctance to act allowed tax dollars to pour outside, with locals planning their trips elsewhere and not Texas. Cuban and the Las Vegas Sands are not the only prominent figures to have publicly and openly discussed the potential benefits of casinos in the Lone Star State either.

For one, Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, an NFL franchise, has similarly said that Texans would then have a choice where to spend their hard-earned dollars, and have a chance to push back against what he described as "shadowy" out-of-state gambling platforms referring to the offshore gambling market.

To have casinos in Texas, however, the state would need to change its constitution. This happens in two stages. First, a supermajority of legislators has to be formed which, in Texas’ case means 100 out of 150 House of Representatives members, and 21 out of 31 Senate members voting in favor of the matter.

Should this actually happen, voters would go to the ballot and decide whether they approve of the idea. Reluctant as politicians may be to rub voters the wrong way, the state’s residents may actually be very keen to introduce land-based casinos.

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