AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Making his rounds on radio stations final week, Lt Gov. Dan Patrick signaled it is likely to be ‘game over’ within the Legislature’s renewed effort to legalize on line casino playing and sports activities betting.

Speaking on The Mark Davis Show final Tuesday, Patrick mentioned the Senate has “zero support” for each legislative proposals. 

“Our members have been clear: they’re not in support today. We don’t have any votes in the Senate,” Patrick mentioned. “Couldn’t find one Senator who supported it.”

However, one in all Patrick’s high allies, Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Houston, is sponsoring SJR 39, a constitutional modification that might enable Texans to wager on sports activities, in the event that they had been to approve it on a November poll.

Patrick made a dig on the Texas House, saying he refuses to move a invoice that has a majority of Democrats — however not Republicans — in help of the laws. 

“Unless I have 15 to 16 Republicans, meaning it’s a Republican-driven bill because we’re a Republican-driven state, I’m not bringing a bill to the floor,” he mentioned. “I need Republican consensus otherwise, it’s a Democrat bill.”

In a March listening to on HJR 102 within the House, writer of the invoice Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, mentioned it might advance “freedom and liberty” in Texas and permit the state to monetize on one thing already occurring. 

“There are hundreds of our constituents — citizens of all ages, including minors — who right now, especially with March Madness, are placing unsafe, unsecure, illegal, criminal bets very easily,” Leach mentioned. 

Leach’s invoice was left pending within the House State Affairs Committee.

Opponents of betting laws have raised issues about playing dependancy and the social penalties of playing, a fear typically raised by conservative non secular teams in Texas. 

Mark Jones, a politics professor at Rice University, says the talk is a conflict of enterprise pursuits and conservative household values. 

“The lieutenant governor has serious qualms about the merits and benefits of gambling. That is, I think he sees the negative social consequences of gambling as often outweighing the revenue benefits,” Jones mentioned. 

According to the Texas Sports Betting Alliance, greater than 73,000 wager makes an attempt from Texas had been blocked through the opening week of March Madness. The group says these makes an attempt had been prevented by GeoComply, a know-how that identifies customers the place sports activities betting is illegitimate.