Texas lawmakers' refusal to consider casino gaming and sports betting legislation is bad news for Lone Star State residents looking to place a bet. It continues to be good news across the Red River.
Oklahoma remains one of the biggest beneficiaries of Texas’ continued ban on most forms of casino gaming. It has the most gaming facilities per capita of any state, which generate more than $3 billion in revenue annually.
This includes the 400,000-square-foot Winstar Casino in Thackerville, located yards from the Texas border.
Texas is the nation’s second-most populated state and far and away the largest without any “Las Vegas-style” casinos. Though it has several small tribal casinos, a state lottery, and horse tracks, it doesn’t have sports betting or other forms of traditional casino table gaming.
Instead, Texans are spending billions annually in Louisiana, which is not far from the Houston metro, as well as Oklahoma, closer to the Dallas-Ft. Worth region. Though polling from gaming advocates has shown the majority of Texans would support legalized gaming, lawmakers have refused to seriously consider any gaming expansion since the lottery was approved more than three decades ago.
One of the factors keeping out casinos and sports betting in Texas are Oklahoma gaming tribes; Crystal Houston of the Oklahoma Chickasaw Gaming Commission reaffirmed during an industry conference today they are working to prevent Texas gaming
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) March 13, 2025
Las Vegas Sands has spent millions lobbying the legislature for a Dallas-area casino with little success. Sports betting legalization has also gained little traction in this year’s session, even though it passed through the House by a two-to-one margin with bipartisan support in the previous session.
This year has arguably been regressive for Texas gambling hopes. The state banned online lottery couriers, including DraftKings-owned Jackpocket, and a group of House lawmakers reiterated in recent days they will not vote for any new gambling bill.
With Texas lawmakers only meeting in odd-numbered years and any gaming expansion requiring voter approval on a ballot measure in an even-numbered election year, sports betting or casino gaming likely couldn’t come to Texas until 2029 at the earliest.
This is a welcome development in Oklahoma.
Speaking at the NEXT.Io gaming conference in New York Thursday, Chickasaw Nation Gaming Commission vice chair Crystal Houston said Oklahoma tribes are benefiting from Texas’ continued gaming ban. With Texans unable to gamble at home, they are crossing state lines to gamble at one of the dozens of casinos across the state, including the Chickasaw-operated Winstar.
“We try to keep gaming out of Texas,” Houston said at Thursday’s conference. “That's what we do. We keep digital out of Texas, any kind of gaming out of Texas, because that's what drives our revenue.”
Texas hurting Oklahoma sports betting
Texas’ sports betting ban is a factor inadvertently hurting Oklahoma sports betting approval.
Despite the high number of casinos, Oklahoma remains one of just 11 states that have not approved retail or online sports betting. Tribal gaming stakeholders have for years expressed interest in both options but have remained without gaming as they await a deal negotiated on their terms.
Federal Native American gaming law requires tribes to reach a compact with their state’s governor before offering new gambling forms. Gov. Kevin Stitt has tried for years to pass a sweeping online and retail betting bill that allows stakeholders outside tribal gaming access to legal sportsbooks, a position the tribes have opposed.
Tribal stakeholders instead have been content to wait out Stitt’s administration, which will be term-limited at the end of 2026, in hopes of finding a more favorable deal with the next governor. Not having to compete with Texas, where many of their casino customers live, for sports betting dollars has allowed tribes to bide their time for approval.
Texas market remains massive
In the meantime, Texans are placing hundreds of thousands of bets each year, all of them illegally.
Texas is projected to have the nation’s second-largest sports betting market, per a study from Next.Io and Blask released this week. Though it's impossible to track money wagered illegally, projections indicate Texas generates more sports betting handle than the more than $10 billion placed each year in New York, the nation’s largest competitive regulated market.
This massive potential has led all major commercial sports betting operators to push for legalization in Texas. Despite lobbying, public support indicators and the thriving unregulated market, state lawmakers remain unmoved.
Despite the delay, Oklahoma will likely see its first legal sports betting placed before Texas. Without or without legal sportsbooks, it continues to benefit directly from Texas’ gambling prohibition.
