Sports fans will be exploring the state capitol this week as three bills designed to allow Georgians to bet their money on games face key committee hearings.
On Tuesday, the House Higher Education Committee is scheduled to hear a bill by Rep. Marcus Wiedower, a Republican from Watkinsville.
Wiedower’s plan is to bring sports betting under the jurisdiction of the Georgia Lottery and issue 16 licenses to operate betting services.
A license would be for the Georgia Lottery Corp. accessible. Five licenses are slated to go to the state’s professional teams: the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Braves, Atlanta United, Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta Dream, each of which would partner with an online sportsbook service. Three more are dedicated to the Masters Tournament, the Professional Golf Association, and NASCAR, and corporations would compete for the remaining seven licenses.
Each of the licensees would pay 15% of their adjusted gross income in taxes that the state was required by state to spend on education.
Wiedower said Georgia could bring in between $50 million and $90 million in the first year if his bill becomes law, but he acknowledged the difficulty of predicting it.
Rep. Marcus Wiedower speaks to the House Higher Education Committee. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
“I suggest that this is happening so numerously under cover of darkness, if you will, it’s hard to put a figure on that,” he said at a House Higher Education Committee hearing on Thursday. “We don’t know exactly how much Georgians bet, but we do know they do it in abundance. Coming back to my original intention, I want to protect those who do.”
Wiedower said bringing sports betting under state control would allow lawmakers to enact regulations aimed at preventing underage and those with gambling problems from accessing the services.
can he do that
Lawmakers have tried to improve Georgians’ ability to gamble since voters first sanctioned the Georgia Lottery in 1992, but for years opponents have argued that expanding gambling would require a constitutional amendment. That would mean two-thirds of the votes in both legislative chambers and majority support from Georgian citizens in a referendum vote, a tough challenge.
Wiedower’s bill does not call for a constitutional change. Harold Melton, a former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, now a partner at the law firm Troutman Pepper, recently released a memo saying such a change was unnecessary.
Alpharetta Republican Assemblyman Chuck Martin, a co-sponsor of the bill and chair of the Higher Education Committee, said if the bill becomes law, it will be subject to judicial review like any other law.
“I don’t think there is a black letter solution for this. I think we could probably put up a room full of people, half would tell us it’s constitutionally fine, half would tell us it’s not,” he said.
Georgia Baptist Convention spokesman Mike Griffin said he was against expanding gambling on moral grounds, but it was worse to enact one without voter consent.
“I think there’s an integrity issue here in general,” he said. “The people didn’t vote on this in 1992, and I think if we’re going to be true to our constitution, that would have to be a constitutional amendment, and the people of the state of Georgia would have to make that final decision, not the legislature.”
In a statewide poll conducted last fall by the Research Center at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs, 45.6% of the likely voters surveyed supported making online betting on professional sports legal in the state and 42.6% were against, with 11.8% responding “don’t know.”
Senate bill
Senator Bill Cowsert, an Athens Republican, said he agrees with Griffin that voters should make the decision. The Senate Committee on Regulated Industries and Utilities, chaired by Cowsert, will hear its sports betting bill on Thursday, which calls for a constitutional amendment.
Senator Bill Cowsert. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
“I firmly believe that when the people of Georgia passed the lottery bill, they did so in conjunction with the knowledge that other forms of gambling, casino gambling — which I believe includes sports betting.” No one could have believed that sports betting was a lottery game because sports betting was illegal nationwide – coupled with the lottery being legalised, our constituents thought that other forms, horse racing conducted through parimutuel betting and all forms of casino gaming were so goods will not be allowed in our state.”
Cowsert’s bill would create a Georgia Gaming Corporation with seven members appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House of Representatives to oversee sports betting regulation and issue licenses.
The company would grant service providers at least six licenses, one of which would be reserved for the Georgia Lottery, but there would be no cap. The Senate version would also allow the company to license places like bars and restaurants to install sports betting kiosks, while the House version would only allow individual online betting.
Cowsert’s plan sets the tax rate for most bets at 20% of adjusted gross income, but riskier types of bets would be taxed higher at 25%.
Going through a constitutional amendment is more difficult but carries some benefits, Cowsert said. Passing through the lottery would mean monies could be used only for the educational programs that the lottery is mandated to pay for, but a constitutional amendment could divert taxes from other licensees to other entities, subject to voter approval.
Cowsert’s constitutional amendment provides that half of sports betting revenue goes toward need-based scholarships for state public and private universities. A quarter of the money would go to “health care, mental health, economic development and poverty alleviation” in rural and poverty-prone parts of the state.
Another 15% would go towards the prevention and alleviation of gambling addiction, and the final 10% would be split evenly between promoting, sponsoring and hosting major sporting events in Georgia and “innovative educational programs and services”.
Cowsert said a constitutional change would also mean Democrats would get a seat at the table, since neither chamber has a two-thirds Republican majority. Both Wiedower’s and Cowsert’s bills have fellow Democratic and Republican supporters.
The ponies
Senator Billy Hickman. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
Expanding Georgian gaming opportunities into sports betting would be a big win for gambling advocates, but Senator Billy Hickman, a Statesboro Republican, wants to go one step further.
He introduced a sports betting bill that would not require a constitutional amendment and would also allow betting on horse racing at up to three racetracks statewide.
That bill is scheduled to receive a second hearing Monday before the Senate Committee on Economic Development and Tourism.
Proponents say allowing horse racing could bring Georgia farmers a new source of income, but horse racing has typically been a tough sell to lawmakers because it is opposed by the same groups that oppose other forms of gambling as well as animal rights groups.
