Regulated online sports betting is once again a topic of discussion in the state of Georgia during its latest 2023 legislative session. A Senate panel recently “hijacked a bill intended to commend a local soapbox derby,” according to a local report in the Georgia Reporter.
House Bill 237, a bill which would legalize sports betting statewide, recently moved forward after it was passed by the Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee panel in a vote of 8 to 1.
The Georgia Reporter noted that Senator Mike Dugan “slammed the tactic used to attach it to an innocuous bill,” which advanced the current bill beyond the panel.
Dugan told the Georgia Reporter that the attempt to graft gambling language into the soap box derby bill “would backfire despite claims from the authors of the rewrite.”
He said: “When you hijack a soapbox derby and put sports betting on the back of it, every person that was on the fence in the state of Georgia has just picked a side of the fence.
“It will not pass on the (Senate) floor and I think everybody in here knows it won’t pass on the floor, and the damage you have just done to the sports betting industry by trying this is unfathomable.”
Since the Supreme Court repealed PASPA in 2018, online gambling is currently available in more than 35 states, with 18 of those allowing for legal online sports wagering.
Both Republican House Speaker Jon Burns and Lt. Governor Burt Jones have expressed interest in revisiting sports betting legislation, even when previous attempts to regulate a state market have failed, the Georgia Reporter said.
