The likely new majority owners of the Dallas Mavericks, the families behind the Las Vegas Sands casino and resorts, are setting the stage to expand if Texas ever expands gambling to allow casino table games. Mark Cuban will still operate the team and will now have well-known and deep-pocketed allies to help him achieve a longtime goal of a hotel resort and casino in North Texas.
The NBA still needs to approve the purchase by Miriam Adelson and her son-in-law Patrick Dumont for $3.5 billion.
Historically, the Texas legislature has been opposed to expanding gaming into Tier III, which would allow casino games like blackjack, roulette, poker, and others. Currently, the three major casinos in Texas run by Native American tribes have bingo and slot-like machines. Getting that far, took decades.
But this past year, the Texas House took a rare floor vote on the issue, getting over the 100 needed votes for sports betting but falling short by a few for expanding casino gaming. Two-thirds of both chambers need to approve a gambling item before sending it to voters in a statewide election to make the final say.
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"The lottery took forever to get done because people had similar kinds of concerns about the nature of gambling and it being introduced into Texas, University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus told The Dallas Morning News, "In a similar sense, casino gaming in Texas is a steady build over time that's likely to produce an outcome the gambling advocates are going to want to see."
In the days after the deal was announced, Adelson was already in the area speaking at a yearly conference for the powerful Texas Association of Business in Austin.
Her speech to the group was about business and emotional ties between Texas and her home country of Israel, now engaged in a war with the terrorist group Hamas. A few comments about Dallas crept in, however.
“The commercial ties between Texas and Israel are truly booming and it even runs deeper than Basketball. Though my family are huge fans of the Dallas Mavericks," said Adelson.
Robert Kohler, lobbyist and consultant for the policy arm of the Baptist General Convention spoke to Lone Star Politics about the issue. He argues the ultra-complicated Federal gaming laws will bring more than one casino to Texas if approved by lawmakers. Federal law gives tribal casinos a front-row seat, so if the state allows a Sands casino and resort in Dallas, casinos from the Kickapoo and other tribes will legally pop up around the state like in Oklahoma.
"There will be way more and you can’t control it as a state," said Kohler.
To the point of bringing more investment, jobs, and tourism to the state, Kohler said, “Well, I mean if they like the way New Jersey looks or Las Vegas, that’s OK. They can have those beliefs.”
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He sees the Adelson's buying a "seat at the table" if gaming is ever expanded. Kohler and the Baptists oppose expanding gambling because they believe it will convince poor Texans and those on government programs to take risky bets and lose money.
“If you want to go to Las Vegas, there’s some planning. We have got to be able to afford the plane ticket. We have got to be able to afford hotel reservations. We’ve got to have a credit card. We’ve got to have a checking account. There’s a large majority of folks in this state that don’t have that. Even in the DFW [area] that just don’t have those things," said Kohler.
State Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth), sponsored the casino gambling bill this year and told The Dallas Morning News gaming will likely come down to the 2024 election and if there's a different set of lawmakers in Austin during the following legislative session.
Last week, Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), as part of his "revenge tour" after a failed impeachment attempt, named gambling as one of the reasons why he was supporting a House incumbent's opponent.
However, the largest hurdle may well be the president of the Texas Senate, Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. Bills expanding gambling in the state have historically gone nowhere in the state's upper chamber.
Patrick has said in the past he doesn't break up his Republican caucus. That means for him to call any item for a vote, it must get support from the vast majority of the 19 Republicans in the Texas Senate. While a gambling bill may pass with 10 Republicans and 11 Democrats, Patrick doesn't want the effort to pass with a majority of Democrats in the Republican-led Senate. Getting 15, 16, or 17 conservative Republicans to support expanding gambling is a tough hill to climb.
Patrick in the past has said he likes Adelson a lot but the votes are not there to expand gambling in his Texas Senate.
"We don't have the votes for casinos," Patrick earlier told The Dallas Morning News, "There are not enough votes for sports betting and I don't think that's going to change."
"You bring me 15 (Republican) votes, and you'll know where I stand," said Patrick.
Supporters of the issue told NBC 5 that Adelson having more interests in Texas will help. The family is a well-known GOP megadonor worth $32 billion according to Forbes. She was born in Israel and was a published and accomplished physician working on drug abuse issues before getting into the casino industry. Her son-in-law Patrick Dumont is the president of the company. In 2023, the company hired more than 60 lobbyists for nearly $ 6 million according to the Texas Ethics Commission.
Miriam Adelson took over the company after her late husband and GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson passed away.
According to the Texas Tribune, the Adelsons gave $4.5 million to state Republicans to keep control of the lower chamber in 2020. Adelson gave $2.3 million to a political action committee pushing to expand gaming laws in 2022 along with $1 million to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's recent reelection. Abbott is a longtime friend of the Adelson family.
“From the top office from my dear friend Gov. Abbott and all the way down to ordinary churchgoers and campaigners, Texans have turned out for Israel," Adelson said in her speech to the business group.
Many onlookers and lawmakers believe Adelson getting closer to Texas politics and business can only help their cause. She'll join others like the Texas Sports Betting Alliance, which includes Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Cuban, and former Gov. Rick Perry as their spokesman.
"The Sands people and others in the gaming industry have been investing in Texas now for quite a number of years," said State Senator Carol Alvarado, a Houston Democrat who supports the Sands' effort," I know that they're going to continue that investment, and I'm going to continue doing my part."
