ATLANTA — The World Cup is coming to Atlanta next year, but it doesn’t appear that a proposed mobile sports betting amendment will make it in time if it makes it at all.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle worked to pass an amendment at the Georgia State Capitol to legalize sports betting on Monday.
Crossover day is Thursday. That’s the day a bill has to pass one chamber or the other. That’s not a lot of time to get support for controversial bills.
But this time, lawmakers say they’ve been working it behind the scenes.
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Standing under the official portrait of Zell Miller, the governor who created the Hope scholarship, Republican and Democratic lawmakers announced on Monday that they were going to try yet again to get mobile sports betting passed again using the Georgia Lottery as the controlling agency with revenue going to the Hope scholarship, Georgia pre-k, and to help combat gambling addiction.
Watkinsville Republican Marcus Wiedower believes Georgia is losing millions in gambling revenue to other states.
This effort would require a constitutional amendment which needs a two-thirds vote in both chambers, and then a vote from the people of Georgia.
“We are targeting 2026. This is not something we’re trying to ram down anyone’s throats or rush,” Wiedower told Channel 2′s Richard Elliot. “We would like it to be a good cross-section of truly what Georgia wants, and if they don’t want it they’ll answer that question.”
Similar efforts have failed every session for the last several years.
Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s Mike Griffin insists it’s okay if the state doesn’t take advantage of gambling money.
“I wonder how much revenue they’re losing on prostitution? Fentanyl? Sex trafficking? Or recreational marijuana? Do we want to make money the ultimate standard of what we do or not do here at the legislature?” Griffin asked.
Wiedower insists legalizing this is the best way to put guidelines and regulations on gambling.
“We have the ability to provide safeguards. We have no ability to regulate the bad actors and people getting into bad situations,” he said.
This time, lawmakers will try this in the House which has always rejected it.
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