“I do think there’s momentum for something to happen this session,” state Sen. Brandon Beach (R, below) said of legalizing gambling in Georgia, although solons remain undecided on whether to add sports betting to the 
package they’ll be proposing. “We need further deliberation.” Lawmakers conducted a listening tour of the state, compiled a report but held back from making formal endorsements. Casinos are more popular with voters than is glum Gov. Brian Kemp (R) but that’s no guarantee of anything. A two-thirds vote in the Lege is needed to merely get casinos onto the next election ballot, where they would also need a supermajority to pass. At least two proposals are gaining traction, according to the Albany Herald: “One would be built adjacent to the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, while the other is the brainchild of Columbus entrepreneur Bob Wright, who wants to build a casino resort along the Chattahoochee River between Uptown Columbus and Fort Benning.” (Lots of troops with discretionary dollars from Uncle Sam burning a hole in their collective pocket.)
Beach is also stumping for pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing, which he sees as a means of jump-starting an equine industry in rural Georgia. He’s cool to sports wagering, due to its low level of revenue return, even though four professional sports franchises are hot and heavy for it. “It doesn’t create a lot of jobs. I want to create jobs and industry,” Beach told the paper. While legalizing gaming was originally pitched as a means of propping up the HOPE Scholarship fund, support for that idea is trickling away, as some in the Lege want to redirect casino revenue toward health care. Also, the entertainment industry is opposed, for fear that it won’t be able to rival casinos that pay top dollar for touring acts. For instance, would Augusta‘s new Miller Theater still be able to present Audra McDonald and Kenny G if there were a nearby casino with a showroom to fill?
Lawmakers themselves are undecided on how to try and pass gambling legislation. Some favor a combo platter, others want to do it a la carte. One things certain: Whatever the Legislature proposes, Kemp will oppose.
* Powered by sports betting, Draft Kings has announced it will enter the stock market sans IPO. It will merge with Maltese operator SBTech, with DraftKings CEO Jason Robins remaining at the helm. (The SBTech acquisition brings the building of sports-betting software in-house.) 
Boston-based DraftKings values the deal at $3.3 billion and says it will give the combined companies $500 million cash in pocket. The deal will, Robins says, “allow us to both innovate on products at a much faster rate, as well as accelerate growth of the business. We’re still hitting the gas and planning to grow in Boston for a long time.” Robins also snapped up Jeff Sagansky‘s Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp., a venture-capital firm. Despite its rapid growth (or perhaps because of it), DraftKings is still seen as a takeover target.
“Anyone who really wants to compete in this market just needs money. Buckets and buckets of money. And that’s what DraftKings picked up today,” Eilers & Krejcik Gaming partner Chris Grove told the Boston Globe. “That’s definitely going to be something that comes in handy in the short- to near-term as they compete in these pretty saturated markets.” DraftKings will also be moving its charter from Delaware to comparably corporate-friendly Nevada.
In other Massachusetts news, the Boston Globe editorial page weighed in on the question of whether or not to allow a fourth casino in the Bay State. Predictably, they want the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to 
keep that final license in its pocket. Citing the discrepancy between (inflated) revenue projections for Massachusetts casinos and the cold reality, the editorial is headlined “The market has changed.” No, it hasn’t. It’s just not what it was imagined to be. The editorial board calls for a market study, with an emphasis on Bristol County and Plymouth County, to see if a fourth casino can be sustained. The Mashpee Wampanoag aren’t really a factor, the U.S. Senate having spiked a bill sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) that would have created a reservation in Taunton.
Bay State law gives the MGC discretion in awarding that final license. It should be an up-or-down decision. If the Lege gets into the act, say, granting table games to Plainridge Park or downsizing the last casino, it could be a free-for-all, such as we’ve seen in Pennsylvania and Illinois. 
Lawmakers are the worst addicts to casino money. Argues the Globe, “There’s a moral argument for waiting for the tribe, in order to compensate for centuries of poverty and oppression. There’s an economic development argument for going ahead with [Neil] Bluhm or some other commercial applicant to grab jobs and tax revenues … With more data at its fingertips, the commission should run the numbers and figure out whether a third [sic] casino is a good idea.” Here at S&G we’ve had a free-market epiphany: Let Bluhm have his head and allow the chips to fall where they may. Nobody ever said Massachusetts casinos had to have the hands held to avoid financial difficulty.
* Racinos at six Nebraska horse tracks are headed for the election-year ballot, helped along by $1.5 million from Ho-Chunk Inc. The petition drive’s title—Keep the Money in Nebraska—gets to the gist of the issue. Ho-Chunk CEO Lance Morgan believes the legalization of casino gambling would bring $80 million a year in tax revenue to the Cornhusker State. “We’re not spending this amount of capital because we think it’s a bad idea,” he says sarcastically, adding, “Any reasonable person who goes to the casinos in Council Bluffs knows that 90 percent of their customers are from Omaha and Lincoln.” Tax money raised by the racinos would be directed to property-tax relief. The Iowa Gaming Association is remaining neutral but Gov. Pat Ricketts (R) has announced his opposition, as has former college football coach Tom Osborne.
Voters would not only have to approve racinos on the ballot but also two other measures regulating and taxing the nascent gaming industry. The Debbie Downers at Gambling with the Good Life admit that the odds are against them this time around. “We’re not taking anything for granted. We know it’s going to be a humongous battle, probably with more money put into than anything else,” said Executive Director Pat Loontjer. She’ll have to hope that Ho-Chunk’s petition drive is thrown out on a technicality because she’s not going to win this argument on merit.
Jottings: Feel like risking $1K on a single slot pull? San Manuel Casino in California has the high-end room for you—oh, and there’s 3:2 blackjack, along with a $10,000 cocktail … Steve Wynn‘s attorneys 
claim the mogul has “ended a nearly 50-year career in Nevada gaming.” As such they want a Nevada Gaming Control Board ban scotched by the courts. We don’t trust El Steve not to try and finagle his way back into Las Vegas at some future point. He’s too competitive … Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) called legalization of sports betting a “real bipartisan win” but ungratefully left state Rep. Brandt Iden (R), lead sponsor, out of the thank-yous. That shows a lack of class.
