Texan sports teams back push for legal sports betting

The Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers, and Dallas Mavericks are backing calls to allow Texans to vote on whether to undo the state’s ban on sports betting.

US. – The biggest sports teams in Texas, including the Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers and Dallas Mavericks, have put their weight behind calls to legalise sports betting in Texas.

They join the Sports Betting Alliance, a coalition of franchises and betting platforms, which has been pushing for the state to allow a vote on legalisation.

Supporters say that illegal and unregulated sports betting is taking place in Texas and that legalising the activity would allow the regulation of an industry that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars of new revenue for the state to fund critical programmes without raising taxes.

Texas has a ban on most gambling other than bingo, the Texas Lottery and some horse and greyhound track racing.

It would take two bills to legalise sports betting in the state because legislation would first be needed to allow a public referendum on whether to quash the existing ban on sports betting.

Last month, it emerged that casino giant Las Vegas Sands had employed an army of lobbyists to attempt to influence lawmakers to legalise casinos in Texas.