The lights officially went out last night on Georgia’s sports betting hopes for 2023.

Georgia’s 2023 legislative session ended early Thursday morning without the Senate addressing a hijacked soap box derby turned sports betting bill, officially killing off any chance for sports betting this year.

What started out as a promising session ended in failure again for proponents of sports betting, as efforts for legalization will have to wait until the 2024.

Soap box derby turned sports betting bill never had a chance

The Peach State’s sports betting efforts seemed to die earlier this month when neither the House or Senate passed sports betting legislation on crossover day, but efforts were seemingly resurrected when members of the Senate Committee on Economic Development and Tourism surprisingly approved a substitute of a soap box derby bill to include sports betting language.

The bill would have legalized online and retail sports betting in the Peach State, with the lottery corporation regulating sports betting efforts with a 22% sports betting tax rate.

The bill substitute was short lived, however, and faced steep criticism. Sen. Leesa Hagan (R-15), the author of the original soap box derby bill, asked that her soap box derby language be stricken from the new substitute bill and her request was granted. It was Hagan’s first ever piece of legislation.

Committee Vice Chairman Sen. Mike Dugan (R-30) had harsh words for those who approved of the action to “hijack” another bill to include sports betting language.

“Whoever came up with this idea just set sports betting back five years. When you hijack a soap box derby (bill) and put sports betting on the back of it, every person that was on the fence in the state of Georgia has just now picked a side of the fence. I can’t support this. It will not pass on the floor. I think everyone knows it won’t pass on the floor, and the damage you have just done to the sports betting industry while trying this is unfathomable to me,” he said.

Dugan cast the lone vote again the substitute bill.

The bill was never brought up on the Senate floor for a discussion or a vote.

Georgia sports betting legalization questions left unanswered

Neither the Georgia House or Senate could come to a consensus on several introduced bills this session. Perhaps most troubling for sports betting proponents is that a solution to how sports betting can be legalized in the Peach State has yet to be found. Lawmakers are still at odds over the necessity of a constitutional amendment for sports betting.

Both types of bills were introduced this session and all were defeated. During the state’s crossover day, the Georgia Senate voted down SR 140, a resolution seeking a constitutional amendment to approve Georgia sports betting, by a vote of 30-26. While the majority approved the resolution, it required a two-thirds majority to pass.

SR 140, and its companion bill SB 172, hoped to approve Georgia sports betting through a constitutional amendment approved by state voters in November. Sen. Bill Cowsert (R-46) urged his fellow senators to approve the resolution to put sports betting to a vote in the general election in November.

“I don’t get why it’s wrong to let the people of Georgia vote on this issue,” he said during discussion of the resolution.

Later in the same day the House killed HB 380, a bill to legalize online sports betting without a constitutional amendment, by never calling it for a vote.

The bill was never even called to the House floor. Georgia Rep. Marcus Wiedower’s (R-119) bill would have legalized online sports betting for Georgia professional sports teams and PGA Tour golf courses, such as Augusta National, through 16 online sports betting licenses.

Is a constitutional amendment necessary?

Debate as to whether Georgia needs to amend its constitution to legally allow sports betting was rampant this session. A Senate resolution, SR 394, was introduced to create a study committee to evaluate the question, but it was never approved.

At least one gaming law attorney believes the state can legalize without a constitutional amendment. Daniel Wallach, a gaming law attorney, Founder of Wallach Legal and UNHLaw Sports Wagering, told Saturday Down South at the start of the session that previous bills seeking state constitutional amendments was likely due to advice from Georgia’s legislative counsel.

It’s the path of least resistance, Wallach said, and a strategy for Georgia to avoid any potential lawsuits.

“But that’s not really advice, that’s just being overly cautious, and the legislative counsel did not definitively take the position that the prohibition against casino gambling was directed at sports betting. His view, and he took a fairly simplistic view of it, was that by virtue of the fact that there are sportsbooks inside of casinos in some states, that this makes it casino gambling,” he said.

Wallach told Saturday Down South that it is his belief, and the belief of several state attorney generals, that the Georgia constitution does not prohibit sports betting.

The state’s constitution is clear, Wallach said, in that it only prohibits three categories of gambling; casino gambling, pari-mutuel betting on horse races, and privately-operated lotteries (with an exception for the state-operated lottery).

Sports betting does not fall within these three categories.