Casinos and Sports Betting Reach the Ballot Question Stage in Texas: Fort Worth's Charlie Geren Files HJR 52, Alvarado Files SJR 11 — Ten Casinos, a 15% Tax Cap, and a November 2027 Vote If Two-Thirds Agree

AUSTIN — Prefiling's first day brought the gaming industry's perennial Texas question back in its most formal dress: constitutional amendments. Rep. Charlie Geren, the Fort Worth Republican, filed House Joint Resolution 52, and Sen. Carol Alvarado, the Houston Democrat, filed Senate Joint Resolution 11 — near-identical proposals, filed Nov. 9, that would let the Legislature authorize casino gaming and sports wagering, according to the iGaming Times report read in full by this desk against the Texas Legislature Online records it cites. Neither comes with an enabling bill — the House and Senate filed-bills reports dated Nov. 10 list none — so licensing, the actual tax rate and online play would all be left to a later law, if voters ever give the Legislature the power.

The terms both resolutions share: casinos capped at 10 licensed facilities, the tax on gaming revenue capped at 15%, and casino gaming confined to licensed premises — sports wagering is not restricted to premises in either text. Geren's HJR 52 sets 40-year license terms and leaves regulation to a future law; Alvarado's SJR 11 instead creates a state commission with law-enforcement powers over lotteries, casino gaming and sports wagering alike. The first day's gaming cluster ran wider than the two headliners: Sens. Roland Gutierrez filed SJR 12 and SJR 13 to authorize Kickapoo Traditional Tribe gaming under a state compact and under state law respectively; Sens. Bob Hall and Brent Hagenbuch filed SB 188 to abolish the state lottery outright; and Rep. Salman Bhojani's HB 598 would bar event contracts — prediction-market trades — on deaths, wars, disasters and court cases, with a minimum age of 21 in the prediction-market provisions reported from the filings.

The arithmetic is the story. A constitutional amendment needs two-thirds of the members elected to each chamber — 100 of 150 in the House, 21 of 31 in the Senate — before it reaches voters on Nov. 2, 2027. Republicans still hold the Senate 19-12 after last week's election, and it is the Senate that never took up the last House-passed gaming amendment. For the Metroplex, the Geren authorship is the local fact: the push is being carried in the House by a Fort Worth member, in a region whose voters would be asked to decide whether Texas joins the casino states. The Legislature convenes Jan. 12, 2027; between now and then, HJR 52 and SJR 11 are captions and commitments, not casinos.