Mark Cuban's Big Wager on Gambling in Texas Faces Long Odds in the Texas Senate To comprehend the financial mega-muscle coming to Dallas in 2024, a little simple math: According to Forbes, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ net worth is $14.5 billion. The Dallas Mavericks' Mark Cuban is worth $6.2 billion, Dallas Stars owner Tom Gaglardi $3.7 billion and the Texas Rangers’ recently christened championship boss Ray Davis $2.9 billion. Add it all up, and it’s a robust $27.3 billion, or …
Less — by $6 billion, mind you — than the unfathomably deep pockets of Las Vegas casino magnate Miriam Adelson. With son-in-law Patrick Dumont, Adelson heads the group that built The Venetian and The Palazzo on the Vegas strip. This week, the NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved her acquisition of the Mavericks for $3.5 billion.
Adelson has the power to prompt Cuban to sell his beloved Mavs, but is her $33 billion empire and considerable influence with Republican lawmakers in Texas enough to bring legalized gambling to the Lone Star State? If so, are the Mavs long for Dallas?
Tom Landry and Don Carter are rolling over in their graves. But, by embracing the burgeoning, inevitable industries of gambling and sports betting in Texas, Cuban and Jones are about to be rolling in even more money.
Landry (the iconic original coach of the Cowboys) and Carter (founding father of the Mavericks) were principled men with beliefs in the Christian faith. Landry spent much of his offseason volunteering for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Carter went to church twice on Sunday and always removed his trademark Stetson indoors "because Momma raised me right.”
Doubt if they ever made even a friendly wager in their lives.
These days the custodians of the Mavs and Cowboys are Cuban and Jones, characters who know their way around a good party, wheeler-dealers who are adept at profiting from businesses that Landry and Carter wouldn’t have touched.
If you travel outside Texas, you realize that casino gambling and sports betting have become commonplace. But here in the deep-red, Republican-controlled Bible Belt, putting money on “games of chance” is still a crime.
As of this year, 37 states have legalized gambling. In 2022, New Jersey took in a whopping $2.6 billion in net profit from sports betting, and in its first 10 weeks after allowing online gambling, New York raked in $4 billion in gross revenue. Even without legal avenues, estimates are that Texans bet $6 billion a year on sports.
Despite that potential windfall, ultra-conservative gambling opponent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced last May that online sports betting isn’t coming to Texas any time soon. Plano Rep. Jeff Leach authored a bill to legalize sports gambling, and the House considered “destination resort” casinos.
Both ideas were summarily quashed in the state’s Republican-dominated Senate.
“I’ve said repeatedly there is little to no support for expanding gaming,” Patrick said. “We don’t waste time on bills without overwhelming GOP support. Texas remains a red state.”
Against that daunting backdrop, Cuban and Jones are betting on Texas.
Jones is fiscally red; Cuban socially blue. Both covet, above all else, green.
Do they need even more financial and political oomph to twist Republican arms in Austin? Enter Adelson, who last year donated $1 million to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. In 2018, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump.
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/mark-cubans-sale-of-dallas-mavericks-step-on-path-to-sports-gambling-18227041