Advantage Players: Texas Plays Hold'em With ItselfOp-Ed From Author And Journalist Michael Kaplan |
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If you want to gamble in America, it’s gotten to be pretty easy. Every state, save for five, offers some form of legalized casino gambling. When it comes to sports betting, 38 states plus Washington D.C. permit it.
Texas barely falls in with those that allow casino gambling, though sports betting remains verboten.
For the former, state residents make do with three Indian casino and quasi legal poker dens – where getting shot is a real possibility. Beyond those options, the Lone Star State has precious little to offer its law-abiding(ish) degens. This is particularly true if you like a little bit of luxury alongside your degeneracy.
Miriam Adelson is working hard to change that. An Israeli-born physician, with a blond shag, partiality to Lennon-style shades and financial allegiance to Donald Trump, she is the widow of Venetian Casino & Resort founder Sheldon Adelson.
That last detail also makes her a serious billionaire. Sheldon, who became a Las Vegas tycoon late in life, left more than $30 billion at the time of his passing in 2021.
Accustomed to getting what she wants – whether it’s controlling interest in the Dallas Mavericks, a private jet to wherever or Donald Trump in the White House – Adelson now desires to see non-tribal gambling in Texas. Particularly, she wants to have gambling legalized and for Las Vegas Sands, under which the Venetian operates, to put multiple casino-resorts in the state.
No doubt, they will be as luxe as they are profitable. Judging by the Sands properties in Vegas, Macau and Singapore, the company likes to do things right.
As does Adelson. According to a report in the Dallas News, she spent $13.7 million on political donations during the first 10 months of 2024. It sounds like Adelson absorbed a favorite saying from Benny Binion, namesake of the late, great Binion’s Horseshoe. The wording basically goes like this: people with gold make the golden rule.
Or at least they try really hard to do so. It’s been estimated that the cost of hiring political lobbyists and doling out donations in Texas has cost LV Sands some $100 million. Not surprisingly, then, the company is said to have more lobbyists in the state than any other entity. And they are all hustling to make casino gambling legal in Texas.
Adelson’s plans for cowboy country sound good to me. No doubt, they also sound good to gamblers who live in the place for which Texas hold’em was named. She wants sports betting and, of course, casino gambling. A source acknowledged to the Texas-centric website Chron.com that Adelson and other boosters of gambling have “moved the ball closer to the goal line.”
The question, of course, is how many more of Adelson’s millions will be required to get it over. While there’s little doubt that the state will benefit from casinos and online sports betting, evangelical killjoys seem to be holding it back. But that may change in 2025 or ’26 and then we can all hang out in some rodeo-friendly iteration of Adelson’s Venetian resort-casino, with Mavericks tickets for all.
If it doesn’t happen, you can always blame the Texas contradiction.
“Texans love to gamble,” political scientist Jon Taylor told News 4 San Antonio. “And they love to elect law makers [who] prevent them from doing so.”
Let’s roll the dice and hope for the best.
Michael Kaplan is a journalist based in New York City. He is the author of five books (“The Advantage Players” comes out in 2024) and has worked for publications that include Wired, GQ and the New York Post. He has written extensively on technology, gambling, and business — with a particular interest in spots where all three intersect. His article on Kelly “Baccarat Machine” Sun and Phil Ivey is currently in development as a feature film.
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