If you ask Jerry Jones, it’s only a matter of time.
As legalized sports betting has continued its expansion to all but 12 states, it’s also factored into scandals in college athletics and suspensions in the NFL for players who violated the league’s gambling policy.
The Cowboys owner was recently asked about the prospect of sports betting passing in Texas, and while he is adamant that it all needs careful protections to stay on the “up and up,” Jones says ultimately he thinks it’ll pass.
Until then? Jones says Texas is losing out on some big revenue.
Here’s Jones’ full answer when asked what he thinks about the odds of legalized sports gambling passing in Texas in the near future. Comments are edited for clarity.
“The things I see are the impressive number of states — the Supreme Court said that this would be a state-determined operation as to where you’re located by state, whether or not you can have sports betting. And that’s why you have some states, over 30 of them that do it. And you have others that don’t.
“Think similar to this, if you look at the mind frame of the people, the mind frame of the people is what we’re talking about here. And I don’t want to sound like a politician, but it is the mindset, the mind frame, and it has to get an order of priority, an order of importance for something like this. Because it must be voted on by the citizens of the state of Texas. And so you’ve got to create a level of importance, and that level of importance sometimes takes some years to establish. Or some other visible, tangible other states doing it, for some states to make that happen.
“That’s a long-winded way of saying that I think ultimately you’ll have sports betting in the state of Texas. Until that time, this state does lose an opportunity for huge amounts of revenue.
“I think that properly — properly — supervised by the people that play the games and people that have the teams that play the games and the individual athletes, you’ve got to make sure that the perception is and the reality is that there’s just no compromising on it all being very competitive and [on the] up and up. And I think that takes some time in some places more than it does in others.”
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