It’s official: Georgia sports betting will have to wait at least one more year.
Once again, the Georgia legislature considered bills that would legalize sports betting in the Peach State. However, the 2024 legislative session ended Thursday without any of those bills making enough progress.
What happened to Georgia sports betting legislation?
Companion pieces of legislation were approved by the Georgia Senate earlier this year. SB 386 and SR 579 would have authorized a vote on Election Day to authorize changes to the state’s constitution and bring Georgia sports betting to life.
This two-part initiative was similar in nature to one of several Georgia sports betting ideas bandied about during the 2023 legislative session. At that time, the consideration of multiple bills at once almost certainly stymied the prospects of any of them becoming laws.
However, even with just one idea on the table this time around, the issue was once again tabled. SB 386 and SR 579 were approved by the Georgia House Committee on Higher Education, but did not make it past the House Rules Committee.
That committee had several chances to discuss the bills during its last day of meetings. However, other items took precedent, and legislation to bring the best online sportsbooks to Georgia was left on the cutting room floor.
“Wait ‘til next year?” Yes, at least
The next Georgia legislative session convenes in early-2025, after a new batch of elections this November. It’s safe to assume Georgia sports betting will once again be a hot topic.
If it’s outright legalized by the House and Senate in 2025, a launch in late-2025 or early-2026 is likely. However, a scenario involving an Election Day vote seems far more likely. If such a vote is scheduled for November of 2025, legalization won’t come until at least mid-2026.
For now, those in Georgia don’t have many options. Georgians in the southern part of the state can hop over the border to Florida, which relaunched its sports betting industries in late-2023. However, that’s a several-hour drive for residents of major cities such as Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah. Those in Atlanta, in fact, are much closer to Georgia’s border with Tennessee, another legal sports betting state.
South Carolina, Georgia’s neighbor to the northeast, is also without legal sports betting. The same can be said for Alabama, to the west. Alabama sports betting legislation was briefly considered as part of a wide-ranging gambling bill, but language pertaining to sportsbooks was removed from the bill early in the process.
