Casino Movement May Be Dead for Now
in Texas after Shocking Mavericks Trade
Capitol Inside
February 11, 2025
The push for casinos in Texas could be set back for years as a consequence of the Dallas Mavericks' decision to send young superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for a player who's considerably older, injured more and not near as talented in Anthony Davis.
The Mavericks owners who also control the Las Vegas Sands Corp. acquired Mark Cuban's controlling interest in the team 14 months ago for the sake of expanding a worldwide footprint into the Dallas area with a destination resort casino as the ultimate prize. But Miriam Adelson and son-in-law Patrick Dumont are running the gambling empire and the National Basketball Association team that features Cuban as a minority investor who tried and failed to stop the dealing of Doncic to a western conference rival that has him paired now with LeBron James.
But the casino magnates could find the Mavericks to be a leviathan liability in the quest for a casino in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area as the wages of a trade that robbed the community of a rare local treasure who'd give the team a fighting chance for a ring for the next decade or longer. The massive backlash the Adelson-Dumont duo completely failed to anticipate could make it impossible to pass casino gambling in 2025 if the proposal isn't already doomed to die in the Texas Senate where Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has been an immoveable roadblock for the past 10 years as the chamber president.
The Mavs brass has turned the shoe print the owners envisioned as a casino stepping stone into a stage for protests, death threats, racial allegations and calls for the general manager who hatched the idea to get the boot from the team co-owner president who deserves an equal amount of wrath for blessing the deal. Dumont has fanned the flames by trying to defend the trade as a move that was necessitated by Doncic's penchant for being overweight compared to other NBA players. Dumont sent eyes rolling when he said that he and GM Nico Harrison decided they wanted Davis more because he's a better defensive player and defense wins championships. Never mind that chubby Slovenian led the Mavs to the NBA Finals nine months ago when he was the best player on the court in a series that a loaded Boston Celtics team went on to win.
Hundreds of angry fans demonstrated outside the American Airlines Arena at the team's game on Saturday when some demanded Harrison's firing while others chanted their disdain for the prospects for casinos in the Lone Star State. The Mavericks organization poured more fuel into the fire on Monday night when several fans were ejected from the arena for clothes or signs with derogatory messages related to the trade. The Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA reported that two fans were kicked out of the arena for mouthing "Fire Nico" when they were shown on the jumbotron.
Harrison played professional basketball for seven years in Belgium,
Japan, Beirut and Rapid City, Iowa. While the Dallas general manager since 2021 never played for an NBA team, some find it difficult to believe that anyone in such a position would really think the trade for Davis was a smart basketball move. The same could be said for a team president who'd been the chief operating officer for the Sands for two years before taking the helm for the Mavericks.
The massive backlash that the Mavericks maneuvering ignited could effectively bury any hopes that the team's new owners from Las Vegas have for a destination casino resort proposal's advancement in the Texas Legislature's regular session this year.
The odds for a casino measure in Austin have appeared slim at best in 2025 thanks almost exclusively to the lieutenant governor's long-standing opposition to an expansion of gambling here on religious grounds. Patrick contended that the Senate didn't take votes on gambling legislation in 2023 because the GOP majority opposed it. But the prevailing sentiment has been that the Senate Republicans would support a casino proposal if Patrick gave them the nod.
Governor Greg Abbott has done nothing up to now to try sell a casino plan to the Legislature despite a transformation from gambling foe to leader who's been more ambivalent since scoring a seven-digit campaign contribution from Adelson for a re-election race in 2022. Abbott actually made it harder to pass a casino measure in the House after ousting some of the Republicans who would have supported it in school vouchers revenge scheme for the GOP primary and runoff last year.
The Sands has invested substantial sums in a team of high-priced Austin lobbyists for the Texas crusade for destination resorts that revolve on casinos. With 100 votes required for a constitutional amendment, a casino proposal would only need 38 of 88 Republicans on board in the Texas House if all 62 Democrats backed such a plan.
But a hurricane of terrible publicity that the Mavericks have generated with the Lakers trade may have set the owners' casino game plan back considerably. The only potential absolution would come if the Mavericks make the playoffs in 2025 and the Lakers do not.
more to come ...
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