Texas Voters Show Big Support for Casinos
in Poll with 62% for Recreational Marijuana Capitol Inside
February 4, 2025
A new poll gave the impression on Tuesday that Texas Senate Republicans were out of touch with the electorate on gambling in the Lone Star State with nearly three out of every four voters backing the establishment of destination casinos and legalized sports betting on phones and computers.
But the University of Houston survey found a mix of contradictory opinions on cannabis - with 62 percent of 1,200 Texas voters expressing support legislation that legalized the sale and use of marijuana for recreational use by adults despite the fact that a majority favored a ban on THC products made from hemp.
Conducted for the Hobby School of Public Affairs over the course of eight days in January, the poll set the stage for a potential clash between the state House and Senate on an expansion of wagering in the form of sports bets online and casinos at selective locations across the state.
The UH poll found that 73 percent of the Texans in the sample favored a green light from the Legislature for the construction and maintenance of destination resort casinos. A constitutional amendment would be a prerequisite for casino gambling here based on rulings here in the past. Casinos received a thumbs up from 72 percent of the Republican voters and 74 percent of the Democrats in the poll.
Sixty percent of the voters in the Hobby School survey registered their support for the legalization of sports betting online. Internet wagering on sporting events scored nods from 64 percent of the Democrats and 59 percent of the Republicans who participated in the poll.
While the passage of casinos and sports betting proposals may be a foregone conclusion in the Texas House, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick holds the key to a possible expansion of gambling laws as the singular roadblock for all practical purposes at the Capitol in Austin up to now.
Patrick has refused to let the Senate vote on gambling measures even though a majority of his constituents support them based on the new poll and other surveys here. But Patrick has sought to blame the cold shoulder on the Republicans who control the upper chamber - insisting that a majority of them haven't wanted to vote on gambling proposals.
But the prevailing sentiment inside the statehouse beltway has been that the Senate would approve destination casinos and the wagering on sports online if Patrick dropped his own opposition that's based in large part on strict religious views.
Patrick played an unwitting but significant role in the proliferation of THC dispensaries across the state when he dropped his opposition to a measure that legalized hemp for industrial use. The bill had a loophole that cleared the path for retail sales of cannabis products that are manufactured from hemp. The THC industry has mushroomed here as a consequence in the past few years.
But Texas voters view products made from marijuana and hemp through contrasting lenses based on the new UH poll. While 62 percent of Texans support a measure that would legalize pot for recreational use for people who are 21 or older, 79 percent favored an extensive medical marijuana program including 75 percent of the GOP voters in the poll. Sixty-nine percent supported the decriminalization of marijuana for Texas adults.
But some of the same Texas voters who support the legalization of marijuana are opposed to the sale of cannabis products made from hemp. The poll for example found that 55 percent of Texans support a ban that Patrick is pushing on the sale of consumable THC products at unregulated dispensaries here. Sixty-one percent of the Republicans and 48 percent of the Democrats in the poll supported the prohibition.
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