Texas Casino bill backed by LVS Pushes For Destination Resort Casino Licenses

Las Vegas Sands Corp. dropped the Las Vegas bit from its name when it decided to dispose of its casino resorts in Las Vegas and only focus on the Asian market under its new name Sands Corp.

However, it appears that Sands Corp. is still very much interested in Texas and continues to push for gambling to be legalized in the Lonestar state.

Sands Corp. hired a powerful team of casino lobbyists to push for gambling legalization in Texas and have now backed a bill that was introduced by two Texas lawmakers late last week. The new casino bill calls for four casino licenses to be issued to develop destination resorts.

Joint Resolution 133 in the House was first filed in the House by Rep. John Kuempel, R-Seguin and Joint Resolution 49 in the Senate by Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston. A third sponsor was later added to the bill when Senate. Rep. Toni Rose, D-Dallas was included as the joint-sponsor for the House bill.

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The four destination casino resorts will be built in the biggest metropolitan areas in Texas. The four locations include Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston. The bill also calls for a Texas Gaming Commission to be established as the gaming regulator that will be responsible for issuing gaming licenses, regulating casinos and collecting gaming taxes.

Sands Corp. Senior VP Andy Abboud said the company was happy to see the bill to legalize gambling in Texas finally introduced. Abboud said that they were happy to open talks with Texas legislators and other stakeholders to discuss how Texas and its community can benefit by legalizing casino gambling and opening these four destination casino resorts.

Only Billion Dollar Destination Resorts In Texas

One important aspect of this casino gambling legalization bill is that it puts in place stringent requirements to obtain one of the four destination resort casino licenses. The bill is phrased in such a manner that it will guarantee that all four destination casino resorts in Texas will cost a billion dollars minimum.

The two destination casino resort licenses in Austin and San Antonio should require interested casino developers to be willing to invest a minimum of $1 billion while the two casino licenses for Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston should require a minimum investment of $2 billion.

Gaming operators will have to pay a 25 percent tax on slot machine games and a 10 percent tax on table games. We will have to wait and see whether this bill gains momentum or dies out quickly.