(The Center Square) – A committee studying Georgia tourism added a recommendation to legalize mobile sports betting to its final report released Monday.
The Senate Study Committee on Making Georgia the No. 1 State for Tourism did not discuss the recommendation, which was added at the last minute, Chairman Drew Echols, R-Gainesville, told TCS in an email.
At the committee’s last meeting, Nick Fernandez, government affairs coordinator for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, told the committee that North Carolina uses 30% of its sports betting revenues to attract major events.
“It was a simple recommendation much like the rest of the list,” Echols said. “The recommendations are just that. Hard to say how many if any of the recommendations will come to fruition.”
When asked by Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, about the potential for sports betting in Georgia, Fernandez said it was worth considering.
“The Senate has moved some legislation over to the House,” Fernandez said. “We’ll see if that’s taken up next year and where that issue lies. We certainly see sports betting as a potential revenue source for major sporting events.”
A House of Representatives committee concluded four meetings on legalizing gaming and will submit a final report, a House spokesman told TCS. Rep. Marcus Wiedower, R-Watkinsville, who resigned his seat in October, introduced a measure during this year’s session of the General Assembly that would have put legalized sports betting before voters in November 2026. The bill, which never made it off the House floor, would not have approved casinos or other brick-and-mortar gambling.
Legalized gaming is facing opposition from several groups that testified before the House committee.
Mike Griffin, public affairs representative for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, told the committee, “It’s intellectually dishonest to talk about the benefits of gambling without talking about the detriments.”
Besides legalizing sports betting, the Senate committee is recommending reforms to tourism taxes.
“Such reforms should bring clarity to the obligation to collect such taxes as well as boosting the economic and fiscal impact of tourism by shifting more of the state and local tax burden to visitors to our state,” the report said.
The committee recommended that the state make investments comparable to those of other states. Georgia lags behind its southern neighbor, Florida, in terms of spending.
The Peach State is continuing to break records for tourism, according to Gov. Brian Kemp. More than 174 million tourists visited Georgia, spending about $45.2 billion, Kemp said in September.
But the Legislature has not talked about tourism in years, Echols said during the committee’s inaugural meeting.
“While we’ve been in a great spot, the number one place to do business, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to keep working, keep pushing forward, get out of the box in out thinking about how we fund projects, how we market tourism and things like that,” Echols said.
