A bill to legalize sports betting in Georgia (Senate Bill 386) received its first hearing in a House committee Tuesday. The bill, which could bring up to 16 mobile betting apps to Georgia, did not receive a vote in the House Higher Education Committee.
Sen. Clint Dixon visited the House committee to explain the bill Tuesday. He talked about the tax rate – 20% of adjusted gross revenue – and other fundamentals of the bill. Sports betting would be regulated by the state's lottery under SB 386.
An accompanying constitutional amendment, Senate Resolution 579, differs from the bill with where tax revenue would go. Those differences are a likely discussion point in the coming weeks, with some stakeholders hoping to see all tax revenue benefit the HOPE Scholarship, while others want to see the revenue distributed into several different buckets and not just education.
Other topics of consideration include the potential addition of daily fantasy sports language into the bill. PrizePicks representatives have pushed this legislative session for the legalization of DFS sites in Georgia, although a DFS bill failed to pass out of the House earlier this session.