Tourism Committee tables motion to legalize mobile sports betting in Georgia

The Senate Study Committee for tourism in Georgia has included a proposal to legalize mobile sports betting as part of a report into strengthening the Peach State’s tourism appeal.

The recommendation is the latest development in a long-running debate over gaming policy in the state, with multiple attempts to legalize sports betting having failed so far. State law requires that voters amend the constitution or lawmakers change the structure of lottery-managed gaming in order to have gambling of any kind.

The report, officially titled the ‘Final Report of the Senate Study Committee on Making Georgia the No. 1 State for Tourism’, simply suggests that “the State of Georgia should legalize sports betting” as part of its recommendations in the “Fiscal and Economic Impact of Tourism” section. The recommendation was not discussed publicly, having been included shortly before publication.

The report points out that North Carolina dedicates a significant portion of “sports betting revenue” to fund ventures such as bidding on and attracting certain events, and there have been suggestions that a similar approach could help increase tourism.

Atlanta, the capital of the Peach State, will be one of the host cities of the 2026 World Cup next year, and the report also highlighted the “far-reaching economic impact” of sports tourism, as well as how mobile sports betting can be tied into this. In 2024, visitor spending in Georgia reached $45.2bn, though the report underlined that “there is no active marketing campaign to speed awareness to prospective travelers” ahead of the World Cup.

Georgia lawmakers are currently evaluating broader gaming reforms, with the state’s Committee on Regulated Industries and Utilities having rejected a bill proposing online sports betting and retail and online casinos earlier this year.

The recent successful launch of sports betting in Missouri offers a comparison point for lawmakers, with data showing that over 250,000 sports betting accounts were in active in the Show-Me State on launch day, and early projections suggesting that the state could produce a handle of $3.88bn in the first year of operations.