It turns out 2025 isn’t the year for legalized sports betting in Georgia.
Efforts to send a state constitutional amendment to voters failed Thursday in the state legislature, as neither the amendment nor a bill laying out details ever came to a vote in the House.
Thursday was the deadline for each Georgia chamber to pass its own legislation to the opposite chamber. The measures still could be revived in the last month of the session, but it much less likely. Lawmakers could still consider the measures in the 2026 half of Georgia’s two-year session.
“It came in late and I guess people just weren’t there yet,” said House Higher Education Committee Chairman Chuck Martin, an Alpharetta Republican, referring to a bill and constitutional amendment that were introduced only last week.
“We’ll keep working with people and trying to do what’s in the best interest of the state,” Martin said, saying a referendum was still possible in on the November 2026 ballot.
ELECTION MEDDLING
The state Senate passed a bill that would allow President Donald Trump and more than a dozen people to seek compensation for legal bills stemming from an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
The bill passed unanimously by state legislators Thursday would enable compensation from counties for attorneys’ fees and other legal costs in any criminal case in the state in which a prosecutor has been disqualified.
Trump and 18 co-defendants were indicted in Fulton County in August 2023. The accusations included asking Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to find enough votes for Trump to win the battleground state, harassing an election worker and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from the election interference case by a state appeals court based on a romantic relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom Willis hired to lead the case.