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    all in

    Ken Hoffman on why Texas should cash in on sports betting and gambling

    Ken Hoffman
    Apr 19, 2021 | 12:30 pm
    $100 bills money
    Could Texas cash in on sports betting?
    Tomasz Zajda/EyeEm/Getty Images

    A multimillion-dollar ad campaign urging the Texas Legislature to approve casino and sports gambling in the Lone Star State has begun to air on local radio and television. The campaign is funded by the Las Vegas-based Sands Corporation.

    Texas is considered the holy grail of states that currently don’t allow casino and sports gambling. In fact, the Texas constitution specifically bans casino and sports gambling. That’s very specific and weird.

    Two bills currently filed in the legislature effectively would amend the state constitution. If the bills are passed by two-thirds majority in both the state House and Senate, voters would get to decide in November if casino and sports gambling come to Texas.

    Don’t bet on it.

    Republicans currently have a majority in both the Texas House and Senate, and they are almost unanimously against legalizing casino gambling in Texas. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has promised that voters will not get to decide whether or not to legalize gambling in Texas. “It won’t see the light of day,” he said during a radio interview.

    Polls, however, show that Texans overwhelmingly favor casino and sports gambling. A recent poll conducted by the Dallas Morning News and UT-Tyler found 57 percent of Texans support casino gambling with only 29 percent opposed. The remaining 14 percent of Texans said it didn’t matter to them.

    Sports gambling was supported by 43 percent with only 26 percent opposed. The remaining 31 percent may have been too busy filling out their March Madness brackets to respond.

    It’s understandable why the legislature is not addressing casino and sports gambling. Legislators are more focused on limiting access to the ballot box with measures that critics say are targeted at voters of color, the disabled, and older citizens. Proposed bills would ban overnight early voting and drive-through early voting, both of which boosted voter participation in recent elections in Harris County.

    Supporters of the proposed bills say they’re necessary to increase election security in Texas, although no widespread voter fraud was found in 2020. The House has approved a bill that would permit Texans to carry handguns without a permit. Our legislature has filed more bills considered anti-LGBTQ than any other state.

    Texas is one of only five states that don’t allow casino gambling. The others are: Utah, Tennessee, Hawaii, and Alaska. Meanwhile, the Sands Corporation reported that Texans annually spend $2.5 billion in nearby casinos in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

    The Sands Corporation has presented plans that would build large casino resort complexes (one each) in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin. The resorts would include hotels, restaurants, retail stores and recreation facilities.

    They say the resorts would create thousands of construction jobs and tens of thousands of operating jobs.

    Texans who want to bet on sports currently have no shortage of online sites perfectly willing to take their money. The sites do not kick back any revenue to Texas coffers. It should be noted that no Texan has ever been brought up on charges for wagering on sports with online betting sites.

    Professional leagues and governing bodies enthusiastically support sports betting. The NFL recently announced long-term deals with the three largest online gambling companies: DraftKings, FanDuel, and Caesars. DraftKings is the official fantasy site for the men’s pro tennis tour. Televised tournaments showcase shifting odds while matches are being played. You can wager on which player will win the match, each set, each game, even the next point.

    ESPN has a long-term partnership with DraftKings, including a daily betting show on the network. Online betting sites sponsor golf tournaments. The Washington Football Team recently received a sports betting license. Capital One Arena in Washington D.C. has a sports gambling parlor inside the building. Nationals Park and Wrigley Field have applied for on-premises sports books.

    The NBA wants a piece of the action. Charles Barkley recently said a team owner told him that profits from gambling will exceed money from television, the life blood of pro sports, within a few years.

    The No. 1 sports gambling location isn’t in Las Vegas. It’s a Starbucks in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the first exit off the George Washington Bridge from New York City.

    We are a nation of bettors. Gambling is profitable, maybe not to the bettors, but the “house” makes a fortune. Those chandeliers in casinos weren’t free.

    If the legislature approves, and voters say yes, Texas would be the house. Twenty-one states and Washington D.C. have sports betting, with many more coming.

    Not Texas, though. Somebody needs to clue our representatives who aren’t representing us. We don’t need the TV weatherman to know it’s time to “make it rain” in Texas.

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    game, set, zina.

    Best of Ken Hoffman: Interviewing Houston's greatest tennis icon

    Ken Hoffman
    Aug 29, 2024 | 12:30 pm
    Zina Garrison, tennis player
    ITATennis
    Garrison, a tennis legend, is now the tennis director of Houston Parks and Recreation.

    Editor's note: After the sudden death of beloved columnist Ken Hoffman on July 14, CultureMap is republishing some of our favorite "Hoffman's Houston" columns. In honor of the U.S. Open, here's Ken's interview with Houston tennis legend Zina Garrison; it was originally published on June 27, 2022.

    As a child, Zina Garrison learned how to hit a tennis ball on the public courts at MacGregor Park during the 1970s and became, simply, the most accomplished player ever from Houston.

    She developed into a Grand Slam champion, a Top 5 ranking in the world, Wimbledon finalist in 1990 with 20 tournament titles, Federation Cup captain, and Olympic gold medal winner and later Olympic coach.

    Now Garrison is back where she started, only this time she’s devoted to making Houston a great place to learn and play tennis … again. Like she did.

    “I am now the tennis director of Houston Parks and Recreation,” Garrison tells me. “I’m over all the public tennis programs and facilities. The job came open recently and I applied for it.”

    Wait... she’s the greatest champion this city has ever produced — and she had to apply for that job?

    “To be honest, I was more interested in the benefits than the money. As you get older, you start thinking differently,” she shares.

    Unlike the major sports leagues in America, tennis doesn’t provide any healthcare insurance or assistance once a player, even a legend, retires.

    “They’re working on it,” Garrison, 58, notes. “But as of now, nothing.”

    Garrison said her first priority as Houston’s tennis director is to repair the public courts.

    “I want to bring the public tennis facilities up to where I’d be proud, where everybody would be proud, to bring people to use our courts. There are cracks in the courts. Nothing’s really been done in the last 20 or maybe 30 years,” she says.

    “I’ve traveled to Florida and some other places and they have really nice public courts. Tennis in Houston was really thriving for a while and we had nice courts and people could play in the parks. We had junior programs. We flourished. That’s my main goal.”

    While I had Garrison on the phone, I served up some questions:

    CultureMap: Wimbledon is on. You’re familiar with that tournament, right? Who are your picks to win the men’s side and women’s side?

    Zina Garrison: Yes, I’m familiar with Wimbledon. I have my alarm set for the early morning so I can watch. I have a weird pick, a more personal pick, for the men.

    I would love to see Rafael Nadal keep going on, but it’s going to be tough for him. The guy from Italy, Matteo Berrettini, I watched him play a couple of weeks ago and I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people. And I am absolutely in love with that little guy, Carlos Alcaraz, from Spain. He’s made me watch tennis again.

    On the women’s side, I don’t think it will be Iga Swiatek. I think it’s just too hard to keep a streak like hers (35 matches in a row including the French Open title) going in today’s game. It’s really wide open. I don’t really have a pick, it’s just who comes in and plays well at the right time.

    CM: What do you think about Natela Dzalamidze, the doubles player from Russian who switched her nationality to Georgia so she could play Wimbledon, which has banned players from Russian and Belarus this year?

    ZG: I don’t like that she was able to do that. I was just on the phone with (former pro turned broadcaster) Chanda Rubin talking about what’s going on in tennis these days.

    First of all, there is the human rights stuff that’s going on in Russia and Ukraine. We have to start forcing accountability for actions. A lot of people didn’t agree with what Wimbledon did, but I think they had to take a stand.

    CM: The women’s GOAT is easy — it’s Serena. But who do you think is the men’s GOAT?

    ZG: Wow, that’s a hard one. If you had asked me earlier this year, I would have said Roger Federer because of everything he’s accomplished. But right now I’m going to have to go with Nadal. Nadal has taken tennis to a whole ‘nother level, of getting people to watch, coming out of the pandemic, where he has matches and you think he can’t come back and he’s still grinding no matter what.

    For me, he is the epitome of what we need in this world right now: Never give up but not be selfish about helping others. I know it sounds clichéd, but that’s what I’m going through right now.

    CM: When I first met you, you were painfully shy. It was hard to get an answer out of you. Now you’re a TV commentator and a regular chatterbox. What happened?

    ZG: I was an introvert but I had always been intrigued by people of wisdom. A lot of it came as I developed confidence in myself. I had always been told at a very young age, if you really knew me, I spoke a lot. If you didn’t know me, I would be quiet. I would only speak about things that I was extremely passionate about.

    As I’ve gotten older, because of my experiences. I feel like I can help people so I’m not afraid to say what I want to say.

    CM: Starting the week after Wimbledon, coaches will be allowed to communicate with men players during matches. Up to now, that’s only been allowed in the women’s game. Every other sport allows coaching. Do you think tennis should allow coaching, too?

    ZG: I don’t think coaching should be allowed. That’s one of the great things about tennis. That’s a part of the sport, that you grow and figure things out. You learn to think for yourself.

    There’s always been little signals from coaches, but now you have these full blown conversations. Another bad thing about allowing coaching is it gives the players the opportunity to blame a loss their coach. That’s not good for the sport.

    CM: You were known for wiggling your butt when receiving serve. Did you know you were doing it? Did you do that on purpose?

    ZG: It started off as kind of a joke with my coaches. They said, we need you to move your feet. I said, you mean like this?

    So, it started as a joke but I realized that it helped get my feet moving: Okay, I’m going to keep doing this.

    I’ll never forget that year after I got to the Wimbledon finals, 1990, I went over to Japan and there were 1,200 people there … and all of them started wiggling!

    CM: What was the first extravagant thing you bought for yourself when the tennis prize money started rolling in?

    ZG: It was 1982, and I bought a candy apple red Volkswagen convertible with a white top.

    CM: You were on the Biggest Loser, the show where contestants compete against each other to lose weight. Let’s just say you didn’t win. Are you happy you went on that show, or do you regret it?

    ZG: I was one of the first who had to leave the competition. (No, you were THE first.) It was an experience, but I probably shouldn’t have done it. I think I regret going on there. It wasn’t what I thought it was.

    It was reality TV and at the time I didn’t know what reality TV was .I was more ready to get out of there than anything else.

    CM: Now here’s the big question, Zina. For years, I’ve had a running disagreement with ESPN 97.5 FM morning host John Granato about which is a more demanding, tougher sport – golf or tennis?

    Granato says it’s golf, because the tournament winner has to beat every other player that week, while in tennis the winner just has to beat seven players at most. And, each week, golfers have to contend with a different course.

    But, I say it’s tennis because players have to be in top physical condition, while nearly anyone in any shape can win a golf major.

    Plus, in golf, players have a caddy helping them make decisions. In tennis, players are on their own.

    In golf, you can have a bad day on Thursday and still win the tournament. In tennis, if you have a bad day in the opening round, you’re on a plane out of there.

    In golf, it’s the player against the course. There’s no defense in golf. In tennis, there’s a human opponent trying to beat you.

    In golf, the ball is lying still. In tennis the ball is coming at you at 140 mph.

    So which is the tougher sport, golf or tennis? I’m right ... right?

    ZG: Are you serious? Who is this guy who says golf is harder? The answer is tennis and it’s not even close.

    You’re playing against someone. You’re only controlling the ball when it’s on your side of the net. You can’t control what the other player is doing. It’s almost like a boxer coming at you.

    You have to have both the physical and mental capacity to win. In golf, if you have a bad day, it’s because you’re having that bad day. There’s no opponent competing with you. So, I’m saying it’s tennis.

    CM (note to John Granato): I win. Granted, it might have been the way I asked the question. Also, Garrison is a former tennis pro.

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