A Venetian in Dallas? Inside the gamble in Texas

DALLAS — What do the Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Mavericks and Las Vegas Sands have in common? Settle in for a Texas-sized story about resorts, gambling and sports.

This tale could eventually end with a gigantic resort and casino plopped in the middle of one of the largest metro areas in the country.

Joe Weinert, executive vice president of New Jersey-based Spectrum Gaming Group, a consulting firm specializing in the economics, regulation and policy of legalized gambling, said Texas is the biggest prize left in the U.S. for legalized gambling.

“Texas is seen as virgin land for the gaming industry,” Weinert said. “They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and the gambling industry would be bigger there, too. It’s an incredible market.”

According to a story in The Dallas Morning News and other outlets, last July, a business entity connected to Las Vegas Sands Corp. bought eight properties, totaling about 259 acres, near the now-demolished Texas Stadium site in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas. The stadium was the site for the Dallas Cowboys from 1971 until 2008, when the team moved to owner Jerry Jones’ new stadium in Arlington.

That transaction occurred months before Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, sold a majority interest in the franchise to Miriam Adelson, the widow of late Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson, and her family. The NBA approved Cuban’s sale on December 27. Patrick Dumont, Miriam Adelson’s son-in-law and president and COO of the Las Vegas Sands, will serve as the Mavericks governor (Cuban will still retain authority over the team.)

According to The Dallas Morning News story, the land was sold to Village Walk RE 2 LLC. Texas state records show the LLC’s taxpayer mailing address as 5420 S. Durango Dr. in Las Vegas, also the business address for the Las Vegas Sands.

A report from the Nevada Independent said that on December 15, Sands spokesman Ron Reese confirmed that the company had purchased the parcels of land. 

“The purchase of the land is accurate, and the company may decide to purchase additional real estate in the [Dallas-Fort Worth] area in the future,” Reese wrote in an email cited in the story.

On Tuesday, it was reported that the same LLC also purchased the 12-acre Mavericks facility near the arena where it plays.

According to the Nevada Independent story, the land in Texas is more than four times larger than the Las Vegas Sands’ prior footprint in Las Vegas (the company sold its Vegas holdings in 2022 for $6.25 billion and does not currently operate a casino in the U.S. It still operates casinos in Macau and Singapore).

The former Texas Stadium site sits at an important intersection in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area and has long been considered one of the area’s most desirable development opportunities.

Legalizing gambling in Texas

So, what could go on this site? A new arena for the Dallas Mavericks (which Cuban has been lobbying for)? Sure. But the Mavericks have a lease at their arena in Dallas that runs through 2030.

Cuban would want you to think bigger and explore the possibility of legalizing gambling in Texas.

Regarding gambling, Cuban said, according to the Associated Press, that he will be “as active as I need to be because I think it’s the right thing for the state of Texas.” Long before the sale, the entrepreneur said he was interested in partnering with Sands.

For Cuban, the sports gambling aspect is a small piece of the puzzle.

“Honestly, I don’t care so much about sports betting,” Cuban said in the AP story. “If you look at destination resorts and casinos, the casino part of it is tiny, relative to the whole bigger destination aspect of it. Could you imagine building the Venetian in Dallas, Texas? That would just change everything.”

And this is where the Sands comes in.

It’s important to note here that while gambling isn’t legal in the state of Texas, Las Vegas Sands has actively been lobbying for that to change in the past few years. In 2022, it created a $2 million political action committee called Texas Sands to lobby to legalize casino gambling in Texas. Past measures have failed, but in 2023, a bill that would let voters decide on “destination casino resorts” made it to the House floor before dying. And the lobbying efforts will continue until the state’s legislature meets again in 2025.

Weinert said a very targeted approach to legalized gambling could be an easier way to sell it to the conservative majority in the state. 

“It’s an easier sell because a limited number of presumably, billion or multi-billion-dollar destination gaming resorts would be more palatable than having casinos everywhere across the state,” he said. “Casinos generally are prodigious employers. So, having these colossal destination gaming resorts — it’s easy to see some of them employing up to 10,000 people. That becomes politically an easier sell..”

So, what does all of this mean? Right now, nothing concrete. But it’s not hard to see the synergy being created with a powerful entrepreneur like Cuban and a GOP megadonor like Adelson in a state that Republicans exclusively run.

And while Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who runs the Texas Senate, said earlier in 2023 that there is little support for “expanded gaming,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott (who Adelson donated $1 million to in 2022) has in the past said he would “take a look” at casino gambling if there was “a way to create a very professional entertainment option.”

Revenue from ‘non-gaming sources’

While a casino resort would make a lot of revenue, most is not from gambling. Weinert said in 2022, the latest year available, for the 26 largest gaming properties in Las Vegas, 29.7% of the revenue came from gaming.

“What Mark Cuban is talking about is essentially the Las Vegas Strip model where most of the revenues come from non-gaming sources,” Weinert said. “The typical casino property on the Las Vegas Strip has 3,000 to 4,000 hotel rooms and numerous restaurants, retail, entertainment and other attractions… The primary trip purpose of people going off Vegas is not gambling. Virtually everybody going to Las Vegas can gamble a lot closer to home.” 

Arena + casino + resort

The potential of marrying a sports arena with a casino-resort development has already been done and proposed in numerous places.

• Daryl Katz, the owner of the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers, opened the $2.5 billion ICE District in 2016 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, combining the Oilers’ arena, an entertainment and mixed-use development, and a 346-key JW Marriott hotel.
• In November, baseball’s New York Mets owner Steve Cohen proposed a casino-centered development next to the Mets Citi Field in Flushing, New York. The $8 billion Metropolitan Park would feature a Hard Rock Casino, a hotel, a food hall, a music venture, and 20 acres of public park.
• In 2022, the Oak View Group proposed a $3 billion project in the south strip of Las Vegas that would include a 2,000-key OVG Las Vegas Hotel & Casino alongside a 20,000-seat NBA-ready arena (Las Vegas is considered a strong candidate if not a lock for the next round of NBA expansion). The project is expected to open in 2026.

“As Las Vegas is very quickly discovering, sports and a gaming environment coexist quite nicely,” Weinert said.

Considering 37 states have already legalized gambling, it’s beginning to feel like Texas’ chips will eventually fall that way, even if it takes a long time. And there’s a good bet that when it happens, the Sands could be the company that benefits the most from it, at least initially.

“We view Texas as a worldwide destination and one of the top potential markets in the entire world,” Andy Abboud, Sands’ senior vice president of government relations for Sands, said at a conference in 2020. “Texas is considered the biggest plum still waiting to be out there in the history of hospitality and gaming.”

So, what’s a realistic timeline for this to happen? Weinert said it could take a long time. 

“Everything’s bigger in Texas. But also, when it comes to gaming, everything’s slower in Texas,” he said. “It has taken a while, but eventually it will succeed. It may be two years from now or 12 years from now, who knows, but eventually, it will succeed. The economic argument wins out. We’ve seen that in state after state after state.”