Texas HJR 52 Would Open Class III Compact Talks With State's Three Tribes

A Texas House member has filed a constitutional amendment that would let voters decide in November 2027 whether the state should authorize casinos and sports betting, and the measure, Texas HJR 52, contains a provision that tribal leaders in the state have sought for decades: a process for negotiating Class III gaming compacts with Texas's three federally recognized tribes. State Rep. Charlie Geren, a Fort Worth Republican, filed the joint resolution on November 9, 2026, less than a week after an election that changed who will preside over the Texas Senate.

The resolution does not legalize anything on its own. As described in reporting on the filing, it would amend the Texas Constitution to allow the Legislature to authorize and regulate casino gaming and sports wagering, subject to limits written into the amendment itself. Those limits include a cap of 10 licensed casino facilities statewide, initial licenses of at least 40 years, casino play restricted to on-site gaming at licensed properties, and a ceiling of 15 percent on state taxes applied to casino and sports betting revenue, with no additional gambling-specific taxes or fees. If the Legislature approves it, voters would decide the question on November 2, 2027.

What HJR 52 means for Texas tribes

For the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, the compact language is the headline. According to coverage of the bill, the amendment would establish a process for the state to negotiate Class III compacts with the three tribes. Class III is the category under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that covers slot machines and house-banked table games such as blackjack, and it can only be offered under a tribal-state compact approved by the Interior Department. Texas has never signed one.

The absence of compacts reflects two separate legal tracks. The Kickapoo operate Lucky Eagle Casino near Eagle Pass under IGRA, and in the 2000s the tribe sought federal Secretarial procedures as an alternative to a compact. That route was closed in Texas by a 2007 Fifth Circuit decision. The Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and the Alabama-Coushatta are governed instead by the 1987 Restoration Act, which bars gaming on their lands that Texas law prohibits. In 2022 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Ysleta del Sur Pueblo v. Texas that the Restoration Act bans only games the state prohibits outright, not those it merely regulates, a ruling explained in our Ysleta del Sur Pueblo v. Texas explainer. That decision opened the door to electronic bingo, but not to Class III games, which remain illegal across the state.

A constitutional amendment that authorizes casino gaming would change the baseline that both federal frameworks reference. How a compact process would interact with the Restoration Act in practice is a question the amendment's text and any enabling legislation would need to answer, and it is one the tribes and their counsel are likely to scrutinize closely. Readers looking for the market background can consult our Texas tribal gaming market deep dive, and the distinctions between gaming classes are covered in the Legal Guide to IGRA and Class III.

The Senate math after Patrick's defeat

Gaming bills have reached the Texas House before. In 2023 the House passed a sports betting amendment 101-42, and Geren's own destination-resort proposal that year did not advance. His 2025 resolution, HJR 137, never received a House floor vote. The more consistent obstacle has been the Senate, where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for years kept gambling measures from reaching the floor. In 2023 he said such legislation was not going to see the light of day.

Patrick lost his reelection bid on November 3 to Democratic state Rep. Vikki Goodwin, who has said Texans should be allowed to decide the gambling question. Goodwin will preside over the Senate when the 90th Legislature convenes on January 12, 2027. The lieutenant governor in Texas controls committee assignments and the flow of bills to the floor, which makes the office a gatekeeper for any joint resolution.

A constitutional amendment needs two-thirds of each chamber: 100 votes in the House and 21 in the Senate. The governor's signature is not required.

The change at the top does not settle the arithmetic. Republicans hold 19 of the Senate's 31 seats and Democrats 12. Even if every Democrat supported HJR 52, at least nine Republicans would also need to vote yes. Reporting on the filing noted that Senate Republicans could also revise chamber rules to limit a new lieutenant governor's control over committees, a move that would alter how much procedural influence Goodwin actually holds.

What to watch before January

Several open questions will shape whether the tribal provision becomes meaningful. The first is whether the resolution's sports betting language, which reporting describes as silent on whether wagering would be confined to casinos or offered online, is clarified in committee. Mobile wagering structures matter to tribes in other states because they determine who can operate statewide and on what terms, as our hub-and-spoke explainer describes.

The second is whether a companion resolution emerges in the Senate and whether its tribal language matches the House version. The third is how the three tribes respond publicly. Each has pursued a different path in recent years, from facility investment at Lucky Eagle to electronic bingo at Naskila in Livingston and Speaking Rock in El Paso, and their priorities may not be identical. A compact process written into a constitution would give them a negotiating framework they have never had, but the content of any compact, including revenue sharing, exclusivity and scope of games, would still be negotiated.

Finally, the composition of the 10 commercial licenses will matter. Tribal operations in neighboring Oklahoma and Louisiana draw substantial Texas traffic, a dynamic examined in our analysis of the Oklahoma tribal gaming market. A Texas framework that adds destination casinos near Dallas-Fort Worth or Houston would affect those properties as well as the Texas tribes.

For now, HJR 52 is a filed resolution in a chamber that has passed similar measures before, headed toward a Senate whose leadership has changed but whose partisan makeup has not. The tribal compact provision gives it a dimension earlier Texas proposals largely lacked. Whether it survives the session in that form is the question for the months ahead.