Argentina and Messi Come to AT&T Stadium. Texas Still Has No Legal Sportsbook.
- Argentina face Austria at AT&T Stadium in Arlington at noon Central on Monday, June 22, a World Cup Group J match that both teams enter on three points after opening wins.
- Lionel Messi, in a record sixth World Cup, scored a hat-trick against Algeria to tie Miroslav Klose’s all-time World Cup record of 16 goals, and the winner Monday takes control of the group.
- AT&T Stadium is the largest venue at the 2026 World Cup, seating about 94,000, and will host nine matches in all, including a semifinal.
- Despite hosting one of the tournament’s marquee group games, Texas has no legal online or retail sportsbook, leaving fans in the state no in-state way to wager on the match.
- The gap traces to the Legislature, where sports-betting and casino bills have died every session since 2021, most recently SJR 16 in 2025.
ARLINGTON – The defending World Cup champions arrive in North Texas on Monday, with Lionel Messi chasing history and a noon kickoff against Austria that could decide who wins the group. It is the kind of event that fills sportsbooks everywhere. In Texas, there is no sportsbook to fill.
Argentina vs. Austria kicks off at AT&T Stadium in Arlington at noon Central time on June 22, the second match for both teams in World Cup Group J. They arrive even. Argentina opened with a 3-0 win over Algeria in which Messi scored a hat-trick, tying Miroslav Klose’s all-time World Cup record of 16 goals in what is Messi’s record sixth tournament. Austria beat tournament debutant Jordan 3-1. Both sit on three points, and the winner Monday takes firm control of a group that also includes Algeria and Jordan, with the top two finishers and the best third-place teams advancing to the round of 32 in the tournament’s new 48-team format. Austria, back at a World Cup for the first time since 1998, presses hard and fast, the kind of game built to unsettle a possession side like Argentina.
The setting is the biggest the tournament has. AT&T Stadium, the Dallas Cowboys’ home, is the largest venue at the 2026 World Cup, seating about 94,000 under a retractable roof, and it will host nine matches in all, including a semifinal. A noon start in late June means heat is part of the day, though the roof and air conditioning will spare the crowd the worst of a Texas summer afternoon.
What the building cannot offer is a regulated place to bet on the game played inside it. Texas has no licensed online sportsbook, and no retail one either. There is no regulated way to place a wager on sports anywhere in the state, which leaves Texas among the largest markets in the country without a sanctioned sportsbook, even as it hosts one of the World Cup’s signature group matches. World Cup betting in Texas, in other words, has no regulated home
The reason is the same one that has held for years. Legalizing sports betting in Texas means amending the state constitution, which takes a two-thirds vote in both legislative chambers and then approval from a majority of voters. Under Texas gambling laws, that bar has not been cleared. Sports-betting and casino measures have died every session since 2021, most recently when Senate Joint Resolution 16 stalled in 2025. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who controls the Senate, has refused to let such bills reach a floor vote, and he won his primary in March for another four-year term, so the block is unlikely to lift before 2027 at the earliest. Legal Texas sportsbooks still exist only in proposed legislation.
That does not make the betting interest disappear. It moves. Texans near the eastern border cross into Louisiana, where mobile sports betting has been legal since 2022, and place wagers from their phones. Others turn to Texas prediction markets, where federally regulated platforms such as Kalshi sell event contracts that function much like bets and have kept operating in the state despite challenges from regulators. Neither is a Texas sportsbook. Both exist because the state left a void the size of its population.
That void is expensive. A World Cup on home soil is one of the heaviest betting events a sportsbook will ever take, and a regulated Texas market would tax a share of every dollar. Supporters of legalization have pitched it as a source of hundreds of millions in state revenue. For now, the money Texans put on Monday’s match will be booked in other states, on federal markets, or in the illegal channels the state can neither tax nor police.
So the contrast on Monday is the Texas gambling story in miniature. The most popular sport on earth brings its defending champion and its best active player to the largest stadium at the tournament, in front of more than 90,000 fans, and the state hosting it gives them no regulated way to put a dollar on the result. Messi will chase a record at AT&T Stadium. Texas sportsbooks will stay dark.