One of the nation’s more unique sports betting bills was filed Fool’s Day by Arkansas state Senator Will Bond. His legislation, the Athletic Event Wagering Act of 2019, would ban wagering on the Special Olympics, World Wrestling Entertainment events and American Kennel Club dog shows. In another first, the legislation calls for a “statewide NCAA bracket pool.” Bond introduced the measure on April Fool’s Day, although it’s not a joke.
The bill calls for the Arkansas Racing Commission to regulate sports betting. It would allow mobile registration and wagering and would tax gross revenue from retail wagering at 12.5 percent and mobile wagering at 13.5 percent.
It also would include a 1 percent royalty—formerly called an integrity fee–paid by licensed sports books to professional sports leagues, although that has been lowered to .25 percent in other markets. Last October, Major League Baseball Executive Vice President Kenny Gersh said, “There is a lot of misinformation, starting with the name. We don’t call it an integrity fee. I’ll call it essentially what it is, which is a royalty. Also, 1 percent of the total amount wagered is not anything we’ve been asking for since the very beginning, since we realized that was not the correct amount. So we have been talking about a quarter point.” Also, the bill would give professional leagues the authority to prohibit certain bets.
The legislation would penalize an athlete or official who places an illegal bet with a fine up to 10 times the amount of the illegal wager, and a licensee could be fined up to 50 times the amount of the wager.
