Frustration Grows Over Slow Pace of Online Sports Betting in West Virginia

Sun, Aug 18, 2019

The slow rollout of mobile sports betting in West Virginia has led to criticism from one of the state officials who pushed for the state’s sports betting bill. State Delegate Shawn Fluharty (l.) charged that the state’s lottery is purposely dragging its feet on mobile sports betting and is not acting with urgency to have mobile up and running in time for the NFL season.

One of the principle sponsors of West Virginia’s sports betting law has sharply criticized the state lottery for not moving more quickly to launch mobile and online betting in the state.

State Del. Shawn Fluharty told the Play WV website that the delay is inexcusable, especially as the NFL season is close to starting.

“At this point, I would say mobile sports betting has continued a disturbing trend in West Virginia where the legislature passes a law and those responsible for implementing the law drag their asses,” he said. “I’ve seen little to no interest from state regulators in getting mobile sports betting up and running. They have shown zero urgency.”

Fluharty also questioned West Virginia Lottery Director John Myers was committed to enacting sports betting as passed by the state legislature with significant bipartisan support.

“West Virginia Lottery Director John Myers described sports betting as a ‘pain in the butt’ recently. That sounds like a lack of leadership at the regulatory helm to me,” Fluharty said. “As a result, we continue to lose money that the state fully expected to be receiving by now.”

Neither the lottery or Myers responded to a request for comment.

Despite being one of the first states to pass sports betting in 2018, the rollout has been troubled in the state. Two live sportsbooks in the state remain closed and when mobile betting will relaunch is unclear.

The West Virginia Lottery has approved three online sports betting apps from DraftKings, William Hill and FanDuel, but none have yet entered the market and there is no firm timeline when they will.

“Here we are entering football season in 2019 without a mobile sports betting platform,” Fluharty said. “It doesn’t help that the one mobile platform we had, which everyone would agree was subpar when it rolled out, is currently offline due to litigation surrounding a contract dispute.”

The state currently has three live sportsbooks in operation—Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, the Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort and The Casino Club at The Greenbrier.