Bills pending in both the Kentucky Senate and House would legalize sports betting. Previous analyses indicated legal sports wagering would generate about $22 million in yearly revenue for the state.
State Senator David Yates sponsored SB 213, which would allow retail and mobile sports betting, as well as online poker and daily fantasy sports. The measure would allow sports betting to be offered at the state’s licensed horseracing tracks and professional sports venues. In-person registration for mobile betting would be required through 2023.
Yates’ measure would allow betting on major professional sporting events and college sports. It would tax retail sports betting at 9.75 percent and online wagering at 14.25 percent. Each venue would be allowed one skin. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission would regulate sports betting.
State Rep. Adam Koenig’s bill would legalize most forms of sports wagering and regulate taxation of all online gambling, including fantasy sports and online poker. Koenig said legalizing sports betting “would allow Kentuckians to do what they would like to do with their own money and take it away from the bookies and the off-shore accounts.” Koenig has sponsored similar sports wagering bills in previous sessions. None has passed both chambers.
Also included in Koenig’s bill is a proposal to tax all parimutuel wagers, including historical horseracing, simulcast bets and advance-deposit wagering, at 1.5 percent. In addition, the measure would ban electronic gambling machines, so-called “gray machine,” that have proliferated in convenience stores across the state.
Koenig said he hopes by combining several gambling proposals in one comprehensive measure, it may have a chance of passing. However, he said if that strategy isn’t successful, he’ll try to pass the proposals individually.
Sports betting has bipartisan support in the state legislature and the approval of Governor Andy Beshear. Yet, since it’s an election year, observers said some lawmakers won’t change their anti-gambling stance and risk losing votes. In addition, conservative groups like the Kentucky Family Foundation strongly opposes any form of gambling.
Meanwhile, Kentuckians continue to place sports wagers with illegal bookies and unregulated offshore betting platforms, and cross state lines into neighboring Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia and Virginia to place legal sports bets; Ohio is finalizing sports betting regulations.
