If you want to bet on pro pickleball in Kentucky you’re out of luck…for now.
The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission’s Sports Wagering Advisory Council (SWAC) voted against pickleball in concocting its full betting menu. Pickleball, available to bet in 11 states, may be a no-no for now, but the NFL is a yes, of course.
Also out are NCAA volleyball and slap fighting. But the menu does include cornhole, netball, UFC, and the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
SWAC member Jonathan Blue said he thought that pickleball was the “fastest-growing sport in the world right now” and questioned why it wasn’t on the menu. Director of Sports Wagering Hans Stokke then floated the notion that the menu will grow.
“Once we’re more familiar with the governing bodies that the pickleball tour are subject to and as long as we can vet those, it could be something we’d consider in the future,” Stokke told Sports Handle. “It is something we’d like to see in the catalog going forward.”
Beach volleyball is another possibility in the future. “There were some that were left off of there that we didn’t feel we had adequate time or research to add to our initial offering but would be happy to consider even in time for that September 28 launch.”
In total, the KHRC wagering catalog features 35 different sports, in addition to pro eating contests and esports. According to a press release, the types of bets permitted are single-game bets, teaser bets, parlays, over/under bets, moneyline bets, pools, in-game wagering, in-play bets, proposition bets and straight bets.
The catalog, only three pages long, isn’t as specific as with other states. For example, Colorado lists each Olympic sport covered.
Under the new law, each of the state’s nine horse racetracks are eligible for one on-site sportsbook, as well as retail sportsbooks at satellite locations and three digital partners, or skins. The KHRC earlier this month approved seven locations, including Churchill Downs, for brick-and-mortar wagering licenses.
In most states with legal sports betting, the bettor has to be 21. But a handful of states have a legal age of 18. Kentucky is one of them. To those with concerns about problem gambling, the 18 age is controversial. Truth is, sports operators have the option of retaining 21 as a minimum or going 18.
The list of legal Kentucky sportsbooks that will soon be open to 18-year-olds is growing. DraftKings and Bet365 announced last month that they will both have an age 18 minimum to use their online sportsbooks in the state. Then last week, Circa Sports confirmed with Gaming Today that its online Kentucky app will also be available to bettors 18 and up.
All top branded sportsbooks in the U.S. —Caesars, FanDuel, BetMGM, and DraftKings, in most other jurisdictions—have an age 21 minimum to use their sportsbooks.
Which brings up Kentucky.
Kentucky Council on Problem Gambling (KYCPG) Executive Director Michael Stone told Gaming Today that his agency doesn’t “make moral judgments” when asked about the decision of a few sportsbooks to allow 18-year-olds to use their products in the state. What he did say is that problem and addicted gambling have two risk factors: accessibility and availability.
“The existence of legal sportsbooks, and especially mobile sports betting, increases the risk factors,” Stone said in an email.
DraftKings Senior VP and Deputy General Counsel Griffin Finan stayed on the legal side of his company’s decision to grant bettors aged 18 and up access to the DraftKings Kentucky app in a recent email to Gaming Today.
“DraftKings is committed to following the age restrictions set forth by each individual jurisdiction,” Finan said.
Granted, it’s not the first time DraftKings has gone the route of an age 18 minimum for sports betting. The company also offers 18-year-olds access to its app in New Hampshire (retail and mobile), Wyoming (online), and on tribal lands in Washington state, all legal.
BetMGM and Caesars, however, have already announced they will not allow anyone under 21 to use their retail or online sportsbooks in the state. Neither sportsbook allows bettors under age 21 to access their sports betting offerings in Wyoming or the District of Columbia, which have an age 18 minimum.
In Kentucky, the KYCPG has been working to combat gambling addiction for at least 25 years. Remember, Kentucky is the center of horse racing in the U.S. Over the last 20 years, the agency has worked to provide addiction awareness curricula with a problem gambling segment to Kentucky public middle and high schools, all with support from the Kentucky Lottery.
Stone told Gaming Today that state surveys show gambling among graduating Kentucky public high school seniors has been cut in half since the curriculum was introduced.
Legal gambling on horses and the state lottery starting at age 18 has been allowed in Kentucky for decades, similar to most states.
Gaming Today asked Stone if sports betting, and legal sports betting for that matter, is any different than other types of gambling when it comes to addiction.
“There is no research indicating one form of gambling is more addictive than another,” Stone wrote in an email. “The analogy I have heard is that beer or whiskey both can lead to alcoholism. What is the drink you prefer? Same with gambling. What is the game you prefer? There is a history of illegal sports betting in Kentucky. How much impact will there be from transferring to legal sports betting? That is unknown.”
That doesn’t mean Kentucky is blind to sports betting popularity, especially among college-age students. Recent studies show sports betting among 18 to 22-year-olds in the U.S. is on the rise.
According to a May 2023 NCAA survey of young adult bettors, sports betting is widespread among 18 to 22 years olds with “58 percent having engaged in at least one sports betting activity,” per the study.
“The NCAA continues to work with industry leaders, mental health experts, law enforcement and regulators, actively monitoring, researching and analyzing this landscape to devise effective ways to protect student-athlete well-being and minimize gambling harm,” the association announced in a press release in May.
Stone told Gaming Today that his agency anticipates an increase in problem and addicted gambling after the launch of legal sports betting in Kentucky this week. How much of an increase or which age groups, he had no idea. Any KYCPG response will need evidence to back it up, he said.
“The Council has no statistics and no research on how much (it) will increase,” Stone said in the email.
Kentuckians can definitely expect the KYCPG to increase awareness of problem and addicted gambling behavior at colleges and universities, according to Stone.
The sports betting law allocates 2.5 percent of the state’s anticipated $23 million annual sports betting revenue to problem gambling assistance.
It’s a significant step for a state that has reportedly lagged in funding for gambling programming and, according to Stone, currently provides zero funding for gambling addiction treatment.
“The Council will welcome the infusion of public funds to address problem and addicted gambling sometime in 2024. It will take time for the bets to be placed and the accounting of the money leading to the transfer of the tax to the state,” he said.
Anyone in Kentucky who needs help with a gambling problem or addiction can call or text 1-800-GAMBLER and speak with a trained counselor to receive help. The Council also provides a self-test for gambling issues, and a helpline chat link on its webpage, www.kygamblinghelp.org.
Kentucky residents can place legal bets on something other than horse racing. And a portion of each bet helps fund programs for those with gambling problems.
In five years time, almost 75 percent of states allow gambling services for addicted gamblers. State funding for problem gambling services has not kept pace with the betting.
“The funding is starting to flow, but the amount is still clearly inadequate in most states,” Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, told the Associated Press.
Legal sports betting operators took in $220 billion during the past five years, generating $3 billion in state and local taxes.
States spent an average of 38 cents per capita on problem gambling services in fiscal 2022 fiscal year, ranging from nothing in nine states to $10.6 million in Massachusetts, according to the Portland, Oregon-based consulting firm Problem Gambling Solutions Inc. Most money went to services such as telephone helplines, counseling and public awareness campaigns.
The federal government, which spends billions of dollars on substance abuse prevention and treatment, provides nothing for gambling problems.
In fact, Republican state Rep. Michael Meredith did not originally include any funding for problem gambling in his legislation that legalized sports betting. Meredith told the AP he wanted to get sports betting running and then earmark the funds to treat.
But Meredith couldn’t find enough support for passage if it did not contain a 2.5 percent a provision was added for a new problem gambling account, which also can be tapped for alcohol and drug addictions too.
“We had folks that wanted to vote for sports wagering,” Meredith said. “But they were really reluctant to without some form of problem gambling money.”
Kentucky’s new fund is projected to receive about $575,000 in its first year.
That’s a decent start, but “we’ve only got five certified gambling counselors in the state right now, and we’re going to need probably five times that many to provide adequate geographic and demographic coverage,” said Stone.
As of a year ago, 15 states and the District of Columbia had laws setting aside a portion of their sports betting revenues toward problem gambling services, but an equal number of states did not.
Since then, seven added states got into the game and all required a part of the revenues set aside for problem gambling services, said Rachel Volberg, a research professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
When Ohio launched sports betting on January 1, 2 percent of the tax revenues went to a “problem sports gaming fund.”
Through the first seven months, helpline calls were up about 150 percent compared to the same period a year ago.
Yet some governments have reduced funding for problem gambling services in recent years.
In May, the District of Columbia Council eliminated what had been an annual $200,000 allocation to the Department of Behavioral Health to prevent, treat and research gambling addictions. Although the funding is required by a 2019 act that authorized sports wagering, the department apparently had not used the money. The department said support services for problem gamblers are available through other means.
In Mississippi, a long-standing $100,000 annual allotment to a compulsive gambling organization was eliminated in 2017 amid other state budget cuts. In 2018, Mississippi launched sports betting in casinos and authorized a state lottery. Yet lawmakers continued to appropriate nothing for problem gambling until restoring $75,000 in the 2024 budget that began in July.
To remain afloat without state aid, the nonprofit Mississippi Council on Problem and Compulsive Gambling relied largely on donations from casinos. It dipped into reserves, cut in half the salaries of its two staff members, relocated to a smaller office, eliminated travel to conferences and suspended a program that provided several weeks of free counseling to people seeking to overcome gambling problems, said Executive Director Betty Greer.
Kansas also has a history of low funding for problem gambling. Although 2 percent of state-owned casino revenues are directed to an addictions services fund, only a fraction of that actually has gone to problem gambling. This past year, problem gambling services were allotted less than $60,000 while more than $7 million went to Medicaid mental health expenditures, substance abuse grants and other programs.
But that’s changing. The current Kansas budget allots more than $1 million for problem gambling efforts in response to sports betting. The state plans to study the prevalence of addiction because of sports betting and then use the findings to shape a statewide public awareness campaign.
