At its recent meeting, the Tennessee Education Lottery Sports Wagering Committee’s Sports Wagering Advisory Council changed sports betting rules language, approved a betting menu and clarified language about collegiate sports wagering. In addition, in the most anticipated news, officials said BetMGM, DraftKings and FanDuel possibly could begin operations on Sunday, November 1 or sooner.
Tennessee is the only state that legalized sports betting without land-based casinos as anchors, allowing only online sports wagering.
However, there’s National Football League game on Sunday, November 1. That day usually is the busiest of the week for sports betting. Lottery Chief Executive Officer Rebecca Hargrove suggested sports betting could go live a few days earlier, “perhaps for a couple of hours,” to avoid launching on an NFL Sunday. That way, she said, the lottery could work out any hitches ahead of a full day of NFL games as well as college football games the day before.
Tennessee Action 24/7 also was awarded a conditional sports betting license, but its supplier Amelco has not yet been licensed. TEL said three other operators have submitted applications.
The council discussed language changes to proposed sports betting rules, mainly in regard to revising them to match Tennessee’s sports betting laws. The proposals were passed on to the Board of Directors’ Sports Wagering Committee, which made changes to the definitions of suppliers and vendors and insurance requirements, among others. The council also spent a considerable amount of time discussing collegiate prop bets, which are banned under Tennessee’s sports betting law.
Tennessee legalized sports betting on July 1, 2019, when Governor Bill Lee let the bill become law without his signature.
