This is the year many Wyoming legislators are determined to get a handle on regulating gaming, which has been operating for years in what many describe as a Wild West environment.
So far, no one knows what form those regulations will take. But most agree that all roads lead to the creation of a state gaming commission to enforce the rules.
Lawmakers such as Senator Ogden Driskill argue that the state could be collecting millions of dollars in taxes that now go by the wayside because the games are operating without regulation. There are laws in various counties but they are so conflicting that law officers generally keep their hands off.
The situation has become so chaotic that even lawmakers who originally opposed regulating gaming have come around to agreeing for the need of it.
Driskill’s Joint Committee on Travel, Recreation and Cultural Resources has been working for many months on legislation that would create a Wyoming Gaming Commission that would be able to enforce the rules and allow legitimate games a way to operate in the sunlight.
Last week the House Appropriations Committee began holding hearings on several bills that, in addition to creating a commission, would also legalize sports betting set a workable legal definition of what a “game of skill” is.
One bill would limit games of skill to contests between two or more players.
The Wyoming Liquor Association says that it supports regulation, but opposes one provision of Driskill’s bill that says that cities and towns would need to “opt in” through an election for gaming to operate within their boundaries. Mike Moser, a spokesman for the association, said that would have the effect of creating a prohibition since most municipalities would resist spending the money to hold such an election.
The association also criticizes the idea of the existing Pari-Mutuel Commission—whose responsibility currently is horse racing—taking on the duties of a gaming commission.
Driskill’s committee points to states such as Georgia and Arkansas that successfully merged existing merged such functions. Georgia’s Bureau of Investigation oversees gaming while in Arkansas the commission on horse and dog racing oversees gaming.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Nicholas last week declared that regulating gaming could be one of the most important things the legislature will consider this year—as well as the most lucrative for the state. “This could turn into a large revenue maker for the state of Wyoming,” said Nicholas.
