The legislative battle lines are being drawn in Oklahoma over the proposed legalization of sports betting in the Sooner State.
Lawmakers have pre-filed at least two bills that may authorize event wagering in some form in Oklahoma, where the legislature is supposed to resume its regularly scheduled business in early February.
State Sen. Casey Murdock pre-filed one of the proposed measures, SB 1434, which would authorize the Oklahoma Lottery Commission to implement in-person and mobile sports betting via tribal and private-sector entities.
The text says it would allow the lottery's board of trustees to “enter into written agreements with one or more other states or sovereigns for the operation, participation in marketing, and promotion of sports pools.”
“Such an agreement may be entered into with a federally recognized Indian tribe for in-person sports pool games only if a cooperative agreement authorizing the Commission to do so has been entered into by the Governor and such a tribe and has been further approved by the Joint Committee on State-Tribal Relations,” under relevant provisions of Oklahoma law, the proposed legislation states.
Everybody in the pool
Permits could also be issued to qualified "sports pools retailers," with those pools defined as “any in-person wagering and wagering conducted on a mobile device on the outcome of sporting events or other events, other than horse or other animal races."
The lottery board would act as a regulator of legal sports betting and craft the criteria used for licensing providers of in-person and online wagering in Oklahoma.
If the bill passes, and there is no guarantee it does, licenses issued by the commission for sportsbook operators would require holders to turn over 15% of their adjusted revenue from in-person wagering and 20% from online betting. Mobile operators would have to pay an additional fee of $500,000 and an annual renewal fee of $100,000.
Details in Murdock’s bill match those announced by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (a fellow Republican) in November, which included allowing federally recognized Native American tribes to offer in-person sports betting via a compact with the state and for mobile wagering under a state-issued license. The tax and licensing provisions in Murdock's bill are the same as those proposed by Stitt as well. The governor also wants a ban on college player props.
The news never ceases some days. Now we've got Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt unveiling his plan for legal sports betting in the state:https://t.co/EqX4zzOkkz pic.twitter.com/jgUFtQuPkc
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) November 2, 2023
The bill could add another avenue of legal gambling in Oklahoma, which has more than 100 tribal casinos and several racetracks but no sportsbooks. That is not for lack of trying, although previous legislative efforts to bring legal sports betting to the Sooner State failed.
“I promised Oklahomans if we pursued sports betting, we would do it right— and this plan does just that,” Stitt said in a press release in November. “Thirty-five states have already legalized sports betting, and it’ll be a great revenue stream for the state. Tribes will be able to add it onto their existing infrastructure, and Oklahomans can access it right from their phone.”
Murdock’s bill states that money raised by sports betting would flow to a new fund and could be spent on "gambling addiction programs, common education, and administrative costs" tied to implementing the legislation. The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services would also receive at least $1 million to treat gambling addiction.
Again, if it passes, the bill would take effect Nov. 1. There is, however, no certainty the legislation becomes law.
A different vision?
The same goes for another pre-filed piece of legislation in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, HB 3360, which was introduced by Rep. T.J. Marti last week.
Marti’s measure, however, contains almost no details. All the bill states is that there would be a new section of law, "not to be codified in the Oklahoma Statutes," that could be known as the "Sports Betting Act of 2024" and take effect on Nov. 1.
Neither Marti (another Republican) nor Murdock’s office responded to emailed questions from Covers before this story was published. It’s conceivable, though, that either measure could be amended. Marti’s legislation could even offer a competing vision to that of Stitt (or the same), when or if further details are added.
At any rate, the plan proposed by Stitt and Murdock appears headed for turbulence in the legislature. Rep. Ken Luttrell, who backed a sports betting-related bill in 2023, told local media that what the governor wants would breach the state’s existing gaming compacts with the tribes.
“The compacts are simply written and very plain that he cannot do that,” Luttrell told the Oklahoma Voice. “We’ve granted exclusivity to the tribes to operate gaming, and sports betting, by definition, is gaming.”
