Regulated sports betting within Oklahoma’s borders will have to wait another year, according to a KOCO News local report. State lawmakers struck down a recent bill that made it to the Senate committee.
Cherokee citizen and Oklahoma Representative, Ken Luttrell, told KOCO News that the bill failed to advance because the Senate committee wanted to see continued dialogue between the governor and Tribes.
Lutrell described this decision as a win for everyone. He said: "My colleagues saw the advantage, the economic advantage to this, the restoration of Tribal-legislative relations.
"We feel that this is a win-win and something that the governor can get behind and something that Senator Coleman can work on getting the Senate behind also.”
Lutrell’s sports betting bill, HB 1027, recently made it past the preliminary stages needed to go the full House Appropriations and Budget Committee and won the vote in the 59th legislature.
The proposed legislation would have “authorized in-person and digital sports gambling through Oklahoma’s tribal gaming compacts.”
Luttrell proposed a similar bill that also did not make it past the committee.
The previous bill proposed a “tiered fee structure” for the state’s Tribes that would involve them “paying more of a percentage of their revenue based on how much money they take in.”
Oklahoma currently has similar stipulations in place through the model gaming compact. It was signed in 2004 and renewed in 2019.
The current compact requires Tribal nations to pay the state “exclusivity fees” and use funds made from gaming revenue to support their own education programs and elder care. Last year, Tribal nations paid the state more than $166m in fees.
Since the Supreme Court repealed PASPA in 2018, online gambling is currently available in more than 35 states, with 18 of those allowing for legal online sports wagering.
