Tennessee Sports Betting Bill Invokes Slavery: No Betting on Sunday?

• White representative tells Black rep, sports betting addiction like "slavery"

• Sports betting bill sponsor removed from House caucus leadership role for violating sexual harassment policy

• Tennessee bill would also have banned betting on sports on Sundays, after the 2 pm start of the NFL games of course

START YOUR OWN SPORTSBOOK FOR JUST UNDER $10 PER PLAYER PER WEEK AT SHARPBOOKIE

Tennessee is getting off to a really rough start in its attempt to enter the US legalized sports betting market.

Legal Sports Report tweeted out Friday morning:

ICYMI: a black Tennessee state representative is sponsoring a sports betting bill, and his white colleague fought the bill by telling him sports betting addiction is like "slavery" during a committee hearing

From LSR:

Discussion of the TN sports betting bill took an uncomfortable turn in committee when Rep. Andy Holt questioned HB 1 sponsor Rep. Rick Staples. During 15 minutes of questioning, Holt, who is white, equated addiction to sports betting to “slavery” in addressing Staples, who is black:

“Well I personally believe — and I think there are others on this committee who believe — that this legislation has been rushed through. I believe that the potential ramifications of this legislation are life altering. I believe that this leads down a path toward, in essence, slavery — slavery to an addiction. The state is playing into that addiction, unfortunately.”

Holt chairs the Finance Ways and Means subcommittee.  The sports betting bill passed his committee on Wednesday.

Staples is a Democrat from Knoxville, who was forced to give up his House caucus leadership position after violating a sexual harassment policy following allegations by a woman claiming he had touched her "inappropriately".  Staples himself is a member of the Ethics Committee and subcommittee.

Introduced as HB 1, the bill is described as follows:

Gambling - As introduced, authorizes sports betting in this state only in jurisdictions that approve sports betting by local option election; imposes a 10 percent tax on gaming revenue; distributes 40 percent of the tax to the general fund for general appropriations, 30 percent to Tennessee colleges of applied technologies and community colleges for equipment and capital projects, and 30 percent to local governments for education and infrastructure; establishes the Tennessee gaming commission to regulate sports betting; authorizes the commission to collaborate with the Tennessee bureau of investigation for purposes of enforcement. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 14; Title 38; Title 39, Chapter 17, Part 5; Title 47, Chapter 18; Title 49 and Title 67.

The tax has been amended to 20 percent and the bill itself will now only apply to mobile and the Internet (excluding landbased). There is no longer a limit on the number of sports betting licenses that can be given out.

Tenneessee's sports betting bill features one of the craziest quirks we've seen thus far, courtesy of Sports Handle:

The amendment idea came up in a committee meeting — within a bill that would legalize sports wagering, ban Tennesseans from making wagers on major holidays (Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving), as well as on Sundays from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. This potential partial ban, as you may have guessed, was inspired by religious sentiment. Meanwhile, for some folks and for sportsbooks, NFL Sundays are holidays. The amendment was narrowly shot down by a 10-9 vote.

- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com