Newly Introduced Kentucky Sports Betting Bill Now Heading for Senate Vote

A new measure to legalize sports wagering in the Bluegrass State won approval from a House panel on March 7 and cleared the House Monday March 13 but there is a tough road ahead with just over two weeks remaining in the Kentucky legistlative period.

“This does create a regulated marketplace for sports wagering, taking sports wagering in Kentucky out of the shadows, out of the darkness and moving it into the light,” said Republican Rep. Michael Meredith, the bill’s lead sponsor.

The measure won strong bipartisan support and sailed through the House Licensing, Occupations and Administrative Regulations Committee earlier.  It's support in the House comes as little surprise. It passed with a 63-34 vote.

The issue is the Senate.

First the good news.  Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer believes there is going to be more support in his chamber compared to last year when a similar bill failed.

Now the bad news.  It requires a three-fifths vote in each chamber to pass, since it’s a revenue-producing bill in an odd-numbered year.

“The big hurdle for me in the Senate is it requires 23 votes. Those extra three votes are certainly a higher threshold for us to cross,” Thayer said last week, prior to the bill passing in the House. “I will say it’s an easier proposition next year with just 20 votes. But I’ll push hard.”

Thayer seemed less optimistic on Monday.

"(It's) going to be tough” to reach that higher threshold in the Senate, refering to the three-fifths rule this session.

David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation, spoke out against the measure during the committee hearing Wednesday. He warned that state-sanctioned sports wagering would create more social problems by draining money from families.

“This type of predatory gambling is designed to prey on human weakness, with the government colluding with gambling interests to exploit our fellow Kentuckians,” Walls said.

Republican Rep. Michael Meredith, the bill’s lead sponsor, claims his bill aims at “taking an industry that exists in darkness and in the shadows and legitimizing it, legalizing it and regulating it.”

In the annals of online gambling, Kentucky holds an infamous reputation.  It was in 2008 that then Governor Steve Beshear, father of current Governor, attempted to seize over a hundred gambling-related domain names (read our court hearing coverage as it happened here). 

Time is not on the side of this piece of legislation.

The commonwealth's legislative period concludes at the end of this month.

Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers.  Governor Beshear has said he supports legalizing the activity.

- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com