Clouds gather
Recent optimism that a trio of Oklahoma sports betting bills would make 2025 the year the pastime becomes legal has suffered a setback after Governor Kevin Stitt this week persisted in pushing his 2023 agenda.
aims to avoid a tribal monopoly
On Monday, Gov. Stitt resurrected his controversial 2023 sports betting plan which aims to avoid a tribal monopoly.
Stitt took to X to remind everyone he previously “rolled out a solid, fair plan over a year ago”:
Stitt seems obsessed with his 2023 plan which exclusively hands over in-person wagering to the state’s federally recognized Native American tribes but, crucially, cuts tribes out of mobile sports betting.
Groundhog Day?
Stitt’s reiterated stance comes only a week after Oklahoma Senate’s Majority Whip, State Sen. Bill Coleman, expressed optimism that three new sports betting bills promised “several different avenues for the Oklahoma Legislature to legalize sports gaming this year.”
The Governor’s comments potentially pour cold water on two promising bills. Coleman’s SB 585 gives tribes sanction to offer mobile sports betting on sovereign land while also allowing NBA franchise the Oklahoma City Thunder to offer the vertical.
Industry insiders, meanwhile, conjecture that SB 164 has a better chance of appeasing Stitt. While Senator Casey Murdock’s bill gives regulatory power to the Oklahoma Lottery Commission, it still allows for “tribes and non-tribal entities to apply for a ‘sports pools’ license.”
The Governor is, however, sticking by the plan he posted to social media while he was in Israel in a show of support for the Netanyahu administration just after the Palestinian terrorist attacks.
“I promised Oklahomans if we pursued sports betting, we would do it right— and this plan does just that,” Stitt stated this week.
Which way will it go?
Stitt’s plan to only give tribes in-person sports betting at retail casinos looks dead in the water. In early February, the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association stated that proposals related to their business “have to make economic sense for everyone involved and not undermine or violate our Tribal-State Gaming compacts.”
The Governor, however, seems immovable from his position, stating that tribes can add sports betting to “their existing infrastructure, and Oklahomans can access it right from their phone.”