Sports wagering bill introduced to house on day of deadline

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) – Sports betting in Kentucky has been a polarizing topic for years now. Perimutuel betting on horse racing is legal in the Commonwealth and six out of seven surrounding states already allow sports betting, leading many Kentuckians to push lawmakers for action.

Representative Michael Meredith from District 19 introduced House Bill 551 Wednesday, the final day new bills could be introduced to the house.

“House Bill 551 is the sports wagering bill that we’ve been working on now for two or three months to try to get ready. Got it right in the nick of time on the bill filing deadline for the house,” says Meredith.

Since 2018, lawmakers have been introducing bills to legalize sports betting. Last year, a sports betting bill passed through the house but was stalled in the senate. Representative Meredith says even with it not currently being legal, around one billion dollars is still being wagered from Kentucky each year either in one of our surrounding states or through an illegal, unregulated market.

“We started with Representative Koenig’s bill from last year. We took out online poker and fantasy sports because they seem to be issues over in the senate as we discussed the issue with them last year,” says Meredith. “We then started meeting with the industry, meeting with the racing commission, meeting with the race tracks and some of their representatives to try to make sure that we were crafting something from taking what was there last year and updating it a little bit as the industry has emerged.”

House Speaker David Osborne says while this new bill addresses some of the concerns from opponents, there’s still one big reason some lawmakers are voting no.

“We don’t ask anybody to compromise their morals and their ethics. There are enough people that are running around that will compromise their ethics without any encouragement so we certainly want people that stand up for their beliefs and the beliefs of their constituents,” says Osborne.

The bill will now go to a house committee before being voted on by the house. The final day of the regular session is March 30th.