KY Sports activities Betting Invoice Sponsor Works to Go Invoice in Session’s Final Days

It’s getting right down to crunch time in Frankfort for the Kentucky Normal Meeting’s 2022 session. However the sponsor of a sports activities betting invoice will not be prepared but to throw within the towel on his invoice passing this yr.

Kentucky state Rep. Adam Koenig presents Home Invoice 606, a regulation that might legalize sports activities betting, within the Home on March 18. It handed that chamber on that day, however its prospects of passing the senate are much less sure, because the Normal Meeting has simply 4 legislative days left within the 2022 session. (Picture: LRC Public Info)

There are 4 legislative days left within the Kentucky Normal Meeting session. Two of these will happen on Tuesday and Wednesday earlier than an almost two-week veto session begins. Lawmakers are set to return to Frankfort on April 13 and 14 to contemplate any overrides of vetoes issued by Gov. Andy Beshear. They nonetheless can, and do, cross new laws in these ultimate days.

State Rep. Adam Koenig, R-Erlanger, has identified he has till 11:59 pm ET on April 14 to get his House Bill 606, which might legalize sports activities betting, by way of the Senate.

On March 18, the invoice handed the Home for the primary time since Koenig began submitting his proposal within the wake of the Supreme Courtroom’s Skilled and Novice Sports activities Safety Act (PASPA) resolution 4 years in the past. That 58-30 vote, with 37 of the 75 Home Republicans voting for the invoice, got here two years after the invoice first handed in committee, solely to languish on the ground for 2 months.

Final yr, Koenig filed a sports activities betting invoice. However laws to codify historic horse racing (HHR) machines in a brief session after a state Supreme Courtroom opinion forged doubt on the flexibility of the Kentucky Horse Racing Fee (KHRC) to allow and regulate the video games.

In a Thursday interview with Jon Spevack on his Twitter Areas sports activities betting present The Weekly, the lawmaker credited the HHR invoice and the help it acquired final yr for serving to persuade lawmakers to vote on sports activities betting.

They realized that the world didn’t collapse,” Koenig stated. “They weren’t kicked out of their church buildings, their spouses and canine nonetheless liked them, and every part was OK.”

If sports activities betting handed, the KHRC can be the state’s governing physique over it. It will give the state’s race tracks licenses for each retail and cell operations. Taxes can be set at 9.75% of adjusted gross revenues for retail sportsbooks and 14.25% of AGR for on-line operators.

The invoice additionally would legalize on-line poker and regulate every day fantasy sports activities.

Profitable Over the Senate

On Thursday’s present, Koenig mentioned how he was in a position to get sports activities betting by way of the Home. He stated he labored to maintain lobbyists out of lawmakers’ places of work and spoke along with his colleagues straight on the deserves of the invoice.

It’s the identical course of, which he described as “hand-to-hand fight,” he plans to make use of to win over senators.

Whereas the invoice would solely want 20 votes within the 38-member Senate to cross, the political actuality is, it will in all probability want extra like 23. That’s as a result of Republicans maintain 30 seats within the physique, and it’s not more likely to even be thought-about until a majority of the caucus helps it.

Insiders have instructed On line casino.org all eight Democratic senators are more likely to help it.

Koenig does have one reasonably vital ally within the senate, Majority Ground Chief Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown. After the Home handed the invoice, he expressed some optimism to On line casino.org that his colleagues would contemplate it.

That cooled a bit after Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, instructed Spectrum Information that the invoice didn’t transfer him.

As Thayer later defined to On line casino.org within the days afterward, the sports activities betting invoice and House Bill 608, one other piece of gaming laws that might ban talent machines, typically known as grey video games, are advanced items of laws.

Koenig on The Weekly stated that he’s hopeful his conversations with senators may also help him safe the votes he wants.

“I’ll say this as a legislator, and I’m not saying any senators have stated this to me, however I’m fairly certain we expect alongside the identical traces,” Koenig stated. “You hear about payments and you’ve got some preliminary thought on it, however you don’t actually deal with whether or not you’re ‘sure’ or ‘no’ till it’s sitting in entrance of you and you’ve got to choose. And so, plenty of these senators haven’t but made a selection, and I’m making an attempt to get conferences with them and take my 5 minutes and inform them why they need to be for it.”

What’s Forward in Frankfort

If there’s not a lot motion on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, that doesn’t essentially doom the invoice. The Senate Licensing and Occupations Committee is scheduled to fulfill on Tuesday. Proper now, one other gaming invoice – Home Invoice 607, which might reform pari-mutuel wagering taxes and set up penny breakage for stay racing – is on the agenda.

It’s not promising that HB 606 will get on the agenda for Tuesday’s assembly. However as Koenig instructed On line casino.org on Friday, the committee may meet once more on both April 13 or 14 earlier than the session ends.

One factor that sports activities betting has going for it’s that Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear would signal the invoice into regulation. Understanding that offers supporters extra time, particularly since Republicans will doubtless focus their energies the following two days on payments just like the biennial price range, earnings tax reform, and different payments Beshear’s more likely to veto through the upcoming recess.

The veto interval will even give teams like “Kentucky Sports activities Betting Now” and enterprise teams supporting the invoice time to construct extra grassroots help and sway lawmakers.

One factor to contemplate ought to the invoice not cross this yr: beneath the Kentucky Structure, a revenue-generating invoice just like the sports activities betting invoice solely wants a easy majority to cross in even-year periods.  That’s when lawmakers cross the state price range. Within the shorter periods held in odd-number years, revenue-generating payments require three-fifths majority passage.