Kansas Lawmakers See New Hope for Sports Betting

Kansas is not giving up on sports betting and the states lawmakers have brought a new piece of legislation that will hopefully see the state join others where the wagering industry is already fully legalized.

Kansans and the Sports Betting Future of the State

The Committee on Federal and State Affairs has decided to give sports betting a solid chance. Lawmakers filed S 222 in a bid to finally introduce a fully-fledged industry in one of the states that has been primed to pass a favorable law, although it has been lacking in actual support and execution. Casinos have been pushing for this for a while now.

Should the bill have a successful run across the various legal bodies ahead, it would allow the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission to start issuing licenses. As a result, businesses willing to start offering wagers of the outcome of sports would be allowed to pay for a license.

Kansas is planning to legalize both mainstream and collegiate sporting events, allowing bettors to pick from quite the array of options.

Sports Betting Licenses for Kansas

Not much is clear when it comes to licensing fees. States have generally introduced varying amounts starting at $100,000 and reaching $4 million in places like Pennsylvania, although PA has allowed companies to acquire iGaming, poker, and betting for $10 million each instead of venturing into individual licenses.

Another possibility would be to acquire a license and enter into an agreement with a third-party, although such proceeding will have to be given the ultimate approval of the Commission. Interestingly, the taxation will be rather smaller than proposed amounts elsewhere, with the state only fetching 6.75% of the total wagering revenue.

All proceedings will be deposited into the Lottery Act Revenues Fund, although how the funds would be used afterwards isn’t entirely clear.

S 222 also makes an important change to the currently proposed draft bills by offering self-exclusion scheme designed to protect vulnerable players from falling victims to addictive gambling practices. Apart from that, operators would be liable if they failed to apply such self-exclusion demands.

In January, Kansas saw another sports betting bill, S 23, make an introduction, with the bill suggestion an integrity fee tantamount to 0.25% of the total wagers placed on an event. Given the gunk-ho approach towards integrity fees, though, it’s far from likely that such thing will make a passage.

Sports betting is expanding at a rapid pace throughout the United States, with over half the states making a solid move towards legalization or already having legal sports wagering options.