Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt said he is open to legalizing sports betting in 2023, especially now that sports betting is legal in Kansas.
In an exclusive interview with FOX23 News Wednesday, Stitt said his administration has already started looking for ways Oklahoma can not only legalize but implement sports betting in Oklahoma in the near future.
“We’ve seen it in New Jersey and in many other states, and now it’s right on our doorstep with Kansas doing it,” Stitt said.
Stitt said he is open to signing legislation legalizing sports betting in Oklahoma if proper auditing of accounting practices and other safeguards can be done to make sure the legalization benefits Oklahomans. He says he believes it could generate revenue for the state to not only cut taxes but also be used to incentivize economic growth and fund education.
“We’ve been behind the scenes looking into how we can do that in Oklahoma,” Stitt said. “We already have casino gambling in Oklahoma. We just need to make sure we do it the right way and responsibly. We need to make sure we have audit capabilities, and we get a fair deal for Oklahoma. It’s something I’d love to see us work on.”
FOX23 interviewed a Kansas Lottery official last summer when sports betting began and was told most of the money raised by sports betting in the state would be used for things like economic development and incentives to lure in larger companies to their state. Some of the funds raised would go toward education funding and other state purposes, but the bulk of it was slated for economic development projects.
With sports betting now legal in Kansas, the idea of Oklahomans betting on their favorite teams is not just something they can do when they go on vacation to Las Vegas or Atlantic City anymore. Oklahomans simply have to have their phone geo-located in the State of Kansas and pinging off of a Kansas cell phone tower for sports betting apps to activate and allow them to place their bets. They do not actually have to physically go into a Kansas casino to place their bets.
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that prohibited commercial sports gambling in most states, and since then, more states have legalized sports betting.
Stitt said it’s now become a situation where some money the state could easily have in its own pocket is now going into the State of Kansas with a short drive across state lines.
“As long as it’s one hundred percent fair and transparent to Oklahomans, then I’m absolutely open to it,” Stitt said.
Stitt tried to allow for future sports betting two years ago when he signed four new gaming compacts with tribes that didn’t already have casinos, but those compacts were struck down in state court.
The issue of sports betting for those tribes came up in new federal court filings this year over whether the compacts were actually legal because the Secretary of the Interior in 2020 allowed the compacts to take effect by default on the federal level.
In court filings, Stitt’s attorneys said the governor was not attempting to unilaterally legalize sports betting without approval of the state legislature, but instead, the compacts were being written so the tribes would not have to come back to the table and renegotiate should sports betting ever become legal in Oklahoma.
If sports betting is legalized in Oklahoma, the tribal gaming compact with Indian nations currently operating casinos in the state would need to be amended.
Since the beginning of his time as governor, Stitt has been trying to get tribes back to the negotiating table to update the terms and get an increase in the amount of money the state would collect from tribal casino gaming, but relations between the groups had soured during Stitt’s first term. It lead to nasty campaign where the tribes openly funded his opponent last fall.
But Stitt believes at least on sports betting, there could be some agreement between the tribes and the state should the legislature legalize it. He said there are many more stakeholders than the tribes and the state, and they all need to have a say in how Oklahoma will implement this system, should it be legalized.
“Let’s do it the right way. Let’s get all the stakeholders at the table. Let’s get OU’s athletics director and OSU. Let’s get the Thunder, and let’s get everybody at the table and figure out what does it look like for Oklahoma to have a sports book because it would open up a lot of things,” he said. “People are driving across the border today. It’s a lot of tax revenue. Whether we put it into education or economic development, I think that’s something Oklahomans would like to see.”
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