Wisconsin‘s A.B. 601 was scheduled for a vote earlier this week; if approved, it would have allowed statewide mobile sports betting and not just on tribal lands as the law is presently written. However, the bill’s co-sponsor and majority leader in the Wisconsin Assembly, Tyler August, has said he is delaying it until early next year due to some of his colleagues’ concerns.
Progress Denied
Despite support for his bill, Tyler August believes the prudent decision is to wait until early next year, when he can assuage the concerns of some of his fellow legislators. The Republican representative has stated there are issues that he hadn’t pondered, but none of them are the constitutionality of his bill.
“There’s no rush on this,” August said. “It’s the right thing for the state, and I’m confident that we’ll get there.”
The bill would allow mobile sports bets anywhere in the Badger State as long as they were processed by servers on tribal lands, giving control of the industry to the state’s gaming tribes. There has been similar legislation from the Senate, but A.B. 601 is the closest to becoming a legal reality.
“I gave up trying to guess what’s going to happen in the Senate a long time ago,” August said. “People seem to understand this is what people want, and this is the only legal way to do it.”
Should the bill become law next year, compacts between the tribe and state would need to be updated and then approved by the federal government to get the industry in motion.
Bipartisan Support
The tribal-led sports betting model has bipartisan support, and legislators appear eager to legislate the mobile sports betting industry throughout the state.
“Based on some of the data that we’ve seen, this is an activity that’s not declining,” said Republican Sen. Howard Marklein, a sponsor of one of the Senate’s online sports betting bills. “It’s increasing. And I think that it’s appropriate for us to deal with this now, before it gets even bigger.”
Sportsbook Operators Opposed
In what would normally be legislation that had the full support of the online sports betting operators, many are decrying the bill as it is currently written due to the exorbitant percentage demanded by the tribal gaming communities.
“Online sports betting is a low-margin, capital-intensive business,” said lobbyist Damon Stewart, on behalf of the Sports Betting Alliance, during a committee meeting. “It is simply not economically feasible for a commercial operator to hand over 60% to the in-state entity just for the right to operate in the state. That is why Wisconsin adults would not be able to use the national brands they see advertised on national TV every day.”
Tribal Plans for Independent Platforms
However, the tribes appear willing to go it alone and create their own mobile sports betting platform that would exclude the national operators like Caesars, BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel, to name but a few. Statements by the national operators insinuating the tribes would be incapable of offering a serviceable sports betting platform were not well received.
Dominic Ortiz, CEO of Potawatomi Casinos and Hotels, said during the Indian Gaming Association’s “New Normal” webcast, “And I’m not the only one that was offended. Any Wisconsin tribe that heard that testimony is absolutely more than offended.”
