Kansas’ long-awaited online sports betting launch finally became a reality on September 1st and while we won’t know how successful it was until the data is released.
What we do know is that their neighbors from Missouri were champing at the bit to make a bet.
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Quick Turnaround
Seventy-four days. That’s how long it took between Governor Laura Kelly signing the bill into law until the launch of online gambling. It’s the quickest sign-to-launch process in online sports betting’s brief history in the United States.
It’s also a testament as to how government can facilitate the wishes of its constituents when they focus their efforts. Once the bill was signed and sports betting in the Sunflower State was deemed kosher, the legislators said let’s eat.
And eat they did because on September 1st, 2022, there was a soft launch of online sports betting that offered a more limited menu than the one that will be available on September 8th when the full launch is complete.
But another thing happened on September 1st that proves just how eager Missouri residents are to get what their neighbors have. According to GeoComply Solutions Inc., which supports all of the mobile sportsbooks in Kansas, more than 16,000 attempts by devices located in Missouri were blocked with roughly 60 percent of those attempts coming from Kansas City, Missouri, just a stone’s throw from the Kansas border.
Maryland Sports Betting Drowning in Red Tape
Maryland is quite the opposite of Kansas; the legislators wrote the law so that diversity took preference over experience. While no one will argue that everyone should get an equal opportunity, a prerequisite should be that those companies have experience in the gaming industry.
However, the way the sports betting law was written in Maryland requires that it gives preferential treatment to minority and women-owned businesses as part of the licensing process. And because of this stipulation, there have been repeated delays in trying to find companies that match this requirement.
The pedantic way in which the law was written has slowed the process and finds those same legislators who authored the bill with the underlying intention of getting social justice applause, now howling at the committee charged with carrying out their wishes.
What Does the SWARC Have to Say?
In turn, the chairman of the Sports Wagering and Application Review Commission (SWARC), Thomas Brandt, said, “I understand many are frustrated that the process relating to the issuance of mobile sports wagering licenses has been time-consuming. I want everyone to know that SWARC and its support team have been operating as diligently and deliberately as we can under the Maryland sports wagering law that we’re tasked to administer.”
However, due to public pressure and Governor Hogan’s public admonishment back in June when he said, “Today I called on the legislature’s Sports Wagering and Application Review Commission to take immediate actions to launch mobile sports betting in Maryland for the NFL season,” SWARC has maneuvered through the legal loopholes to get the process moving.
“After much work, we are nearly at the finish line, but we need your help,” SWARC Chairman Brandt wrote. “The sports wagering industry is seasonal,” and the football season annually generates much more activity than other times of the year. Thus, unless we move quickly, Marylanders will miss access to mobile wagering on the 2022 football season, and the state will miss out on the related revenue.”
The over/under on sports betting in the Old Line State is the Super Bowl in February but most Marylanders would tell you to take the over. Bookmakers Review will continue to monitor this story and update our readers as events unfold.
