Sierra Kennedy | SportsBettingInWestVirginia.com

West Virginia Sports Betting Update

Sierra Kennedy — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 16:37:00 +0000

In March 2018, West Virginia became one of a handful of states that passed preemptive legislation that would legalize sports betting in the state. This piece of legislature, titled HB 415, became law on March 9th, officially becoming the West Virginia Sports Lottery Wagering Act.

This law, like the handful of others passed by states like New York and Delaware, included verbiage that kept it dormant until the Supreme Court made a decision regarding the federal law, PASPA. When SCOTUS overturned the legislature in May of 2018, West Virginia was given the green light to enact sports betting.

West Virginia sports betting will now be available at five locations within the state. These include the Greenbriar, Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack, Mountaineer Casino Racetrack & Resort, The Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, and the Mardi Gras Casino and Resort.

Before they can begin opening their sportsbooks, each gaming facility will have to pay $100,000 registration and licensing fee, and will conduct sports betting under the supervision of the West Virginia Lottery Commission. Currently, betting on football, baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, and auto racing will be available at these West Virginia sportsbooks. Along with professional lines, sports betting venues in West Virginia will also provide wagering opportunities on NCAA events as well.

In order to bet on sports in West Virginia, you must be 21 years of age or older. You will also have to be present at one of the five physical gaming venues in the state. Currently, there are talks of an online and mobile application that would extend from these gaming facilities. According to verbiage in the West Virginia Sports Lottery Wagering ACT, mobile betting within the state is permissible, although there has yet to be anything of that nature put into effect.

Until mobile apps are developed and put into use, you will have to physically be present at the racetracks and casino in order to place your bets. We all know how long it can take for Government and big businesses to get their acts together, so instead of waiting for state-based mobile apps that may never actually get developed, you can always place your bets at online, offshore sportsbooks for safe, easy, legal sports betting in West Virginia.

You may be wondering what the holdup is when it comes to sportsbooks opening in West Virginia. Part of the wait is just logistics – casinos waiting to get the appropriate gaming equipment and training their staff to offer a wide array of single-game wagering options takes time. Another part of the somewhat standstill in the state, though, comes from Governor himself. Despite allowing HB 415 to pass into law, he seems determined to send it back to the legislature in order to add a referendum that would give a cut of the casinos’ – and thus the state’s – profits away.

This urge stems from nation-wide calls and lobbying efforts made by the Commissioners of the MLB and NBA, who both supported legal sports betting. The caveat to that support is that they wanted to their leagues to be given compensation. League Commissioners are calling this an “integrity fee”, which would entitle them to 1% of a state’s sports betting profits.

While Justice is attempting to get his state to partner with the leagues in order to make the transition to legal sports betting in West Virginia smoother, experts agree that it isn’t likely for the Senate to vote for such an amendment.

Unfortunately, the more time spent on this small issue, the longer it takes for the casinos to open their sportsbooks. While sports betting in West Virginia does not have an official start date on the books yet, expect it to be sooner rather than later. Proponents of sports wagering in West Virginia are eager to start collecting on the projected multi-million dollar profits legal sportsbooks are projected to make.

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West Virginia Governor Jim Justice On Sports Betting In The State

Sierra Kennedy — Tue, 29 May 2018 16:34:00 +0000

Now that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA, 1992) has been overturned, West Virginia’s HB 415 – enacted without the governor’s signature on March 3, 2018 – has given the West Virginia Lottery the sole authority to oversee the implementation of the state’s sports betting industry. West Virginia governor Jim Justice had withheld comments on sports betting in the state while PASPA’s Supreme Court case was pending, but now the federal ban has been eliminated and his own state has passed laws on athletics wagering, he is finally chiming in. (His abstinence up till now can be explained by the fact that he owns The Greenbrier, one of the state’s five casino gambling locations which will likely receive operator licenses to offer sports betting in the near future.)

However, now that Justice is finally free to speak up, he seems to be taking on something of an antagonistic stance towards sports betting in West Virginia, even calling for a special session to remedy “flaws” in the current law (HB 415), whatever those flaws may be. Further, he has already decreed that “no part of an integrity fee for sports betting would be paid by the state. I demand…that the entire fee be paid by the casinos.” For those in the gambling industry stateside, the concept of a so-called “integrity fee” is an economic nonstarter, as it would siphon up to 20% of a given sportsbook’s profits right off the top should the major sports leagues – and governor Justice – have their way. Plus, HB 415 makes zero provisions for integrity fees of any kind.

Additionally, Justice has been loose-lipped about the beneficiaries of any economic surplus that arises from a successful state sports betting operation. Without any legislation or agreements in place, he has already stated that West Virginia’s largest colleges, WVU and Marshall, would be the first recipients of such profits. This, allegedly, because some charlatan named Tom McMillen of Lead1 (an athletic director’s association representing the two schools) has claimed – without any supporting data (because there is none) – that legal sports betting on NCAA games, as opposed to all the gray and black market betting that currently goes on, would cost the two colleges “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Of course, none of this is truly surprising. The biggest risk with sports betting’s legalization across America is not whether the activity will lead to more match fixes or throw games; it is not whether wagering on sports will cause more poverty; it is not whether more folks will become addicted to gambling; it is not the potential for Las Vegas to lose a tiny bit of its luster. It is not any of that.

No, the biggest risk with sports betting’s legalization across America is simply that the various state (or federal) governments in charge of the activity will tax it to hell and then misallocate that money in a way that doesn’t actually help the community. Like giving WVU and Marshall a bunch of extra money for pretending to care about something that predates their own existence as if it were some newfound threat requiring immediate attention.

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Supreme Court PASPA Decision Legalizes Sports Betting In West Virginia

Sierra Kennedy — Tue, 29 May 2018 16:32:00 +0000

May 14, 2018, was a watershed moment in the annals of both American economics and constitutional law. On this date, the Supreme Court PASPA decision legalized sports betting in West Virginia (and the rest of the country, conditionally dependent on states passing their own sports wagering laws). Voting 6-3 in favor of eliminating the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 as an unconstitutional federal violation of the Tenth Amendment (states’ rights), the SCOTUS has opened the door to sports betting across America.

And that’s great, because US black market and gray market sports betting is estimated to be a $300 billion to $500 billion industry. It is estimated that West Virginia residents alone turn a handle of $3 billion to $5 billion each year, most of which goes through local unlicensed bookies or overseas to offshore sportsbooks.

However, West Virginia itself has passed an omnibus bill legalizing sports betting in the state, granting regulatory enforcement to the authority of the West Virginia Lottery. The law, Article 22D (HB 415), stipulates that WV can distribute 5 sports betting operator licenses to established gambling entities in the state. While these licenses haven’t yet been granted to any single operator, it is considered a foregone conclusion that the four operating racetracks/racinos and The Greenbrier luxury hotel and casino will be the recipients of said sports betting licenses.

However, since two of WV’s racetracks are owned by the same conglomerate, that leaves one license unaccounted for. Many industry analysts are surmising that the final license will be granted to the WV Lottery itself, who could then presumably offer sports betting kiosks all throughout the state where other lottery tickets are typically sold.

Whether or not this newfound sports betting in West Virginia will bring the Mountain State the billions of dollars in annual revenue and economic impact expected remains to be seen. However, even if the state can siphon off a healthy percentage of the underground action already in place via these new legal means, legal sports betting in WV will be an absolute economic windfall.

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