Legal Developments

Legalizing online and retail sports betting in Massachusetts is starting to see a more concrete path to actualization more than a year after lawmakers introduced the first noteworthy bills to do so.

For 15 minutes Tuesday evening, FanDuel Sportsbook in West Virginia was offering lines on presidential betting. We summarized the West Virginia political betting debacle as it happened, but the overarching questions are, should West Virginia have gone down this road? And will there be any fallout?

For roughly an hour, America had a legal betting option for a presidential election. FanDuel Sportsbook in West Virginia technically became the first regulated entity to offer bets on a political event, posting lines on the 2020 presidential election. A day after lines opened, the political betting option is closed.

Kentucky gambling expansion will have to wait even longer after lawmakers passed an abridged budget for the upcoming fiscal year in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Legalizing commercial casinos in Nebraska was an uphill climb even before the COVID-19 outbreak. Casino backers said as recently as this week they will still push for three gaming referendums on the 2020 ballot, but it remains a difficult challenge to collect enough signature to do so ahead of a July 2 deadline.

Washington sports betting will soon be legal, but it will be with one of the most limited reaches of any of the two-dozen states already accepting wagers or set to do so.

The Missouri state capitol closed Tuesday, another blow to legal sports betting and likely ending hopes for legal wagering in 2020.

The nation’s largest potential sports betting market won’t start taking bets until at least 2022 after a campaign to put legal wagering on the 2020 ballot was suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak. California’s constitution requires a statewide voter-backed amendment, which now can’t come until the 2022 midterm elections at the earliest.

For most of its life, the 1961 Wire Act was an uncontroversial piece of legislation. But in the age of online gambling, the Wire Act, and its applicability to online gambling, has become an enigmatic piece of legislation. So much so that it is winding through the courts as we speak.

Casinos and sports betting are a Gov. Ralph Northam signature away from becoming a reality after the Virginia Legislature passed two separate gambling bills, HB 896  and HB 4,  this weekend.