Push to legalize sports betting in Ky. continues. Are the odds changing?

Adam Koenig leaves the Kentucky House of Representatives with a list of accomplishments to his name. He became chairman of the powerful House Licensing & Occupations Committee, he helped pass high-priority horse industry legislation legalizing historical horse racing machines, and he introduced penny breakage to an important pari-mutuel wagering bill.

But his white whale was legalizing sports betting in Kentucky. He was the primary advocate in Frankfort for House Bill 606, which would have legalized the practice, and after a monumental lift to get the bill passed in the House, the measure fizzled out in the Senate.

Now with Koenig leaving the legislature – he got beat in a contentious primary – he’s not so sure that future sports betting advocates will have any more luck than Captain Ahab.

The biggest roadblock has been getting enough votes in the Senate, and leadership of the large Republican majorities in both chambers of the legislature operate under the Hastert Rule. That means that bills don’t come to the floor for a vote unless a majority of the majority party membership approves of the legislation.

It can make getting controversial legislation passed difficult, and the difference between narrow passage and getting nothing can be thin.

“If a couple important members of the senate would have been a yes last year, it would have passed. It’s that simple. We were very, very close last year. What that means for the future, I don’t know,” Koenig said.

Koenig didn’t name names, but the most powerful member of the Senate has stood publicly against the measure. Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, has criticized the measure, saying it “creates no energy” with him.

More recently, at an event held by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Stivers says he’s “ambivalent” about the issue.

“I don’t know what the appetite is. To me, I’m ambivalent about it. If it was such a winning issue, I don’t think Adam Koenig would have lost,” Stivers said.

House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, said on KET that he believes that “a lot of support” for sports betting remains in the House, despite 2022 election results that increased Republican majorities in the House from 75-25 to 80-20.

Democrats, meanwhile, have largely supported legalizing sports betting both in the House and Senate.

Kentucky is one of a handful of states that has not legalized sports betting – just 14. Of the seven states that border Kentucky, only Missouri has not legalized the practice.

Detractors have said that legalizing sports betting would encourage Kentuckians to engage in gambling more often than they currently do, increasing their likelihood of getting addicted. That could impoverish and tear apart families, they say.

Advocates argue that many of the Kentuckians who would engage in the practice in-state are already doing so out-of-state. That’s revenue flowing out of the state, and if Kentuckians can bet on horse races they should also be able to bet on other sports contests, they argue.

“There’s money flowing outside the state. If we’d have been first, we certainly would have gotten more at the beginning. But that would not have sustained itself over time. Revenue is nice, but for me the important thing is: it happens; people do it anyway through bookies or offshore accounts,” Koenig said.

Estimated annual revenue that would come into the state as of 2019 was $22.5 million, according to Koenig. That’s a small amount compared to the state’s $14.7 billion General Fund.

What are the odds, really?

Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, took a measured approach when assessing the likelihood of sports betting getting passed. Thayer is an advocate for the legislation, but said that he’s not sure whether it will pass this year.

Sports betting was a topic of discussion at the Senate GOP retreat, where many policy priorities get hashed out, but there was no conclusive determination on where to go with it, Thayer said.

“I let the caucus know that I plan to advocate for it. If the House passes the bill again, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I think there will be more votes for sports betting in the caucus than there were last session. But whether that’s enough to pass a bill remains to be seen,” Thayer said.

There are six new faces in the 38-member Kentucky Senate – all of them Republican – and it’s been reported that some are open to supporting the measure.

But can all that much change in a year?

Sen.-elect Gex Williams, who’s replacing Sen. Paul Hornback, R-Shelbyville, has said on the record that he’s in support of sports betting. Lexington Sen.-elect Amanda Mays Bledsoe, who’s replacing Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr, told the Herald-Leader that she supports the idea as well, but needed to see whatever piece of legislation ended up in the Senate before signing off completely.

It’s unclear where new Republican Senate members Gary Boswell of Owensboro, Matt Deneen of Elizabethtown, Shelley Funke Frommeyer of Northern Kentucky, and Lindsey Tichenor of Oldham County stand.

Matt Jones, popular entrepreneur and founder of the talk radio show Kentucky Sports Radio, isn’t so sure.

Jones, who wrote a book criticizing Mitch McConnell and toyed with running for public office as a Democrat, has from the sidelines become a player in the game of trying to get sports betting passed. In 2021, he posed the question of whether or not legislators would support legalizing sports betting to every single legislator in Frankfort. He’s also been a vocal supporter over Kentucky’s airwaves and on Twitter.

“I don’t think the prospects are great in this legislative session, and I think there are a couple of reasons why,” Jones said.

One, he said, is that Koenig is gone. Koenig told the Herald-Leader that a new sponsor for a similar bill has been chosen, but did not say who.

2023 on the mind?

The other reason, Jones argued, is that the legislature would be hesitant to give Gov. Andy Beshear a legislative ‘win.’

Like medical marijuana, Beshear has tried to use the bully pulpit afforded to governors to push the Republican-dominated legislature to pass sports betting. He hasn’t let up, either.

With Ohio poised to legalize the practice on Jan. 1, Cincinnati-area TV station Local 12 asked Beshear this month what Kentucky should do.

“Any football game you turn on right now, what, about a third of the commercials are for one of the companies, one of the platforms on sports betting. This has become a part of entertainment. It’s time that we embrace it and keep these dollars here,” Beshear said.

Jones guessed that 65 to 70% of voters would support a measure like Koenig’s

“I think the Republicans are going to be very hesitant to give Beshear a legislative win that will have some real popularity amongst a portion of the state,” Jones said. “I think there’s a lot of people who don’t really care about politics who do care about this. So, with it happening under Beshear, he will get credit for it. I don’t think they want to do that in an election year.”

Koenig said he hopes Republicans don’t buy into the argument that it helps Beshear for them to pass it.

“My argument, to anyone who ever brought that up, was ‘take the issue away. We’ll pass it, take our victory lap, then that’ll be it.’ The longer it stays in its current state, the more you give them the ability to run on it – and it’s wildly popular,” Koenig said. “If anybody has that motivation, the best thing they could do is pass it. Just take it off the table.”

This story was originally published December 28, 2022 at 7:04 AM.

Austin Horn

Lexington Herald-Leader

706-571-8597

Austin Horn is a politics reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He previously worked for the Frankfort State Journal and National Public Radio. Horn has roots in both Woodford and Martin Counties.