KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas Lottery is confident it will successfully amend its proposed regulations that contain “significant legal issues” before sports wagering in the state is soft-launched Sept. 1.
The lottery sent its proposal to the Attorney General Derek Schmidt's office on Aug. 10. However, Kansas Lottery Executive Director Stephen Durrell says the lottery was only made aware of the “significant legal issues” within the regulations on Thursday when the launch date was announced.
However, Durrell does not envision a delay in the launch date and says he is confident that revisions will be made and approved quickly.
For the past 35 years, the lottery has had its rules and regulations approved by the attorney general for legality.
“This is a business as usual sort of thing for us. … We have a great working relationship,” Durrell said.
Part of Durrell’s confidence spurs from the fact he says all the work is nearly complete.
Remaining work includes checking the backgrounds of platforms and subcontractors to be approved by the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission, which he says is a complex process.
“I know everybody’s working really hard … burning a lot of midnight oil to get this thing done,” Durrell said.
The four state casinos are also working to meet the Sept. 1 deadline. With visions of sportsbooks that could rival those in Las Vegas, construction is underway to provide sports wagering in-house.
Hollywood Casino announced in July it will temporarily open a Barstool Sportsbook in September under its Turn 2 Sport Bar and Restaurant at Kansas Motor Speedway with plans to open a permanent Barstool Sportsbook next year that will overlook the speedway.
As for when the mobile apps will be up and running, Durrell says that depends on the casinos.
In the future, Durrell says Senate Bill 84 envisions marketing entities partnering with casinos and/or platforms to offer sports betting at additional facilities, such as restaurants.
But for now, the process is viewed as a second-phase operation due to the complexity of solving the many moving parts of the issue.
With less than two weeks until the soft launch, Durrell believes sports betting will be beneficial to the state of Kansas because it would cut down on illegal gaming and bringing in more revenue.
“This will allow the people in the state to wager through platforms they know are approved, that they know are secure and that the integrity has been tested by both the folks at the racing and gaming commission and the lottery,” Durrell said.
He also believes Kansas will be surprised and can gain perspective into the vast majority of sports available to place wagers on, such as Australian football and Japanese league baseball.
“It will expose people who are just sports fans to a lot of different interesting sports I don’t think that they probably knew about to begin with,” he said.
For more information from Kansas Lottery regarding the launch of sports betting, view a full interview Durrell gave with KSHB 41 reporter Bryant Maddrick below:
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