FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — The push to legalize sports betting in Kentucky faces a tougher challenge in 2023. Why? Legislative sessions during odd-numbered years have a higher vote threshold.
"It would take 23 votes to pass the Senate," explains Sen. Damon Thayer, the Majority Floor Leader. "In a 60-day session, it would take 20. So, those extra 3 votes make it a little bit harder to pass this year."
And that's if the Kentucky House passes the measure first.
But Thayer is hopeful. He tells LEX 18 that he is working on a newer, more narrow sports betting bill with Rep. Michael Meredith.
"Taking out some of the other extraneous things like fantasy sports and online poker that were in the previous bill," he said.
Thayer, who says he has never placed a sports bet and doesn't know if he ever will, thinks sports betting is a natural extension of the legalized forms of gambling Kentucky already has.
"We're a sports-crazy state. We love our sports. We have a long history and tradition of betting on horses in Kentucky. And I see [sports betting] as an extension of that, and I think most people do too," said Thayer.
"Everywhere I go - at the gym, at the grocery store, at restaurants, at UK games, I went up to the NKU game about a week ago - everywhere, literally, that I go, the first thing that people ask me is when are you going to pass sports betting," he added.
However, not everyone is on board with sports betting. The Family Foundation has previously said it opposes the legalization effort because of the "social harms to Kentucky families caused by the predatory gambling industry."
About a year ago, the group’s spokesperson argued that "government-promoted sports wagering will only further impoverish Kentucky’s poor by taking money from the hands of Kentucky families and shifting it to the gambling industry."
Thayer says while he respects the moral and religious reasons people may have against sports betting, he thinks that "people should have the freedom to be able to choose what they do with their money."
And he's frustrated that Kentuckians have to cross state borders to spend their money.
"You can stand in Covington, Kentucky and literally see where it's legal to make sports bets," he said. "And the same thing happens in Louisville with people going over to Southern Indiana. And it's also happening on Kentucky's southern border with people going to Tennessee."
"Other states are benefitting from the economic activity created by Kentuckians going there to make sports bets," he added. In 2022, the Kentucky House passed that year's sports betting bill. The Senate kept giving it readings to keep the bill alive but ultimately did not give the measure a vote.
