Against all odds, sports betting becomes law in Kentucky

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Though it faced long odds on the morning of the last day of the 2023 session, a bill to legalize, regulate and tax sports betting in Kentucky passed through the Senate late Thursday and now has been signed into law.

House Bill 551 cleared the Senate chamber by a 25-12 vote — needing a minimum of 23 votes to pass — and Gov. Andy Beshear signed it Friday morning.

Under the bill, the Kentucky Speedway and horse racing tracks must pay a fee to operate as sports betting facilities, with bets allowed there and on licensed websites and phone apps. Wagers placed at tracks would have an excise tax of 9.75% and online wagers a rate of 14.25%.

The House passed a nearly identical bill in last year's session only to have it die in the Senate after failing to gain majority support within the socially conservative GOP caucus in that chamber.

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As of Thursday morning, the bill that cleared the House two weeks ago appeared destined to the same fate, as Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer said HB 551 still didn't have the 23 votes it needed to pass, suggesting it may have been just one Republican vote short.

However, its fate changed quickly Thursday evening, when it was suddenly placed on the orders of the day and came to the floor just 30 minutes later.

Kentucky will now become the 38th state to legalize sports betting, with the law going into effect in late June.

On the Senate floor before the vote, Thayer said HB 551 would bring in an estimated $23 million annual tax revenue directed to the state's public pension system, adding that Tennessee's sports betting law brought in $68 million of revenue last year.

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"We are a sports crazy state," Thayer said. "And people want to be able to make a choice of their own free will to make a wager on a sports event — like almost all our surrounding states."

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Crofton, who voted against the bill, said that while Thayer may be correct about sports betting creating revenue, "ask yourselves how much money people in Kentucky have to lose before we get it back."

"There will be people hurt by this," Westerfield said. "There will be people who can't afford to bet who will bet anyway."

Among the 30-member GOP-caucus, 18 senators voted for HB 551, including President Robert Stivers, who had not previously expressed public support for the bill. All seven Democrats in the chamber voted for the bill.

Thayer told The Courier Journal after the vote that Stivers was assumed to be a vote against the bill as early as that morning — despite he and Senate Majority Caucus Chair Julie Raque Adams pushing him strongly to support it in previous days — but the Senate president then announced in a caucus meeting that he would vote yes.

"I think that gave some other members the confidence to vote yes," Thayer said. "There's no doubt that his decision to vote yes was an absolute game changer, a seminal moment for sports betting."

Stivers did not go into detail on his decision to vote for HB 551, other than saying he had never come out publicly against the bill and that he had met with GOP House Speaker David Osborne about being able to move through a list of pending bills on the last day.

"To break up the log jam, I sat down with the speaker and created some proposals that could get things moving through both chambers," Stivers told The Courier Journal.

Thayer said in a statement that "freedom won the day."

"I look forward to Kentuckians being able to place their wagers right here in the commonwealth instead of traveling across state lines to spend their money in other states," Thayer said.

Beshear — a Democrat who does not usually see eye to eye with Thayer — tweeted a similar celebratory message Thursday evening.

"After years of urging lawmakers to legalize sports betting, we finally did it!" Beshear wrote. "Today’s result shows that hard work pays off. Kentuckians will soon be able to place their bets here, and for the first time, we are going to keep those dollars to support our roads and bridges, schools and communities."

At the governor's signing ceremony Friday morning in the Capitol rotunda, Rep. Michael Meredith, R-Oakland, the lead sponsor of the bill, said HB 551 "might be the most bipartisan bill that was passed this session."

Beshear also signed into law Senate Bill 47 at the ceremony to legalize medical marijuana — another bipartisan bill that passed the House just 12 minutes before the Senate passed HB 551 Thursday — saying this showed that a Democratic governor and GOP supermajority legislature can still "get those tough things, important things that Kentuckians really want done."

Reach reporter Joe Sonka at jsonka@courierjournal.com and follow him on Twitter at @joesonka.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky sports betting bill - HB 551 - becomes law