Sports betting clears first hurdle in Oklahoma House of Representatives

House Bill 1027, by Rep. Ken Luttrell, R-Ponca City, won easy passage in a friendly appropriations subcommittee chaired by Luttrell himself. At a minimum, HB 1027 still has to get through the full House Appropriations and Budget Committee, the House floor, a Senate committee or two, the Senate floor and the governor before it could become law. And that’s only if it isn’t changed much along the way, which doesn’t sound likely.

“What we are seeing now will not be the final bill,” Luttrell told the committee.

The bill would authorize in-person and digital sports gambling through Oklahoma’s tribal gaming compacts. Luttrell, a Cherokee citizen, carried a similar bill in the last Legislature,but it went no further than the committee stage of consideration.

Now, as then, Luttrell said he hoped his bill would restart talks between state government and tribal leaders after a falling out between many of them and Gov. Kevin Stitt.

“One thing this has done is opened the lines of communication for dialogue with the tribes,” said Luttrell. “You all are part of a historic effort to restore our tribes’ trust in our Legislature.”

Stitt says he favors legalization of sports gambling as long as it is sufficiently regulated.

The governor and many of the state’s tribal governments, including the largest ones, have been at odds almost since he took office in 2019, when he unsuccessfully tried to have their gaming compacts overturned so that he could negotiate new ones.

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