House Bill 1047 failed by a 21-27 vote. It was proposed last year by Sen. Bill Coleman, R-Ponca City, and Rep. Ken Luttrell, R-Ponca City.
During a debate on the state senate floor, Coleman said that prediction markets already exist in Oklahoma, but the state does not benefit from them.
"It does not create a new avenue of gambling. You can legally make a sports bet right now, and it's unregulated and we get nothing," Coleman said. "This bill contains a regulated alternative to legal sports betting with platforms who are very concerned about problem gaming."
Critics of the bill who spoke on the floor told Coleman they did not want to contribute to sports betting addiction.
Coleman asked the Senate to reconsider the issue in the future after voting ended. A spokesperson for Coleman wrote he could return the bill to the floor in the next few days. That would require finding necessary votes within his caucus.
The measure would have granted tribes the exclusive right to implement in-person and mobile sports betting throughout Oklahoma as a supplement to the State-Tribal Gaming Act of 2004, which gives the tribes sole authority over gaming through exclusivity fees paid to the state.
Those fees would derive from 8% of sports betting earnings. But any revenue
from NBA and WNBA wagers would go toward the Strong Readers Act Fund, signed into law earlier this week.
The OKC Thunder and a supermajority of tribes in the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association announced their support for the measure on Tuesday after the parties reached an agreement to revise the bill.
But a spokesperson at the Oklahoma Governor's Office wrote that Gov. Kevin Stitt does not support expanding the state's tribal gaming compact.
"The Governor is not interested in expanding Democrat Gov. Brad Henry's bad gaming compact that lacks transparency and fair market rates," a texted statement reads.
The statement did not clarify if Stitt would have vetoed the measure.
Stitt has regularly opposed sports betting bills that would grant gaming exclusivity to tribal nations. Last year, he said exclusivity would grant the tribes a monopoly that would clash with a free market system.
Coleman, Luttrell, the governor's office and the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment following the vote.
With the bill failing to reach the Oklahoma State House of Representatives, Oklahoma remains one of 11 states without legal sports betting.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
