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Bill Filed In Kentucky To Allow Sports Wagering, Awaits Committee Assignment

Kentucky legislators will get another chance to consider whether they want to permit sports wagering in the state after giving the notion a relatively chilly reception last year. According to The Blood-Horse, Rep. Adam Koenig (R-Erlanger) introduced a bill on Jan. 9 that would permit sports wagering at racetracks and Kentucky Speedway, with regulatory oversight falling under the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

Online sports betting and online poker would also become allowed under the legislation.

Sports wagering is currently permitted in Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Kentucky's legislature has been considerably less eager to expand gambling in the state in any way.

Similar legislation last year was discussed at the committee level and approved but was not entertained on the House floor. This year's bill is awaiting assignment to a legislative committee for consideration.

Kentucky's horse racing industry still awaits a legislative fix to legality issues with historic horse racing which has already been in force in the state and provided revenue the sport has relied upon in recent years.

New Jersey Horsemen Settle $150 Million Sports Betting Case For $3.4 Million

According to the Thoroughbred Daily News, horsemen in New Jersey have settled a years-long lawsuit with the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and the NCAA for $3.4 million — far less than the $150 million the group claimed it was owed.

The settlement was reached out of court and entered into the record this week by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Freda Wolfson.

The $3.4 million will come from an escrow bond the leagues put up in 2014 when they first became entangled in a civil suit with horsemen while attempting to stop Monmouth Park from hosting sports betting. In 2018 a U.S. Supreme Court ruling made sports betting legal in New Jersey, and $150 million had been the figure the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NJTHA) claimed it had missed out on in the four years in between.

The escrow bond had originally been designed to cover revenue losses for a one-month period when Monmouth was subject to a court injunction barring sports betting at the start of the civil case.

In exchange for getting the bond amount, NJTHA will decline to pursue the case any farther.

NJ Horsemen Settle With Sports Leagues for $3.4M, Far Below Sought-After $150M

The years-long bid by New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (NJTHA) to seek $150 million in alleged damages from the four major team sports leagues and the college sports regulatory body (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and NCAA) ended Jan. 11 with a far lesser settlement approved by a federal judge, who wrote that the case has been “amicably resolved” among the parties.

According to the three-page “stipulation and order” signed Monday by United States District Court (New Jersey) Chief Judge Freda Wolfson, in exchange for ending its legal pursuit for more money, the NJTHA will be entitled to collect on a $3.4-million escrow bond posted by the leagues back in 2014 when the leagues first tried to block Monmouth Park’s initial attempt at getting sports betting up and running.

That was four years before the May 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the federal law that had prohibited sports betting in all but a few grandfathered states.

Soon after that 2018 Supreme Court ruling, the NJTHA-run Monmouth opened for legalized sports betting. But the NJTHA continued to chase after the money that had been placed in escrow back in 2014 to cover a one-month period when the case was first being adjudicated.

That pursuit for damages above the bond amount seemed to be emboldened when a September 2019 decision by a U.S. Court of Appeals (Third Circuit) panel of judges ruled that because Monmouth had initially been unlawfully subjected to a no-sports-betting injunction for 28 days in 2014, it had been “wrongfully enjoined” because it “had a right all along to do what was enjoined when the leagues first tried to block sports betting.”

The NJTHA then claimed in court filings that it was entitled to damages of $150 million, far higher than the amount that had been escrowed. The association’s argument was that it got wrongfully shut out of sports betting for four years, not the original four weeks that the escrow period covered.

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Kentucky Governor Reiterates Calls To Support Sports Wagering, Historical Horse Racing

During Thursday's State of the Commonwealth and Budget address from the governor's mansion, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear reiterated his support for both sports wagering and historical horse racing.

“Speaking of laws that unduly restrict us from growth and innovation,” Gov. Beshear said, “it is time to legalize medical marijuana, pass sports betting, and save historic horse racing.”

While Gov. Beshear's remarks on the subject were brief this Thursday, he has long been a supporter of both historical horse racing and sports wagering. The former has come under fire, however, due to a Kentucky Supreme Court decision last September which declared at least one version of historical horse racing terminal to not constitute pari-mutuel wagering, and thus to be illegal.

In response to the state's Supreme Court ruling, Churchill Downs has halted major construction projects at both it's Louisville, Ky. flagship track and at the recently-purchased Turfway Park in Florence, Ky.

In mid-December, during a virtual legislative preview conference, Gov. Beshear urged lawmakers to legalize historical horse racing in support of Kentucky jobs and the over $21 million it contributes to the state's budget.

The post Kentucky Governor Reiterates Calls To Support Sports Wagering, Historical Horse Racing appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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