Tennessee Sports Betting Will Launch By NovemberLottery CEO And President Committed To The Timeline In A Meeting Wednesday |
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In a meeting on Wednesday, the head of the Tennessee Lottery said that sports betting will be live in the Volunteer State by November 1.
According to an Associated Press report, Lottery President and CEO Rebecca Hargrove committed to the date and said that four operators have completed applications for licenses and background checks are being conducted. Those companies pay a yearly fee of $750,000 for those licenses.
“At this point, I’m pleased to tell you we’ll start no later than Nov. 1, and potentially a week or two ahead of that if we can get all of the background checks back from the folks who have them,” said Hargrove at the meeting.
Once those background checks are completed, the applications will go before the Lottery Board for consideration, which will complete the process. Assuming Hargrove’s timeline holds up, Tennesseans will be able to wager on NFL football games this fall.
Unlike every other state that has legalized sports betting, Tennessee’s entire market will operate online. In most other states, sports betting bills only dealt with brick-and-mortar betting. Online was either added after the fact, or in many cases, is still illegal.
Tennessee is one of the few states in the country that doesn’t have a casino inside its borders, thus making physical sportsbooks a near impossibility. Since the state doesn’t have traditional gaming regulators, the Lottery Commission will oversee the market.
A few days before the start of the 2019 World Series of Poker, Gov. Bill Lee allowed HB1, a bill that legalized online and mobile sports betting, to become law through inaction. Lee is staunchly opposed to gambling and would not put his signature on the bill, but did say in a statement at the time the bill became law, that since the bill didn’t include casino expansion, he felt it was a fair compromise.
“The bill ultimately did not pursue casinos, the most harmful form of gambling, which I believe prey on poverty and encourage criminal activity,” said Lee in May 2019.
The November rollout is long awaited. In January, a state lawmaker said that the market would launch by March. The COVID-19 pandemic caused further delay and resulted in the new November launch.
In April, it was announced that Tennessee would be the first state with a minimum hold percentage. According to regulations drafted by the Lottery Commission, sportsbooks are mandated to have a hold percentage of at least 10 percent.
The hold is the sportsbook’s revenue divided by the total handle. If an operator accepts $1 million in bets, it must have a revenue of at least $100,000. The minimum hold percentage will likely lead to less competitive lines set by bookmakers. Nevada sportsbooks average a 5.4 percent hold rate by comparison.
Regulators allowed themselves the option to revisit that rule after the market has been open for a year.
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