Washington State Sports Betting Secures Two More Tribal Agreements

Massive news is being reported by several news outlets in Washington. According to MyNorthwest, the Washington State Gambling Association has met and come to an agreement with two more tribes in the state in regards to sports betting. The two tribes in this round of negotiations were the Kalispel Tribe and Snoqualmie Tribe. This would bring the total to four tribes that have agreed, at least in theory, to a gaming amendment that would allow for sports betting in the state. The other two tribes were the Sualip Tribe and the Suquamish Tribe.

The Washington State Gambling Association released a message following the news of this agreement, “this amendment allows the Tribe and State the ability to effectively address the Legislature’s primary sports wagering policy concerns now codified in the Gambling Act: licensing, agency funding, regulation, criminal enforcement, money laundering, sport integrity, and responsible and problem gambling.”

Can Sports Betting Launch in Washington?

Washington is still a long way away from sports betting in the state. Many experts pegged Washington as one of the states that would take the longest to legalize. The Washington State Gambling Association needs to get quite a few agreements done, and then the legislation needs to be put into place to legalize sports betting.

However, the Washington State Gambling Association is confident that it can get retail sports betting up and running at these casinos by the Fall/Winter of 2021. This would be extraordinarily impressive by the group and would add a good boost of revenue for the state and tribes.

One of the key pieces of information regarding these agreements is that they only cover wagering while on-site at these tribal casinos. This means that mobile sports betting would need another round of agreements to get up and running in Washington. This is a common issue faced on the West Coast, where tribal casinos have a lot of the power and do not want to work with the government to have online sports betting. Arizona was one of the first states to actually work something out that included mobile sports betting and tribal casinos.

More Agreement Details

The agreement actually has a rather expansive definition of sports wagering. The retail tribal sportsbooks could collect bets on professional and collegiate sports. The agreements also allow for Olympic and e-sports betting. It seems that the number of restrictions when it comes to sports betting on these tribal grounds will be limited, which is good for bettors and sportsbooks alike.

The Washington State Gambling Association is looking to meet with several more tribes in this coming month. Their hope is that the agreements can be done before the end of May, and sports betting can be fully legalized and allowed at these tribal casinos shortly after.

Currently, no tax or licensing fee has been made public. However, there would almost surely be a cost bump to these tribal casinos if they were to allow sports betting at their tribe. We have seen in Florida that the new agreement to allow sports betting has drastically raised the fee of operation and the tax rate for the Seminole Tribe.