Kentucky’s legislature late Tuesday overrode a veto from Gov. Andy Beshear of the sports betting bill that raises the minimum betting age to 21, bans some prop bets, and allows fixed-odds betting on horse racing.
Beshear had vetoed the bill Monday.
Monday was also the day that Virginia’s ban on credit card funding of betting accounts became law.
Beshear vetoed HB 904 because it would allow the Kentucky Lottery Corporation and the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation to make regulatory changes without gubernatorial approval, Bloodhorse reported. He wrote that such a situation would “prevent the Governor from carrying out his constitutional duties, and allow boards and agencies to to impose rules on Kentuckians without executive oversight.”
The veto override was one of many in Kentucky Tuesday. According to Fox56 News, of 32 bills that Democrat Beshear vetoed over a recess, the Republican-dominated legislature overrode “most” of those. The Senate overrode the HB 904 veto, 67-7, and the vote in the House was 26-5, on the day before the session is set to adjourn.
HB 904 raises the minimum age for gambling from 18 to 21, allows for fixed-odd wagering on horse races, and brings daily fantasy sports under a licensing and regulatory structure ban. It aso bans college-player proposition bets placed on athletes who play for Kentucky teams “if the successful outcome of the wager is contingent upon the athlete failing to meet a specified statistical threshold or experiencing a negative performance outcome.”
The new law also includes a unique provision called the “minimum bet limit,” defined as “the amount a bettor can win, not how much can be staked or collected.”
The new law will go into effect in 90 days.
VA credit card ban takes effect July 1
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger on Monday approved HB 515, which bans the use of credit cards to fund sports betting accounts. The bill was sent to Spanberger March 14, and her deadline for action was Monday. The law goes into effect July 1.
With the ban, Virginia joins at least 10 other states in prohibiting credit cards for funding accounts — and in the last year, wagering operators bet365, BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel have stopped allowing credit cards to fund accounts. Fanatics Betting & Gaming has not allowed credit card funding since launch in 2021. Bet365 Monday became the latest operator to impose the ban, meaning that the only major national operators left that accept credit cards are Caesars Sportsbook and Penn Entertainment’s theScoreBet.
