There won’t be legal sports betting in Kentucky any time soon it seems. House Bill 606 did not make it out of the State Senate on the last day of the 2022 legislative session.
“I’ve been for it,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer told NBC affiliate LEX18. “I’ve been trying to get other people to be for it. But I can’t make people be for it if they don’t want to be for it.”
Polling shows a majority of Kentucky citizens support the legalization of sports betting. Special interest groups like The Family Foundation have waged a campaign to spread the message that gambling will take hands out of people in the state that are already poor and give it to wealthy sportsbooks.
Thayer says he isn’t giving up. House Bill 606 won’t make it to a vote this year, but he holds out hope it could happen in the future. He points out that betting on horse racing is already a practice many in the state enjoy.
“Everywhere I go, people stop me and ask, why can’t you pass sports betting? The region I represent – it enjoys wide, wide popularity.”
