Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Now, let's get to Oklahoma here because, you know, there was some real optimism, I thought, about a month ago that maybe this would be on the ballot later in the year and then 2026 would come.
00:09Maybe they would have sports betting and get Texas's act in order going, too, because, you know, they border each other.
00:14But I guess not so much.
00:15Yeah, I think just like Hawaii, you know, entering this year, Hawaii and Oklahoma were both kind of states that were written off.
00:22They weren't real possibilities.
00:24Well, Hawaii, you know, got, of course, got to the conference committee, passing both the House and Senate, and were just a little bit different.
00:33And in conference committee, it just kind of fell apart.
00:35So that was the end of that Cinderella story.
00:37This one is kind of similar.
00:38I mean, entering the year, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and the tribes, their tenacious relationship kind of made us all think, you know, there's no way this is going to get done.
00:49Well, two different bills passed the House rather easily, got to the Senate, made it further than it ever has before any sports betting bill, passing a Senate committee, and it got to the Senate floor.
01:02And there was hope because one bill was just a straight enacting bill that would have created the framework, put it in action.
01:08But Stitt, Governor Stitt, had promised to veto any bill, and I don't think there was, and I don't think anybody thinks there was support in the Senate or House to fully overturn that because there are plenty of governor allies.
01:22The other bill, had that been vetoed, would have sent it to the ballot, and all Stitt could do is, you know, try to put the referendum date at a weird time.
01:33So maybe to draw fewer voters or the like, but apparently the appetite to get it on the Senate floor was not there by the time the session ran out.
01:43So, you know, the session ended without any action, and then another Cinderella story in the sports betting world fell apart.
01:52And it was, to your point, something that kind of grew all of excitement there in hopes that it would pass.
02:02But, of course, the session ended, and it didn't pass.