Wyoming’s Online Casino Bill: A New Frontier for Gambling
Wyoming is the latest state to put an online casino bill in front of legislators.
Wyoming’s new online casino bill would let you gamble from anywhere in the state. © EyestetixStudio, Pixabay
Key Facts:
- House Bill 0162 would authorize a minimum of 5 online casino licenses in the state.
- Current Sportsbook operators would pay a $2,500 licensing fee and a $100,000 permit fee.
- Gross Gaming Revenue from Internet wagering would be taxed at 16%
With fewer than six people per square mile, Wyoming is one of the least densely populated parts of the US, but thanks to a 2013 law that allowed Historic Horse Racing machines in the Cowboy state, it is not that hard to find a place to gamble if you like slot machines.
In fact, there are over 2500 gaming terminals spread out across forty-plus locations. Still, Wyoming covers a vast territory, so the ability to make a bet from your laptop or mobile phone, especially in the dead of winter, without driving 30 miles to the nearest town would probably engender some support.
Online sports betting became legal in 2021 and has proven extremely popular, with more than 540 million wagered in 2024. So, will online casinos be next? Well, State Representative Bob Davis intends to call “Cowboy Up” and see if he can get this bronco of a bill over the line.
Wyoming House Bill 0162
So what’s in the new bill:
- The five major operators currently running Sportsbooks would only pay a $2500 permit fee and then a $100k licensing fee once approved.
- At least five licenses would be awarded, and the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes, which have tribal casinos in the state, would be eligible to participate.
- The tax rate would be set at 16% of gross gaming revenue; the current tax rate on sportsbooks is a relatively modest 10%
- 10% of tax revenue would go to the Wyoming Gaming Commission to cover costs, and then Wyoming Schools getting 50%, and counties in the state getting 40%, divvied up by population.
A similar bill in early 2024, also introduced by Rep. Davis, failed to advance to the House floor by seventeen votes. However, the state sponsored a study by Spectrum Gaming to look at all of the state’s gambling laws and the impact of future expansion. That study came out at the end of 2024.
That included a review of the impact of iGaming, which Spectrum conservatively believes could see revenue in its first year of operation at between $93.4 million and $138.4 million. Even a modest $100 million yearly revenue projection would mean an additional $8 million for Wyoming schools.
However, as it often is when iGaming is mentioned, the issue is its impact on the already entrenched Historical Horse Racing(HHR) gaming market and “skill” games found throughout many of the state’s bars and truck stops.
The HHR machines provide millions to the state’s Breeders Fund, which then allocates that money to horse owners, farmers, and ranchers, which has a very politically powerful lobby.
The “skill” games help keep many of the mom-and-pop restaurants and taverns open in smaller towns. They are also a very powerful political bloc. The Spectrum report recognized the concerns of those interests by illustrating the experience of West Virginia, which passed iGaming in 2019.
It also had extensive land-based gaming, thousands of video lottery terminals, and both in-person and online sports betting when it passed the legislation, yet experienced next to no cannibalization of those markets by the introduction of online casinos.
Another recent industry study from the Sports Gaming Alliance examined five states, including West Virginia. It concluded that while land-based gaming continued to grow at a single-digit rate, the total revenue from both land-based and gaming combined was more than 40% higher than it was before iGaming became legal in those states.
It remains to be seen if the Spectrum report or other recent studies will be enough to quell the concerns over the cannibalization of the politically powerful people who quashed the bill last year. So far, Governor Mark Gordon has remained silent on the matter.
With a possible $800 million budget deficit and schools that are already chronically underfunded, there is always the possibility that this is the year for iGaming in Wyoming. But there is a good deal of backroom politicking that will need to be done before anybody is convinced that online gambling is a sure bet in the Cowboy state.
