We’re less than a month away from the start of the 2022 NFL regular season and much is still to be decided about the rollout of Kansas sports gambling.
Movement was made Wednesday, when the Kansas Lottery’s five commissioners unanimously approved a draft set of rules for wagering, though much work remains to get to the point where Kansans can legally bet.
One of those steps is for the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission to approve 110-plus pages worth of wagering regulations during their meeting Friday.
The regulations range in scope, from what exactly constitutes a legal wager to how the state plans on enforcing its geofencing strategies.
Above all, the plan for Friday’s KRGC meeting is to keep the ball moving on getting the state’s draft regulations and rules in place, so regulators can finish their background checks and other procedural steps and sports betting can launch in a timely fashion this fall.
When it happens, BetKansas.com will be the place to be for Kansas sportsbook promos.
During its monthly meeting Wednesday, Kansas Lottery Executive Director Stephen Durrell reiterated the state’s rollout date is not set in stone.
“We hope to have this all done sooner rather than later,” Durrell said. “… Hopefully we’re clicking right along, but giving specific dates is something we can’t do, as much as we’d like to.”
What to Know About the Draft Regulations
Of the more than 110 pages of draft sports betting regulations, which are included in the agenda for Friday’s KRGC meeting, much is minutiae on subjects like surveillance camera requirements and other elements your average Kansas betting apps user won’t notice.
A few items stand out, however, including draft regulation 112-203-6, which is the state’s geofence requirement.
The regulation states that all wagers placed on a mobile app from outside the state’s boundaries should be blocked, preventing illegal betting activity from neighboring states.
Geofencing is a standard part of legal sports betting regulations in the United States. In the case of Kansas, those rules may provide a competitive advantage to places like Hollywood Casino and its Barstool Sportsbook Kansas, which are just across the border from Missouri. Missouri failed to pass sports betting during its 2022 state legislative session.
“In order to prevent unauthorized use of the internet or a mobile device to place a sports wager when a patron is not within the state of Kansas, the lottery gaming facility manager or its interactive sports wagering platform provider shall utilize a geofence system to reasonably detect the physical location of a patron attempting to access the interactive sports wagering platform and place a wager, and to monitor and block unauthorized attempts to place a wager when a patron is not within the State of Kansas.”
As part of that regulation, all approved Kansas sports betting operators must have a KRGC-approved testing laboratory sign off on the company’s geofencing system, evaluating everything from how they monitor a user’s IP address to triangulating cell towers, Wi-Fi, and GPS data to ensure users aren’t placing wagers from outside the state’s boundaries.
Another tidbit from the Kansas draft regulations that stands out is the state’s revenue reporting standards, which are quite complex compared to other states that have instituted retail and mobile sports betting, such as Arizona.
In the state’s regulations on revenue reporting (section 112-205-2), all approved operators are expected to be able to provide revenue reports by wagering day, wagering month, and wagering year, meaning the state will likely be able to provide timely and accurate month-end updates once the market goes live.
“Reports generated from the interactive sports wagering platform shall be made available as determined by the commission. The interactive sports wagering platform shall be capable of issuing reports by wagering day, wagering month, and wagering year. Wagering data shall not be purged unless approved by the commission. The interactive sports wagering platform shall provide for a mechanism to export the data for the purposes of data analysis and auditing or verification.”
Providing timely updates on revenues — New York state, for example, releases weekly reports — will be a great way for the market to shine on a national stage.
And it shows how committed the state’s regulators are to establishing a top-class sports betting marketplace.
