Oklahoma Governor’s abrupt sweepstake veto overridden as prohibition date set

The Oklahoma legislature has achieved a sweepstakes ban at the second time of asking after overriding the 7 May veto of Governor Kevin Stitt.

Both the Senate and the House in the Sooner State had passed Senate Bill 1589, which targeted sweepstakes operators and suppliers. However, the bill was one of 33 bills vetoed by Stitt earlier this month.

The move was a touch perplexing given Stitt’s vocal opposition to the gambling industry, but he justified the decision by saying that the bill will criminalise ‘the everyday apps people use for fun’ and ‘unnecessarily creates a new felony and extends criminal liability to businesses and service providers’.

Despite this setback, hope remained for the bill as lawmakers had until 29 May to override the veto.

The decision to do so turned out to come much sooner, however, as the House voted 68-19 in favour of overriding the veto on 14 May, with the Senate also voting 34-10 in favour on the same day.

The bill will now be implemented on 1 November, and it treats promotion of unregulated gambling, such as sweepstakes casinos, as a Class C2 felony. Those found guilty of violating the law could be fined between $500 and $2,000 and face a jail sentence of up to 30 days.

Oklahoma adds to the list of states seeking to take legislative action against Sweepstakes casinos.

From 1 November, Oklahoma will join California, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Montana, New Jersey and New York in explicitly banning sweepstake casinos and dual-currency platforms.

Sweepstakes casino operators largely offer play through dual-currency systems, and opponents of the vertical argue that the platforms act as de facto online casinos and should therefore be beholden to the same state laws as the rest of the gaming industry.

Just eight US states have legalised online casino so far, with Maine being the last to do so in January.