On Wednesday, March 27, West Virginia officially became the fifth state in the US to legalize online gambling and online poker. House Bill 2934, better known as the West Virginia Lottery Interactive Wagering Act automatically became law when Jim Justice, the state’s governor, failed to act on it by the time the 15-day deadline that he was given came to an end. This was not the first time that the governor did something similar – in 2018 he also chose not to sign a bill that proposed the legalization of sports betting and by so doing the measure automatically became law15 days after it was forwarded to his desk. The 15-day period did not include Sundays.
The Details
At its core, the West Virginia interactive gaming bill does not include anything that is out of the ordinary especially when compares to similar bills from other states. To begin with, the bill allows anyone who is 21 and older to place online bets and play online poker within the state’s borders.
Among the companies that are going to benefit in a major way from the newly legalized online gambling and online poker industries will be the state’s five brick and mortar casinos, who will now be allowed to apply for interactive gaming licenses. Should they opt to do so, The Greenbrier, the Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, the Mountaineer Casino and Racetrack, the Mardi Gras Casino and Resort, and the Wheeling Island Hotel will need to pay a $250,000 licensing fee which will be renewed every five years for $100,000. Platform and service providers that will facilitate the gaming operations will have to pay a $100,000 licensing fee. Moreover, the tax rate on the revenue that the casinos will get from online gambling has been set at 15 percent which is quite reasonable especially when compared to the rather exorbitant tax rates imposed by the gaming laws in other states.
West Virginia expects to make between $4 million and $6 million in annual revenue from online gambling and online poker – compared to states like New Jersey where the revenue from online gaming is as high as $38 million, this may seem to be very small. However, it is quite justifiable because West Virginia has a population of less than 2 million and this can certainly not match up with the close to 9 million people that live in New Jersey.
What Next?
The West Virginia Lottery, the organization which oversees all the gaming activities in the state will have until June 2020 to finalize on various gaming regulations and operational frameworks and perhaps that is when the interactive gaming industry will finally go live. Meanwhile, it is important to note that any hopes for liquidity sharing – which would be great for West Virginia due to its rather low population – has been shelved in a number of states, for now, thanks to the reversal of the 1961 Wire Act opinion back in January. Hopefully, things will change but do not hold your breath.
