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SportsTranscript
00:00All right. One story we can put to bed here is it looks like Oklahoma not going to be joining the sports betting market.
00:05And for those of you who didn't watch the shows all week long, what we do is we cover each state, usually day by day, to see if there's any updates.
00:12Earlier in the week, we told you that the promising news is coming out of Hawaii.
00:16On the flip side, we end the week with some not promising news coming from Oklahoma, Sam.
00:22Yeah, hopes for sports betting Oklahoma are really fading fast with just a few weeks left in the current legislative session.
00:28Even the longtime supporters of sports betting legalization are kind of admitting that the clock has run out.
00:35Representative Ken Luttrell, who's been the champion of getting sports betting passed, especially in the House these past few years,
00:42he told local media this week that the odds really are not great.
00:45He has two House bills, which have stalled, and a separate bill in the Senate, which has stalled as well,
00:51would give control to the Oklahoma City Thunder, who would then have to work with tribes.
00:55But the roadblock here seems to be the governor, Kevin Stitt.
00:59He's made it very clear that he's not in support of any of the current proposals.
01:04He and the state's tribal nations really do not get along.
01:07They have a terrible working relationship.
01:09And what these bills would basically mean is if they pass, then he would have to negotiate some sort of compact with the state's tribes to allow sports betting in some form,
01:17under some framework, and because they really don't like him and he can't seem to get a good footing with them,
01:23it seems like it's really going to go nowhere.
01:25So these two bills that are still alive could move forward, but they would probably face his veto.
01:31And even a separate bill that wouldn't face his veto would take it to a public vote, but he would still be in charge of that public vote timing.
01:37So he pretty much has all the power in this case.
01:40And unless something drastically changes, which I don't see happening anytime soon with the tribes and Stitt,
01:45it's going to be a long time before Oklahoma really makes any progress on this issue,
01:48which is unfortunate because it seems like the state Senate is behind it.
01:52The people in the state are behind it.
01:53The tribes are very open to working with a proposal,
01:56but just their relationship with the governor seems to be irreparable at this point.
02:00So thank you.