Vermont Sports Betting Bill Heading to Full Senate for Potential Vote

• The Vermont Senate Finance Committee voted favorably for a House-approved sports betting bill
• The online sports betting bill is now heading to the full Senate
• If approved by the Senate, the bill will go to Gov. Phil Scott (R) for his signature

Vermont is inching closer to legalizing online sports betting after a Senate committee approved an online sports betting bill and will now send the document to the floor.

The Vermont Senate Finance Committee approved H.127, a online sports betting bill that will authorize at a minimum two online sports betting licenses and a maximum of six licenses for the Green Mountain State.

The bill was approved by a voice vote in the House of Representatives in late March. There is no brick-and-mortar sportsbook element in the bill.

Senate Approval Likely

Rep. Matthew Birong’s (D-3) Vermont online sports betting bill was introduced in January about two months after a study committee recommended Vermont legalize sports betting in the 2023 legislative session.

Birong’s sports betting bill is expected to be approved by the Senate and signed into law by Gov. Phil Scott (R). If approved, Vermont would become the second state in the country to only allow online sports betting, the first state being Tennessee.

Each online sports betting license will carry a fee of $550,000 for no less than three years. The bill originally proposed an annual license fee of $275,000 for a license, but was amended earlier this month.

The state’s Department of Liquor and Lottery will regulate sports betting and award licenses. Interested operators will have to go through a “competitive bidding process” to receive a license. Much like New York’s competitive bidding process, operators will have to submit bid packages to the department that include a proposed online sports betting tax rate they would be willing to pay to operate in the state.

Other mandated information in a bid package is an estimate of the applicant’s potential gross sports wagering revenue, the number of individually-branded websites the operator proposes for sports betting operations, a responsible gaming plan, and a plan for maximizing sustainable, long-term revenue for the state through a detailed market analysis.

Collegiate sports betting will be allowed in the bill, unless it includes an event in which a participant is a college team or institution that is located in Vermont.

Study Committee Recommended Vermont Sports Betting

The bill took suggestions from the 2022 Sports Betting Study Committee, a nine-member group, that met in the fall and formally submitted a report urging the legalization of sports betting in the state.

The committee unanimously agreed that Vermont would be “best served by legalizing sports wagering” and should established a state-controlled market. The committee recommended that Vermont adopt a sports betting program similar to New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, where the state would select sports betting operators through a “competitive bidding process.”

The committee did not recommend that Vermont offer its own sports wagering platform through the state lottery, noting that state’s which have adopted such a strategy suffer from “slow implementation, lower customer engagement, and lower revenue generation.”

It was recommended that the Department of Liquor and Lottery control the state’s sports betting program and offer exclusive contracts to sports betting operators, as there is no other regulated gaming in the state. The committee did find that Vermont residents are already engaging in sports betting through unregulated means and a regulated market would offer protections and services to potential problem gamers that are not currently available.