Wisconsin lawmakers put the prospect of legalizing online sports betting on hold on Wednesday, abandoning a planned Assembly floor vote on a bill that is opposed by major sportsbooks.
AB 601 proposes a hub-and-spoke model that would allow statewide digital sports betting via servers located on tribal lands. After being introduced in October, it was unanimously approved 10-0 by the Committee on State Affairs last week and had been set for a full vote in the chamber on Nov. 19.
However, Assembly Majority Leader Rep. Tyler August told local media that they have pumped the brakes, partly due to concerns raised by members.
“There’s really no rush on this,” said August. “The Senate’s not coming back this week. I had a conversation with a couple of members over the weekend that brought up some points that I hadn’t considered yet. So we’re going to work through those and I expect that we’ll be voting on it early next year.” August told reporters he expects the bill ultimately will pass the Assembly.
Sports Betting Alliance said no thanks
AB 601 would establish online sports betting in Wisconsin under tribal control via a model similar to the Seminole Tribe’s operations in Florida. Proponents of the bill include the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Forest County Potawatomi and in-state major league sports teams. Both AB 601 and its Senate counterpart SB 592 passed committees in their respective chambers this month.
However, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Revenue, the Sports Betting Alliance opposed the proposal. Representative Damon Stewart said that the SBA’s member sportsbooks are open to tethering to state tribes, but that the likes of FanDuel and DraftKings could not do business in a market in which they had to pay the majority of their betting revenue to tribal partners.
The SBA argued that a restrictive model would prevent Wisconsin bettors from being able to use market-leading sportsbooks and thus would do little to raise revenue for the state or curb the black market.
Potawatomi Hotel & Casino CEO Dominic Ortiz criticized that stance on the ‘The New Normal’ webinar with Indian Gaming Association leaders on Wednesday. “From our perspective, they want to have ownership of Wisconsin, and that’s not what a partnership is. It’s about working with the tribes under IGRA.”
August worried by prediction markets
In the lead-up to the vote being postponed, August posited that Wisconsin needs to legalize online sports betting not only to raise revenues and protect players and the tribes, but also to stave off the threat of prediction markets.
The likes of Kalshi and Crypto.com offer sports event contracts across the U.S. and leading SBA members FanDuel and DraftKings are gearing up to launch sports prediction markets in states that do not offer online sports betting.
“If we leave a grey area in state law, national prediction platforms will fill it without our compact framework, Wisconsin oversight or Wisconsin consumer safeguards,” wrote August in testimony. “While we debate a narrow clarification that keeps wagering inside Wisconsin’s compact system, large national platforms are racing to roll out ‘prediction market’ apps that let users trade real-money contracts on sports, politics, and economic data.”
Wisconsin governor not opposed
When the bill does come back around in 2026, Republican Rep. August is confident of having at least 50 GOP votes. Some key Democrats could also support it. Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer said on Wednesday that she planned to vote in favor of the bill, and Gov. Tony Evers suggested last week that he would be open to signing it if it reached his desk.
“If it’s what I’m thinking it is, yes,” Evers told local media. “That’s the ultimate goal, the tribal nations of the state are the ones that deal with gambling. I want to take a look at it. For me, the most important thing is that the native nations of the states are the ones in charge.”
If the bill were to be passed and signed next year, Wisconsin’s tribes would need to renegotiate their state tribal gaming compacts under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and get federal approval on the new agreements.
