New bill aims to legalise sports betting in Tennessee

The Act would allow local governments to decide if they’re interested in sports betting.

US.- State Representative Rick Staples has unveiled the “Tennessee Sports Gaming Act”, which is aimed to allow local governments to decide whether they’re interested or not in allowing sports betting in the state. The legislature’s session starts on January 8.

Staples said that the bill intends to allow the state to have a new source of income, and explained that billions of dollars leave Tennesse to neighboring states with casino and table gaming. “So, this is a new stream of revenue that the federal government is allowing the states to take advantage of,” he explained.

The Act establishes that companies in charge of running sports betting would need to be located in Tennessee, but could place kiosks across the state to collect bets. “It would cause an extra boom in a city like that that would have three professional teams and a lot of the local bars or restaurants,” said Staples. “As long as they’re not serving alcohol in the same area that the neighbouring is, they can generate a lot of income and even more tax dollars,” Staples said.