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The bill, H 3067, was first introduced in March of last year.
The bill’s primary sponsor is Delegate Shawn Fluharty.
The legislation is co-sponsored by these delegates:
There is also a bill for a second straight year that would legalize sports betting.
The bill would authorize licensed casinos in the state of West Virginia to offer online gambling.
Online gambling would be regulated by the West Virginia Lottery Commission. The Commission already oversees casino gaming in the state.
Among the baseline regulations, the Commission would:
The legislation authorizes the Lottery Commission to enter into interstate online gambling compacts with other states.
Compared to the online gambling bill passed by Pennsylvania last year, the West Virginia bill has a low barrier for entry for the state’s casinos.
The licensing fee in West Virginia is set at $50,000, and the tax rate is a modest 14 percent of gross gaming revenue across the board.
In Pennsylvania, existing casinos need to cough up $10 million for a comprehensive online gambling license (slots, table games and poker), and are subject to a bifurcated taxation scheme that is set at 54 percent for slots and 16 percent for table games and poker.
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Less than two weeks after the bill was introduced in 2017, it had already been declared dead:
“The speaker does not support the bill,” Jared Hunt, a spokesman for Republican House Speaker Tim Armstead, told GamblingCompliance in an email at the time.
Even though Armstead is still the speaker, there are reasons for optimism this year.