West Virginia joins the queue for legal sports betting

West Virginia has joined the queue of US states looking to add sports betting to their list of legal gaming options.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of 11 state Delegates filed HB 2751, which would authorize the State Lottery Commission to draft rules for legal “sports pool betting” in West Virginia. The state is the sixth to file a sports betting bill in 2017, joining Maryland, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

HB 2751 takes dead aim at the federal PASPA sports betting prohibition, which Congress “unlawfully enacted” in 1992. The bill accuses PASPA of violating the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution and says West Virginia’s attorney general is “challenging the usurpation of the federal government of state authority to regulate sports pool betting.”

West Virginia may be late to the legislative party but the state has filed legal briefs supporting New Jersey’s quest to overturn PASPA. New Jersey is currently awaiting word on whether the US Supreme Court will hear its appeal of lower court rulings preventing the state from implementing its latest sports betting plan, and until New Jersey prevails or PASPA is repealed, none of these state bills are going anywhere.