Oregon Senate President Proposes Legal Mobile Betting on College Sports

Dave Schwab Sports Betting Expert

3 minute read

Heading into the month of March, college basketball becomes a major focal for sports bettors. The postseason begins early in the month with more than 30 individual conference tournaments. This will set the stage (and the field) for the annual NCAA Tournament.

Properly coined “March Madness” for the sheer volume of games, the NCAA Tournament has grown into one of the biggest sports betting events of the year.

Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney is well aware of the impact the current state ban on college sports mobile betting has. He is also working on an effort to make this the last March with this ban in effect.

Senate Bill 1503 would give the Oregon Lottery permission to take bets on college sports. The bill that Senator Courtney recently proposed would be accompanied by two amendments.

The first would prohibit “prop” bets on individual athletes’ performances. The second would create funding for college grants from the state’s revenue split.

Interestingly enough, current Oregon state law does not contain any specific language barring bets on college sports within state boundaries.

Sports bettors in Oregon can bet on college sports at tribal casinos with retail sportsbooks. Senator Courtney’s bill would not have any impact on the current situation. The bill would simply add mobile betting on college sports to the mix.

This change would be welcomed by DraftKings Sportsbook as the only operator in the state. The Boston-based sportsbook has an exclusive deal in place with the Oregon Lottery as the sole mobile platform provider. This mirrors the company’s exclusive arrangement in the state of New Hampshire.

The primary opposition to the change is coming from the tribal casinos with sports betting operations. Justin Martin is a representative of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. He voiced concern over SB 1503 at a recent hearing. He commented that:

“We need to take a pause and study this and look at the right way to do things in Oregon moving forward.”

Further criticism could come from the in-state universities themselves. In a few other states that allow legal mobile betting on college sports, this has been the case. Currently, there is no opposition from this end with the system in place. However, efforts to expand access may change this stance.

Oregon University and Oregon State are two of the more prominent college athletic programs in the state. Both schools are members of the Pac-12 Conference, which is considered a major conference for both football and basketball.

As SB 1503 proceeds through the legal process, the level of opposition could continue to rise. However, with the backing of Senate President Courtney as its strongest proponent, the odds favor passage somewhere down the road.

Written by Dave Schwab, our US Sports Betting Industry Expert.

The featured image for this post was sourced on Wikipedia and can be found here.

Dave Schwab

Dave Schwab has been covering the sports betting industry for the past 12 years as the main focus of his specialty marketing company for online content. This endeavor followed a previous career in the field of sales and marketing in the wholesaling sector.Most of his weekly pieces focus on the rapidly expanding legal US sports betting industry. However, he still does extensive work covering betting angles that can provide a competitive edge to avid players. Dave believes that it is always a challenge to take past results and current form to try and correctly determine a future result. Sports brings out the unpredictability in what should be a fairly predictable outcome based on the stats, facts and recent trends in a particular matchup. More from Dave Schwab