Director, Commonwealth Policy Center

Kentucky doesn't have any professional sports teams but several will be coming to Kentucky in January of 2019. Let me clarify, several lobbyists for sports teams will lobby our legislature in the 2019 session. This follows a Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to states legalizing gambling on professional sports. Kentucky hasn't done so yet, but could take action to allow legalized sports gambling in 2019. The NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and the PGA will send lobbyists to convince legislators that if they do legalize gambling they need to impose an "integrity fee." I know, the words integrity and gambling shouldn't be in the same sentence. But the idea is that a small fee on every bet would be used for policing sports gambling. Which begs the question, if you know that such gambling invites corruption, why legalize it in the first place?