Mobile Arkansas Betting
Listen up, Arkansas sports bettors! Mobile sports betting might be well on its way to the state of Arkansas. This is great news for sports fans who live in that state, since betting options and locations are currently extremely limited.
Rule Change
According to Gambling.com, the Arkansas Racing Commission, which regulates sports betting and gambling in the state of Arkansas, will consider a rule change next week that will allow mobile sports betting. Which is betting on phones or computers, anywhere in the state. Depending on the way this commission meeting goes, officials estimate that mobile sports betting could be available as early as February 2022.
As of right now, in Arkansas, legal sports betting and gambling is very limited. Bettors can only place a bet in three casinos in the entire state: Saracen Casino Resort, Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort, and Southland Casino, which are located in Pine Bluff, Hot Springs, and Memphis respectively.
The rule that the Arkansas Racing Commission would consider changing would allow these three casinos to partner with a big, national brand name sports-betting operator, like DraftKings, Caesars, BetMGM, Barstool, or FanDuel, in order to provide online and mobile sports betting via an app.
Betting Apps
If they do not partner with these big sportsbooks, these three Arkansas-based casinos could also be given the option to take initiative to create their own mobile sports betting apps, specifically for mobile betting.
This rule change will most likely be proposed very soon, in the Arkansas Racing Commission’s upcoming November 18 meeting. It seems like this process could be moved along pretty speedily, as it’s already on the agenda for this meeting and officials say that mobile sports betting could be available for public use as early as this upcoming February.
Before the mobile betting industry could launch in the state of Arkansas, the rule change would first and foremost have to be published online for a period of 30 days. In addition to that, it would also have to go through a public hearing process. If everything goes smoothly with that, the rule change would then require approval from the joint legislative Rules Committee and then a sign-off from Governor Asa Hutchinson.
Government Support
Governor Hutchinson has publicly announced his support for mobile sports betting, as long as the Arkansas Racing Commission implements a plethora of different safeguards to make the mobile betting process as safe, effective, and legally sound as humanly possible.
As long as this rule change is approved, mobile sports betting will officially launch and become operational once the sportsbooks that the casinos have partnered with are completely licensed and vetted.
It seems like sports betting and gambling officials are fully confident that mobile sports betting will launch in Arkansas soon, and it also seems like they are fully expecting that the rule change gets approved quickly by the Arkansas Racing Commission next week. If they are right, then mobile sports betting could launch as early as February of 2022.
This is great news for Arkansas sports bettors, as their betting options are extremely limited right now. Mobile sports betting would allow more sports bettors to place their bets whenever they want.
