Oklahoma Legalizes Roulette and Craps

Last week, the state of Oklahoma made roulette games and craps legal with their tribal casinos upon g House Bill 3375, signed and sealed by Governor Mary Fallin. The provision that should have made sports betting legal too was omitted, however.

That particular provision was already axed by bill’s sponsor, Kevin Wallace, in March. Making it would effectively allow casinos in Oklahoma to integrate a sportsbook into their offers. It is still not known what the reason behind halting the sports-betting provision is, but it is assumed that influential tribal operators are behind it.

In Oklahoma, about 60 casinos that exist in its territory are all run by 32 different tribes. Since sports-betting is a low-margin business and the only real purpose of legalizing it would be to attract more players to casinos in the hope that they would also play and wager on other games. This may be why the tribes have opted against legalization this time. Also, the bill appeared to certain tribes as “being rushed” and they did not want to endanger the enactment of the roulette and craps bill (that legalizes all dice and ball games) by overly committing to sports gambling.

Roulette and craps have been illegal in Oklahoma since 2004. The type of variants we are talking about here is the kind that puts gamblers’ winnings and losses in the players’ pool.