Wyoming Legislature Creates Select Gambling Committee

After an active yet ultimately unsuccessful legislative session when it came to gambling-related bills, Wyoming legislators have created a select committee on the subject for the upcoming year.

The committee will be co-chaired by Sen. John Kolb, Rep. Andrew Byron, and Rep. Jayme Lien and will have three members from each chamber. Previously, the Joint Appropriations Committee and the Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife, and Cultural Resources Committee were tasked with gambling-related issues.

“The issue is, there’s no home committee for gaming,” Kolb told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. “It’s been kind of the unwanted child, getting passed from committee to committee.”

Lawmakers introduced five gambling bills overall this session, most notably one to legalize internet casino gaming that failed to make it out of committee in the lower chamber. Another bill that would have expanded mobile sports betting to tribal entities was also voted down in the Senate.

Online casino revenue estimates

Spectrum Gaming, at the request of the Joint Appropriations Committee, conducted an analysis of Wyoming’s existing gaming ecosphere last November and also provided estimates on how much revenue iGaming could bring the state.

It estimated Wyoming operators could have generated between $93.4 million and $138.4 million in gross revenue in 2024 had it been legal similar to the seven states currently conducting internet casino gaming. Based on a 20% tax rate — which would have put the Cowboy State near the midpoint for state tax rates — Spectrum estimated the state would have received between $141 million and $177 million from 2025-29 based on revenue estimates ranging from $704 million to $877 million.

Wyoming does not have commercial casinos, which eliminates the worry about cannibalization of retail casino revenue, but Spectrum pointed out iGaming had the potential to slow the growth of revenue from both tribal-based casino revenue and historical horse racing (HHR).

Gambling verticals in place

Wyoming has both mobile sports betting and HHR, having launched the former in September 2021 and the latter in 2013. It currently has five sportsbooks — Fanatics was the most recent to launch last May — and it has generated $3.8 million in state taxes overall.

Operators are allowed to deduct promotional spend against their gross revenue and have claimed more than $25 million in such deductions all-time. Handle in the first quarter of 2025 was up 17.9% to $63 million, but improved bettor performance plus promotional deductions contributed to an 11.5% decline in adjusted gross revenue compared to the first three months of 2024. That led to a small decline in tax revenue for the first quarter.

HHR, however, is a much bigger entity and its $218.4 million handle for March was more than 10 times the $20.9 million in accepted wagers from online sportsbooks. According to a January 2023 report, HHR generated close to $133 million in revenue split between the state, the Breeders’ Award Fund, and Wyoming’s cities and counties.