Amendments to the gaming compact between the state of Kansas and the Iowa Tribe will allow sports betting on the Iowa’s tribal land pending approval from the governor and the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Tribal Sports Betting
An amendment in the House and a similar one in the Senate allow a change in the compact between the state and the native Iowa Tribe to allow the tribal nation to begin taking bets on sporting events at its Casino White Cloud in Brown County. Governor Laura Kelly will need to endorse the changes to the compact before it advances to the Department of the Interior for final approval.
This is the second tribal nation in Kansas to get its compact changed, as the Prairie Band Casino & Resort in Mayetta went through the process and began accepting sports bets earlier this year. Zeke Rupnick, the Chairperson of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, emphasized that the cooperation with Governor Kelly and state legislators was critical to allowing his tribe to pursue another gaming revenue stream.
“I think when the state first went with sports betting tribes weren’t really considered in that and then we had to go back and amend the law to allow us to amend our compact with the state,” Rupnick said.
Attorney Russ Brien, a member of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, commented that the amendments to the Iowa compact were virtually identical to those of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation’s compact.
“This is substantively, other than changing the names and dates, identical to the compact this committee approved last year for Prairie Band,” said Brien.
DraftKings Wins March
Mobile sports betting in Kansas launched on September 1, 2022 with BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings, FanDuel, Penn and PointsBet as the six original sportsbooks to immediately enter the market.
Since that time, Penn has dissolved its Barstool Sportsbook in favor of ESPN BET which launched on November 14, 2023 in Kansas while the U.S. assets of PointsBet were purchased by Fanatics Betting & Gaming and subsequently rebranded to Fanatics on March 28, 2024.
Market Leaders
After 19 months of sports betting in the Sunflower State, DraftKings is leading the way, at least according to March 2024’s results. DraftKings, in conjunction with its Kansas partner Boot Hill Casino & Resort in Dodge City, generated a handle of $98.3 million in wagers which produced monthly revenue of $4.7 million.
FanDuel and its sports betting partner, the Kansas Star Casino, trailed DraftKings for the second consecutive month handling $70.2 million in sports bets which generated $2.7 million in revenue.
Caesars and its partner, Kansas Crossing, was the only other online sportsbook in March to make a profit as it took in $11.9 million in sports bets and totaled $257,071 in revenue.
However, BetMGM and ESPN BET both had higher handles than Caesars with $42.7 million and $17.9 million, respectively, but neither generated a profit in March. Fanatics was the least popular of the six online sportsbooks with a handle of only $1.3 million.
