Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins is defending his decision to reject sports betting emergency rules, saying that there wasn’t an urgent need and that he didn’t want to short-circuit public input.
During a St. Louis on the Air interview, Hoskins elaborated on why he declined to approve the emergency rules last week. He pointed to a state statute that requires an agency to prove “an immediate danger to the public health, safety or welfare.”
“Making it legal to bet sooner, such as this summer versus this fall, does not constitute an emergency as far as Missouri state law is concerned,” he said.
Hoskins said that based on the normal timeline to approve rules, the Missouri Gaming Commission should be able to get sports betting running by the fall. When asked how he would respond to people who may be disappointed by the delay, Hoskins replied: “I take my job as secretary of state very seriously, and I'm following Missouri state law as far as deciding whether or not an emergency rule should be approved or rejected.”
He also said he received correspondence from several people who wanted to participate in the public input process before the sports betting rules were approved.
“So if I would have said: ‘Yes, this is an emergency,’ there would be no public comment period,” Hoskins said. “And I've had a lot of folks reach out to me because they want to publicly comment.”
The constitutional amendment that legalized sports betting passed by a few thousands votes. Some critics of the measure questioned proponents’ claims that it would raise tens of millions of dollars for education.
“There's a lot of people who want to have the opportunity to comment on the rules and see if they weren't sold a bad bill of goods — as far as what they were told legalizing sports book was going to do for education and actually if money that's going to be sent to education,” Hoskins said.
Hoskins’ history with gambling policy
Before he was elected as secretary of state, Hoskins spent years in the Missouri Senate questioning the wisdom of legalizing sports betting without also legalizing video gaming machines such as those found in gas stations and fraternal organizations.
Hoskins said legalizing and taxing the devices, widely known as video lottery terminals, would bring in much more money to the state than sports betting. But a wide range of critics, including the state’s casinos, were adamantly opposed to legalizing the gaming devices — which prompted sports betting apps like FanDuel and DraftKings to help fund last year’s successful ballot initiative.
Still, Hoskins said there’s no linkage between his advocacy to legalize video lottery terminals and his rejection of the sports betting emergency rules. He also said he doesn’t have much power to make wholesale changes to the rules that could further delay sports betting.
He added that had he approved the emergency rules, it’s possible someone could have filed a lawsuit challenging his decision.
“So actually, I'm not only following state law, but I'm protecting the taxpayers from and the Missouri gaming commission from possibly being sued if I would have approved the emergency rules when, according to the state law definition of an emergency rule, it wasn't actually an emergency,” Hoskins said.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Jada Jones is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
