Michigan Could Launch Online Sports Betting and iGaming this December

Casinos in Michigan could debut online sports betting and iGaming services before the end of 2020 after lawmakers in the state voted to waive the remaining 15 session days that they had to evaluate draft licensing regulations. The Wolverine State’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) granted the waiver on a Tuesday (1st December) meeting in Lansing, effectively blessing the new licensing rules, and in so doing, the ball is now on the Michigan Gaming Control Board’s (MGCB) court.

Now that the JCAR – a bipartisan team composed of 10 legislators from both the Senate and the House, has relinquished the 15-day rule review requirement, the legislative portion of the state’s lengthy review process has finally concluded.

Mind you, it’s been an entire year since Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the state’s online gaming bill into law back in December 2019, to legalize, online sports betting, iGaming, online poker, and daily fantasy sports contests all in one swoop. The only thing that had remained to launch online sports betting and iGaming in Michigan was the state’s lengthy rulemaking review process, public comment, and legislative approval which is now in the cards thanks to JCAR’s Tuesday vote.

All Eyes Are Now on MGCB Officials to Get the Ball Rolling

Sports bettors in Michigan officially started placing wagers in person at a land-based casino in the state in March, right in time for March Madness. For mobile sports betting, and other forms of legal online betting such as internet poker, the three commercial casinos in Detroit and the 24 tribe-operated casinos in the state will have to wait for a go-ahead from the MGCB, in form of a license.  

The MGCB on its part was already ready looking forward to the waiving of the 15-day rule requirement so that it would work its magic to pave way for a regulated online sports betting and iGaming market before the end of 2020. Mary Kay Bean, the MGCB’s Communication Specialist gave a correspondence to a local sports media house indicating that; 

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“If JCAR waives the 15-day rule review requirement on Tuesday, the MGCB remains hopeful that online gaming and sports betting can start this year. Launch also depends on when the operators are eligible for licensing and all of their partners (suppliers and vendors) are fully licensed or registered. 

The MGCB also must receive approval letters from an independent test lab that the platform and various games meet all technical requirements… The MGCB expects to get a clearer picture of when launch will occur as more of the required materials are submitted during December.”

The Right Move at the Nick of Time

Had the JCAR not agreed to the waiver, it would have taken much longer for online betting and gaming to become a reality. The JCAR lawmakers received the rules sometime in early October and owing to the intermittent session calendar of the legislature, the 15 session days for completion of the review process would have ended halfway through December. If you factor in cancellations that may have occurred due to factors such as weather, the Coronavirus pandemic, or any other issues, the timeline would have been pushed back even more.

Taking all that into consideration, follow up legislative sessions for review would have started in January. But then, because we are from the November elections, officials would have had to re-submit the draft rules to a newly elected lot of lawmakers and thus a newly formed JCAR, which would then start the 15-session period again.

With the JCAR review and approval behind us, Michigan is set to be a sports betting powerhouse with 15 online licenses to be awarded to operators. It won’t be such a difficult process to roll out regulated remote gaming in the state given that industry heavyweights such as DraftKings, FanDuel, PointsBet, BetMGM, Caesars/WilliamHill, and Penn National/Barstool either have a retail sportsbook operating the state or have already announced their plans to enter the market.

No doubt, online sports betting will offer Detroit’s commercial casinos a lifeline as they have been dealt blows with the COVID-19 closures that have rocked land-based gaming facilities globally. The casinos are expected to enjoy a boost from online betting revenue from the NBA and NFL, among other popular games in the state.