Oregon-SBTech Contract Stirs Provider Conflicts

• Oregon prepares to launch sports betting through the state lottery.
• SBTech has been chosen as the sports betting provider.
• No additional legislation is needed to launch sports betting.

SALEM, Ore. – Now that the Oregon Lottery has partnered up with SBTech, the state is preparing to launch full-scale sports betting by football season.

There is a bit of work that needs to be done before sportsbooks can open up in Oregon. The Oregon Lottery must first develop some rules and regulations in relation to sports betting. It is not exactly known how much time will be needed to develop these rules. Once they are done, then the lottery must make the rules available for the public to view. Only then can they begin implementation of the rules.

Choosing SBTech Leaves Other Providers Upset

The Oregon lottery can now begin this process because they have chosen their sports betting provider. They have chosen SBTech to supply sports betting to the state due to their “turn-key sports betting platform” which is used for both retail sportsbooks and online sportsbooks.

Not everyone is happy with SBTech being the one to provide sports betting to Oregon. Scientific Games and Playtech were the other two companies bidding to be the provider. Ultimately, SBTech was chosen. This caused Scientific Games to submit a protest letter about the lottery’s decision.

In the letter, Scientific Games protests that SBTech is not a responsible company and they lack the experience to offer sports betting to Oregon. Scientific Games notes that their affiliation with 10Bet shows how irresponsible SBTech really is.

They claim that these two companies are offering illegal sports betting to areas that have not legalized sports betting and that makes them an irresponsible choice for Oregon. The state lottery responded by saying they are going to carefully conduct a background on SBTech to see if they are really fit to provide sports betting to Oregon.

No New Legislation Needed

Despite the delay in opening sportsbooks in Oregon, there are actually no additional legislative steps needed to launch sports betting. That is because Oregon was one of the four states that were grandfathered into the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). This means that Oregon already had legal sports betting laws before PASPA was enacted.

What Oregon could offer at the time was limited though. They were not allowed to further expand sports betting and they were not allowed to implement new rules. Now that PASPA has been overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States, they are allowed to expand and implement their sports betting laws.

All that needs to happen now is for the state lottery to go through the process of implementing the new regulations of Oregon sports betting. Once that is done, sportsbooks will be able to launch. The lottery is hoping that the online mobile platform and sports betting kiosks will become available by football season this year.

News tags: Oregon | Oregon Lottery | Oregon sports betting | SBTech