Sen. Bill Coleman (R-Ponca City) and Rep. Ken Luttrell (R-Ponca City) have a discussion prior to Gov. Kevin Stitt’s final State of the State address Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (Legislative Services Bureau)
Whether the Oklahoma Legislature reveals and advances a bill to legalize sports wagering might be the biggest proposition bet left on this session’s ledger.
In recent weeks, Sen. Bill Coleman (R-Ponca City) and Rep. Ken Luttrell (R-Ponca City) — the two legislators who have led complex negotiations on the nuanced topic — have fluctuated between jubilation that a deal appeared done and frustration it may have fallen apart.
“They’re about to wear me out,” Luttrell said April 15 of conversations among stakeholders.
Asked about the situation multiple times the same day as Luttrell, Coleman’s optimism oscillated by the hour.
“We’re still working on it,” Coleman said. “We’ve got plenty of time left to get something across the finish line.”
Two bills on the topic — SB 585 and HB 1047 — have remained alive but in a holding pattern since last session. Stakeholders believe a new version of one or both bills could be revealed as early as today for a potential vote this week.
According to Luttrell, the current proposal would provide the state revenue from an 8 percent exclusivity fee, part of which would go into “a revolving fund to be used to boost tourism, promote the Oklahoma City Thunder” and support the NBA franchise’s “promotional activities worldwide.”
“We thought we had final language ready to present on the Senate side,” Luttrell said. “A couple of smaller issues have come up. Not major issues, just maybe some fine tuning to try to make something that is more acceptable, perhaps to the governor’s office. Little tweaks.”
But not all of the tribes are in agreement on language. At issue, in particular, are the details about where tribes that adopt sports betting programs will be able to accept bets from their customers. According to Luttrell, Coleman and Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association‘s proposal is that each tribe’s jurisdiction for sports betting be constrained to its formal boundaries.
“The Cherokee Nation disagrees with the OIGA’s proposal, so there’s not unanimity among tribes,” Hoskin said April 8. “I don’t even know if there’s unanimity among all the OIGA tribes. I just know that we’re not as supportive of the current measure, so we’ll have to see. Things could change.”
Matthew Morgan, OIGA’s chairman and the Chickasaw Nation’s special envoy for government relations, did not respond to multiple requests for comment prior to the publication of this article.
“It’s not what Coleman and I wanted either,” Luttrell said of the proposal to restrict a tribe’s sports betting footprint to its historic territory. “We wanted border to border, open mobile. The rest of OIGA besides the Cherokees want to roll it out and start it and maybe keep it at traditional tribal boundaries. I just want to get it done — something done.”
Luttrell, a Cherokee Nation citizen in his final year as a legislator owing to term limits, said he believes Oklahomans will want simplicity in any sports betting setup.
“I visited with the tribes — OIGA members — and I told them, I said, I think what you’re going to find is that your customers find this is not what they want and this is not what they expected out of ‘mobile,’” Luttrell said. “If my app is with Osage casinos where I’m at, I feel like I should be able to bet with that app wherever I am in the state. Some of the tribes oppose that. They want it restricted. Maybe, particularly, the Chickasaws don’t want any other tribe’s app to work in Chickasaw territory. But they’re going to find out, as you and I both know, that’s not what the customers want. They’ll be back next year to ask for an amendment to change part of the compact [to make it] statewide if we can get it passed this year.”
Hoskin offered a similar assessment.
“Part of [our concern with the OIGA proposal] is because it delves into issues with former reservation lands, which is something the state really shouldn’t be involved in, and part of it is sort of the geography of the sportsbook footprint,” Hoskin said. “There’s sort of a fractionalization of the apps that are usable, so we’re just not there. I think the Legislature said they don’t want to move forward unless all the tribes are together, so we’ll have to work on that.”
Hoskin said the state of Oklahoma is “not historically the experts in what former reservation land is.”
“It just seems like territory that the state of Oklahoma shouldn’t be delving into,” Hoskin said. “There’s a federal body of case law on what former reservation land is, and that’ll stay with the federal government. It worries us that it would be something of a state construction.”
Hoskin said it’s “a good question” as to why any tribe would want to limit the geographic boundary within which its sports betting app would work.
“It’s not real clear to us what the utility of that is,” Hoskin said.
‘It’s kind of a back and forth deal’
From left: Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert (R-Bristow) and Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton (R-Tuttle) address reporters following Gov. Kevin Stitt’s State of the State address on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (Blake Douglas)
As Luttrell and Coleman keep negotiating language in hopes of bringing something to a vote, House Speaker Kyle Hilbert and Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton are both awaiting updates.
“I have heard that all the tribes involved in gaming — except one — are supportive of the language, and so we take that into consideration,” Hilbert (R-Bristow) said Thursday. “I know Rep. Luttrell has been working on it for eight years now, but I have not seen final language myself yet.”
Paxton offered a similar assessment, saying “as of right now, there’s not a solution.”
“It’s kind of a back and forth deal, and I’m not sure exactly where it’s at right now,” Paxton (R-Tuttle) said Thursday. “There’s not just a side of the state and the tribes, right? There’s also the Thunder involved. We’ve got universities in Oklahoma that want to be involved in this conversation. So Sen. Coleman is working extremely hard trying to find a solution. I’m very proud of the work that he’s done. I don’t know where this ends up. I just know he’s still working.”
Hilbert said he has “heard in the ether that there’s agreement” but that he had not seen “final language.”
“I honestly am not a big fan of gambling, personally,” Hilbert said. “However, it’s a situation with sportsbook where everybody is doing it already, and there’s avenues to do it, and it’s happening on the dark web and foreign markets. And if it’s going to happen, then it should happen in a way that is regulated and in the light. So I’m open to proposals, and I supported Luttrell’s bill last year that we sent to the Senate that I believe they’re looking at now. But ultimately, we’ll look at the package when it comes together. Obviously we want stakeholder support, but ultimately, for anything pass, it’s up to legislators to get on board and vet it.”
Paxton said he discussed the situation with Hoskin on April 8 during “Cherokee Day” at the Capitol.
“His conversation with me was that they had some issues the way it was written,” Paxton said. “It was a very productive conversation. He said his team was still working with Sen. Coleman and everybody else to come up with something that could work for everybody.”
Hilbert, however, said he and Hoskin did not discuss sports betting policy when they met April 8. From a political perspective, Hoskin’s appearance in the House that day drew Hilbert’s ire after the chief delivered a speech from the floor where he pushed back on Republican lawmakers’ proposals to loosen a voter-approved requirement in the Oklahoma Constitution making low-income adults eligible for Medicaid coverage.
Whether that spat — for which Hilbert said Hoskin would not be invited back to speak on the House floor — will affect this session’s sports betting conversation remains to be seen, especially with Gov. Kevin Stitt carrying a veto pen and preferring an approach that would authorize state-licensed operators beyond sovereign tribal nations.
Still, Luttrell and Coleman said the conversations will continue this week as legislative leaders push for an early adjournment that could see lawmakers exit the Capitol by Friday, May 8.
“I don’t know,” Luttrell said with a sigh. “We’ve given it our best shot. We’re closer than we’ve ever been.”
