Arizona Tribes Looking to Renew Their Licenses

By Matt Speakman,
Betting Expert at online-gambling.com

Matt Speakman Betting Expert at online-gambling.com

A die-hard fan of the Patriots, Matt Speakman is an expert on everything related to sports betting and DFS sites. Over the years, he has proven a valuable asset for our team at online-gambling.com. You can find Speakman's professional tips and tricks in any of his many articles on the website.

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Last updated: February 21, 2022

Arizona might increase the number of mobile-optimized bookmakers to 32. This might happen after state legislator Sally Ann Gonzalez’ proposal permit any of the 22 tribes determined by the state to get an online sports gambling license. The Democrat, a leading member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe, is said to have submitted Bill 1674 to the Senate. However, whether the measure will be approved by the committee is yet to be seen.

Last year in April, the state reportedly approved legislation allowing ten tribes to get licenses to conduct online and retail sports gambling by adding physical games such as craps and baccarat to their poker offerings. Operations previously began on September 9 which became the most active opening month in the history of the nascent US betting industry with net sales of about 31.6 M dollars.

More About the Licenses

However, six tribal candidates including Yavapai Apache Nation, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, and White Mountain Apache Tribe, will not be able to get an online sports gambling license in Arizona despite already having operating agreements with Points Betting, BlueBet and MaximBet. This led to a number of lawsuits, but they weren’t successful.

In addition to this, the law will also automatically grant licenses to Arizona’s six professional sports teams as well as to events organized by PGA and NASCAR. Moreover, two more licenses will soon be issued to smaller public sports companies, for example, the Tucson Sugar Skulls team.

“I’m trying again because the tribes had to compete for the ten licenses and not the major leaguers. I had it as an amendment last year and it failed. It’s just so one-sided. My tribe didn’t get a license, so it’s out of a license and, evidently, according to what I hear, not ever going to get a license,” – said Gonzales.

Another source said the Gonzalez law also proposes to allow the 22 Arizona-recognised tribes to open unqualified retail sports gambling businesses if those businesses are located in 5 boroughs, a professional sports arena, or a stadium. However, many experts noted that these actions break the principles of the Indian Gambling Regulation Act and can be questioned by land-based operators, for example, FanDuel, a sports betting operator in collaboration with the Phoenix Suns, an NBA Franchise.

More About Sports Betting in Arizona

Arizona’s gambling market is one of the largest on the West Coast, which is great news after sports betting was legalized in April 2021. New tribal games will most likely establish new sports betting associations and online sports betting operators in the region. In addition, professional sports teams can now cooperate with various bookmakers. Legal sports betting is not the only great victory for Arizona gamblers as the state also legalized daily fantasy sports. It is a big move because Arizona was among the last states not to allow DFS.

For those who are not familiar with this, the US Supreme Court removed the federal ban on sports betting in 2018 and with that gave states the possibility to choose whether they would like to legalize sports betting within their borders or not.