Did Rhode Island voters approve sports betting when they agreed to allow table games at the state’s casinos?
A lawsuit filed this month in state Superior Court says no and seeks to overturn state approval of sports betting, as well as any additional expansion to mobile gaming, unless voters approve it first.
The lawsuit plaintiff is a Providence psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel S. Harrop, who is represented by attorneys Joseph Larisa and Brandon Bell. The latter is the former state Republican Party chairman.
The lawsuit, Larisa explained this week, is about good government.
Harrop doesn’t have strong feelings about gambling, Larisa said. But the state constitution requires that voters approve gambling, said Larisa, the founder of Larisa Law in Providence, and former chief of staff to Gov. Lincoln C. Almond.
“This lawsuit is agnostic,” Larisa said. “It has no opinion on whether sports betting is good or bad. Mr. Harrop wins this lawsuit as long as people get a right to vote in November 2020. That’s the victory.”
The broader concern isn’t just the immediate: the sports betting authorized last year by the General Assembly, which went live at the state’s two casino facilities in November 2018.
Online betting will put sports bets on everyone’s iPhone and computer in Rhode Island, Larisa said. And from there, a virtual casino can be created.
“Where this is all heading is a virtual casino,” he said. “So that you can play any game – roulette, slot machines, cards, poker – right on your computer instead of having to go to the casino. All of these we believe require voter approval.”
State officials have said they had legal authority to add sports betting, which they did in advance of U.S. Supreme Court action to allow it.
Sports books opened in November 2018 at Twin River Casino Hotel in Lincoln, and in December at the Tiverton Casino Hotel.
The reason why the sports betting initially was tied to existing casinos, according to legislators, was language in the successful 2016 ballot that added expanded gaming at the two facilities.
According to Josh Block, a spokesman for Gov. Gina M. Raimondo: “Multiple legal opinions have affirmed that sports betting was already approved by the voters. … We remain confident that it will be upheld in court.”
‘Mr. Harrop wins this lawsuit as long as people get a right to vote in November 2020. That’s the victory.’
Joseph Larisa, Larisa Law founder and attorney
The amount of revenue at stake?
The number has been less than anticipated by the state, which included in the current fiscal year’s budget $23.5 million from sports betting.
The latest projection has the two facilities collecting about $6.5 million after expenses this fiscal year from sports betting at the two locations, according to a forecast by Christiansen Capital Advisors, an analytical group hired by the R.I. Department of Revenue.
The state’s share of that is projected to be $2.6 million in fiscal 2019, which ends in July, climbing to nearly $15 million for online and on-site sports betting in fiscal 2020.
Over the next several years, Christiansen Capital Advisors suggests that sports betting will produce between $27 million and $31 million for the state.
Said Paul Grimaldi, a spokesman for the R.I. Department of Revenue: “We learned that our estimation for sports betting is achievable, though it will take longer for the market to mature.”
According to Larisa, if the court rules sports betting unconstitutional, further collections for the state will end, at least until November 2020, when the state might choose to put it on the ballot.
It wasn’t in the 2012 or 2016 ballot questions, and it wasn’t in the handbooks for voters produced for those elections.
“As a matter of law and logic, Rhode Island voters could not and did not knowingly approve a new type of gambling – sports betting,” the lawsuit states. “It was not on the ballot for good reason – until 2018, state-operated sports betting in Rhode Island, and almost all other states, would have been illegal under federal law.”
Patrick Kelly, an accounting professor at Providence College who has written several papers on gambling, said the lawsuit raises two key issues.
“I think it does raise valid concerns. The first is when the Rhode Island voters voted in terms of expansion of gambling, sports betting was not a possibility because it was illegal under federal law.”
The second, he said, is that sports betting itself could be considered a different kind of gambling, because it involves the performance of players rather than chance. “Arguable, sports betting has a fair amount to do with the performance of the players. That’s an interesting point.”
Mary MacDonald is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Macdonald@PBN.com.