The Wyoming legislature’s Management Council has established a dedicated committee to study the state’s options for gambling expansion. That should provide some consolation for those who hope to see online casinos come to the state, after this year’s iGaming bill stumbled out of the gates.
Sen. John Kolb, who co-chairs the Select Committee on Gaming alongside Rep. Jayme Lien, said that gambling issues, like the legalization of online casinos, have had no legislative home until now.
The issue is, there’s no home committee for gaming. It’s been kind of the unwanted child, getting passed from committee to committee.
Six-member ‘select’ committee dedicated to gambling
In 2024, Wyoming’s Joint Appropriations Committee (JAC) first attempted to study gambling in the state by creating a special working group. The effort resulted in five committee-sponsored gambling bills for the 2025 session, including one that would legalize online casinos.
Unfortunately, most stalled within weeks, and none passed before the session ended on March 6.
The legislation that made it farthest was House Bill 85, “Local approval for simulcasting.”
The bill would have handed local governments the authority to approve or deny simulcast permits, a power currently held by the county. But while it made it through the House, the proposal died on the desk of the Senate president.
This year, the Management Council created the new six-member select committee dedicated to Wyoming’s gambling issues instead. However, no committee meetings are on the select group’s calendar yet.
Kolb told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle he wants to focus on local governmental licensing control and equitably unifying gambling revenue.
Said Kolb:
There’s a lot of issues with how the formulations have been constructed over the years, for lack of a better word, how this activity’s been taxed. It’s certainly not uniform across the board, with different types of gaming activities.
Elaborating, he said gambling revenue is “complex” and “not some one-size-fits-all situation.
Wyoming gambling a ‘Wild West’
Previously, the Joint Committee on Travel, Recreation, Wildlife & Cultural Resources listed gambling and lottery issues as one of its priorities for the interim.
Both chairmen told the WTE that the joint committee would likely focus on lottery issues in the interim but would hand over gambling to the new committee. Co-chair Sen. Bill Landen said it would review lottery modernization and consider retail safety and security.
Landen’s co-chair, Rep. Andrew Byron, added that he appreciated the new select committee focused on the heavy lift gambling requires, particularly considering leadership reduced committee meeting days from six to four this session.
During the recent session, Byron hosted an early morning educational meeting for lawmakers to learn more about the gambling industry. He said the meeting, led by Wyoming Gaming Commission Executive Director Nick Larramendy, cemented the need for a dedicated gambling-focused committee.
Said Byron:
If anything, it made me realize that … it needs its own standing committee. It’s become such a huge industry… It’s the Wild West right now as it relates to what’s happening in Wyoming.
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