NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The sponsor of a bill that would allow sports betting in the state of Tennessee is taking a red pen to his own legislation.
State representative Rick Staples said there's some things he would like to clarify in the bill to make it easier to understand.
Staples introduced the sports betting bill to help raise money for counties and cities across Tennessee. It would allow sports betting businesses and betting kiosks to operate.
"I think every city and every county is looking forward to the opportunity to actually receive money from the state and actually keeping dollars," said Staples. "Especially in West Tennessee, as they see a lot of money leave to our surrounding neighboring states to see some dollars actually stay in Tennessee and I think that's important."
Staples said some questions have been raised that he would like to address before moving the legislation forward. He wants to make it clear who would manage the betting operations for the state. He also wanted to clarify how much money local governments would receive from betting.
"Well the biggest thing we want to do in making sure we represent the folks of Tennessee that we put something before them that's smooth and clean and easy for them to understand. We don't want a lot of convoluted language. So, people can understand exactly what we're doing," said Staples.
The representative rolled the bill for one week in the House State Committee. He said he will have those issues answered by then.
