Kentucky bill would raise sports betting, gaming ages to 21
Published 2:42 pm Wednesday, March 11, 2026
FRANKFORT, Ky. (KT) – Legislation that would raise the sports wagering age from 18 to 21 and regulate fantasy contests, among other provisions, cleared the House Licensing, Occupations and Administrative Regulations Committee on Wednesday.
House Bill 904 is sponsored by Rep. Michael Meredith, R-Oakland, and Committee Chair Rep. Matthew Koch, R-Paris. They told the committee HB 904 would bring many changes to Kentucky’s sports wagering and charitable gaming statutes.
“Fantasy sports have been offered in Kentucky for a long time, but there’s never been a direct licensing statute or tax statute related to them,” Meredith said, adding that a separate measure, House Bill 757, would create a taxation framework for fantasy sports.
HB 757 advanced from the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee on Tuesday.
Another change Kentuckians would see under HB 904 is the banning of proposition bets, or “Prop Bets” on Kentucky college athletes, which involves bets placed on an individual athlete’s statistics.
On prediction markets, Meredith said Kentucky is limited in its ability to directly regulate this type of wagering due to federal law. However, HB 904 would ban any license holders in Kentucky, such as tracks or providers, from affiliating with prediction market platforms, he said.
Another provision of HB 904 would create a purse stabilization fund for fixed-odds wagering, Meredith said.
The measure would also update Kentucky’s charitable gaming statute, Koch said. He said the committee will continue to study charitable gaming, but in the meantime HB 904 would address some of the charitable gaming issues.
One provision of HB 904 would increase the charitable gaming prize limit from $599 to $1,499.
Another section of the bill would eliminate the middleman, according to Koch. “You have a charity that’s out there operating, you have a retail store location that’s out there, the middleman is simply the agent. It’s combining those. We’ve had quite a bit of examples of bad players within that space, so that’s one of the things we’re going to take on immediately.”
The charitable gaming age would also increase from 18 to 21 under this bill, Meredith added.
HB 904 received committee approval by a 19-0 vote with one pass vote. It now heads to the full House for consideration.