The four-member Virginia Lottery Board has reportedly approved a final series of regulations that could see the historic southern state launch legalized online sportsbetting as soon as early next year.

According to a Tuesday report from local television broadcaster WWBT-TV, the governor-appointed panel authorized the jurisdiction’s first-ever rules on sportsbetting yesterday after responding to feedback from several prominent operators and is now hopeful of being able to kick off the required licensing process from sometime next month.

Important injunction:

The broadcaster reported that the new tenets maintain a long-touted ban on wagers concerning the Olympic Games but are to allow sportsbetting to be premiered via online and mobile platforms before later possibly permitting such activities to be offered at up to five licensed land-based venues spread across Virginia.

Legislative license:

Both houses of the Virginia General Assembly comfortably passed legislation to legalize sportsbetting earlier this year before reportedly tasking the Virginia Lottery Board with formulating a detailed set of rules to regulate how the growing industry is to be operated. Kevin Hall serves as Executive Director for the Virginia Lottery and he purportedly told Richmond-based WWBT-TV that the new policies moreover explicitly prohibit wagering on collegiate contests featuring teams from ‘The Old Dominion State’ as well as any sporting event where participants are under the age of 18.

Hall reportedly declared…

“Creating a regulatory structure for sportsbetting within the aggressive timeline that was mandated by the legislature consumed a lot of bandwidth over the summer and today’s Virginia Lottery Board action represents a really significant step forward.”