This behavior is getting the US government into hot water with the WTO. It is clearly prejudiced treatment of a domestic operation. Note if you don't get the monopoly license to offer the online or phone betting, the state usually declares your operation illegal and then a whole bunch of mess comes out of it.
Shouldn't really surprise people that know WA horse racing. When they first opened Emerald it was this beautiful track in a great market, but they couldn't get any betting. The state in a massive short-sighted moment, said they were "nurturing and protecting" WA racing by only allowing betting on WA races, either at Emerald or running elsewhere in the state. Otherwise you could only bet on one simulcast race a day from outside the state except for Breeders Cup. It was a total disaster, they opened up a track that got no attendance because people didn't want to bet on 3.2K claiming races. They would gladly have shown up at this nice track and bet the local horses if they also got to bet on races nationwide like people in just about every other state. The track went under. It got bought by a tribe with a hugely successful casino. The tribe uses their connections and obvious implication that "hey we don't need the money, we already got slots and tables down the road" and so once again the state comes back trying to save the industry by giving the tribe lots of leeway to get the track operating again. With that they go full bore, making betting on racing as easy as can be. Of course they don't want to let the offshores participate because they don't pay the taxes, but that is another story.
In short the state has no clue how to run these things and having a piece of the pie they will act tough for anyone not specifically involved in their little operation.
