Indiana Online Casino Legislation Back In Play?


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Now several years removed from a gambling scandal, Indiana online casino legalization appears as though it could be back on the table. 

Rep. Ethan Manning filed House Bill 1432 this week. The bill would legalize online casino gambling, as well as online lottery sales and pull tabs. Manning introduced similar legislation in 2023.

Manning chairs the Public Policy Committee, which oversees gambling legislation. The bill is slated for a reading Tuesday, where it will be referred to Manning’s committee.

Indiana online casino details

Manning’s bill would open online casino licenses to riverboat casino owners and operators. Each of the state’s casino licensees would be eligible for up to three online skins.

License holders would pay a $500,000 initial skin fee and a $50,000 annual renewal fee. The legislation would set the tax rate at 26% for the first year before graduating into a tiered tax structure of 22% to 30% based on operator revenue.

Indiana legalized sports betting in 2019. The state’s sportsbooks have generated $1.8 billion in sports betting revenue, sending $167.6 million to the state in taxes.

Promising Indiana footprint

According to industry sources, prior to former Rep. Sean Eberhart’s conspiracy case, Indiana was a frontrunner for online casino legislation.

Last summer, Eberhart was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud to benefit an Indiana casino company.

The state is ripe with multiple national casino companies running in-person casinos, including Hard Rock, Penn Entertainment, Caesars, and Bally’s.

There are seven legal online casino markets in the US, and expansion has been slow. The online gambling industry also faces increasing headwinds, including last month’s US Senate hearing.

Indiana casino case 

Following Eberhart’s plea in 2023, Senate leadership said no action would be taken on online casino legislation because of the case. They cited a potential loss of public trust around gambling issues. 

“It taints the Statehouse, it diminishes the confidence that people have in the integrity of the Statehouse, it causes an awful lot of problems and it makes it particularly difficult to engage in that kind of policy,” Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray told the Indiana Capital Chronicle in November 2023, following Eberhart’s guilty plea.

The bill at the heart of Eberhart’s case would have authorized the transfer of two casino licenses to Spectacle Entertainment. Eberhart suggested eliminating the $100 million transfer fee for the license. 

Photo by Shutterstock / Paul Brady Photography