Hawaii increasingly looks like it might be the Cinderella story of 2025 for the sports betting industry.
The Hawaii Senate passed House Bill 1308 on Tuesday night, 15-10. With several minor amendments, the Hawaii sports betting bill will return to the House for concurrence.
HB 1308 passed the House in its initial form 35-15. Gov. Josh Green has indicated he is open to gambling legislation as long as it has proper safeguards in place.
Hawaii sports betting push
Hawaii is one of two states without any forms of legal gambling. That has kept the state low on the list of markets expected to legalize sports betting.
Rep. Daniel Holt authored the proposal, which included a 10% tax rate and $250,000 license fees. It would allow up to four sportsbooks in the state.
Lawmakers stripped the tax rate and license fee during House committee hearings to spur more discussion. In the bill’s last Senate committee stop, legislators added the original figures to the legislation.
Aloha State pushback
Before this session, a sports betting bill had only moved past a committee in Hawaii. Before HB 1308’s passage, the Senate had already killed multiple gambling bills.
This year, it has passed both chambers with a seemingly clear path to Green.
Still, the proposal was not without opposition, as various community organizations and municipal departments spoke out against the potential introduction of legalized gambling into Hawaii.
Many of those arguments centered on the potential societal harm gambling can cause.
Gambling already in Hawaii
Many of the arguments heard during the committee process were about how gambling already exists in the state through unregulated websites. That includes Holt, the bill’s sponsor.
“Sports betting is already happening across our islands — it’s just happening through bookies and unsafe offshore websites that don’t have any consumer protections and allow minors to bet,” Holt said in a statement following the initial House passage. “With this legislation, we can join the 38 other states that have created regulated, consumer-protected sports betting markets and create millions in revenue for our state.”
Throughout the legislative process, multiple lawmakers expressed the need to regulate the existing gambling concerns in the state.
“I play games on my phone, and it always pops up that I can play bingo and win money, or I can play solitaire and win money,” Sen. Donna Mercado Kim said in a Senate committee hearing. “It’s already there. I’m sure a lot of people are doing it already; it’s so easy.”
