A proposal announced in April to end statewide mobile sports betting in Ohio was introduced in the House on Wednesday.
Reps. Johnathan Newman and Beth Lear‘s HB 971 would amend the Ohio sports betting law and geofence mobile sportsbook operations to casinos. It would also end prop bets on individual athletes and all betting on college sports.
The two lead sponsors announced the bill Tuesday, saying it would restrict predatory industry practices and minimize gambling-related harm.
Legal Sports Report‘s requests for comments from the two lead cosponsors went unanswered before publication.
Big changes to Ohio sports betting proposed
There are multiple areas of current Ohio sports betting law that would be stripped:
- All college betting. Ohio already ended college player props in February 2024.
- In-game betting.
- Individual player props.
- Advertising during games.
- Parlays.
- Sports betting kiosks offered through the lottery.
The bill would also limit bets to a $100 maximum with only eight bets allowed every 24 hours.
Addiction funding education is ‘wrong’
There will be two significant opponents to ending statewide mobile sports betting in Ohio. The first is the sports betting industry which, according to Sportico, is moving beyond just funding candidates to sway influence in states.
The second will be the tax dollars. Sports betting has brought in nearly $600 million in taxes from sports betting since the industry launched in January 2023. The vast majority of that taxable revenue came from online sports betting.
In Rep. Newman’s opinion, sports betting funding schools is not worth the tradeoff.
“Monetizing addiction to fund public education is the wrong direction for Ohio,” Newman said in the release. “Who wins when predatory gambling preys on the vulnerable? It’s not our schools; that’s for sure! It’s the trillion-dollar big gambling companies who win. How is this good for Ohio?”
Two representatives from April not listed
Out of 10 total cosponsors, neither Reps. Gary Click or Riordan McClain, who joined Newman at the announcement of the Save Ohio Sports Act in April, were listed.
“Sadly, Representative Click no longer has the bandwidth to add this bill to his repertoire of legislation,” his office told LSR. “He will continue to watch this piece of legislation as it moves through the legislative process.”
Rep. McClain, meanwhile, was thrown off by the timing, according to his office.
“He has not been co-sponsoring much legislation recently since we have gone on break from Session and did not know they were going to introduce it this early,” his office replied.
McClain would have to wait until the bill hits the floor of the House to add his name at this point.
