In Minnesota, state Senator Roger Chamberlain, chair of the state Senate Taxes Committee, said he expects bipartisan sponsorship of a sports betting bill in the upcoming legislative session. “We have a rough draft. We’ll get it in and then we’ll make the tweaks as we go. It’s touching a lot of folks, and when you’ve got a lot of money involved then people get a little concerned. But I think there’s popular support for it. Admittedly, this is not the top of the list for priorities but it is certainly something that can get done.” He added, “Look, it’s fun. It’s about opinions. People have opinions and they’re investing in their opinions. That’s what sports betting is all about.”
Chamberlain said a major issue is establishing a tax rate brings in decent revenue but does not discourage wagerers from legally betting, rather than betting in the unregulated, underground market. A draft bill circulated during the 2018 legislative session included a 1 percent tax on the amount bet, not the hold kept by the casino or sports book. That bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Pat Garofalo, estimated bettors might wager as much as $2 billion in legal sports betting in Minnesota. However, he said his bill’s goal is not to raise money but to protect bettors. “If you give consumers a choice between a safe, regulated environment and an unsafe, unregulated product, they’re going to choose the safe one,” he said.
Garofalo said his draft bill simply is a starting point. It would allow a new sports gambling board to decide issues like which sports and leagues could be wagered on and what the betting structure would look like. The University of Minnesota, for example, would have a say on whether wagers could be made on its sports competitions.
Minnesota’s 11 Indian tribes also may want to offer sports betting, which would require renegotiating their state gaming compacts. Under state law, if sports betting is made legal for nontribal gambling entities, the state must negotiate in good faith to allow tribes to offer it as well. St. Paul attorney Kevin Quigley, who specializes in Indian affairs, said, “I think they most definitely are interested. It will benefit the tribes and it will benefit Buffalo Wild Wings or anyone who decides to open a sport book. It is a totally different type of gambling than slot machines and cards.”
Garofalo said, “It is very important for Minnesota that going forward we have stability in the gambling environment. So doing this without tribal support would be problematic. It would not be good for the state.”
Citizens Against Gambling Expansion opposed sports betting legislation in the last session and plans to do it in the upcoming session. Executive Director Jake Grassel said, “We have people across the state telling us there’s just too much gaming, that we don’t need any more. With sports betting in particular, I think there’s a lot of risk with this new dynamic of an online platform, a mobile platform.” He added sports betting gives the industry a way to target what he called the “next generation of gamblers.”
Grassel said he doesn’t believe a sports betting bill will pass in 2019, since there’s a “level of uncertainty” about it. “We definitely expect it to be a fight and be pushed, but unless something monumental changes, I don’t think it’s going to be passed in this session.”
