Minnesota’s latest bill for legal sports betting in the Gopher State successfully moved through its third House of Representatives committee on Thursday.
House Bill 2000 calls for legal retail sports betting in Minnesota at tribal nation casinos and the licensing of online sports betting. It was passed by the Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee and now heads to the State and Local Government Finance and Policy Committee for further review.
Rep. Zack Stephenson (D-Coon Rapids), who introduced the bill, announced that he added an amendment to allow access to data for a university study that aggregated data of wagers. It was suggested by the Problem Gaming Association during last week’s session.
“I think it was a great idea,” Stephenson said. “I’m asking you to incorporate it.”
The amendment passed with the bill.
Problems and issues remain
While the bill continues to climb the ladder through the House, it still faces several issues. It has several more steps to go before getting through House. Then it will have to get passed by a Senate that shot down last year’s proposed Minnesota sports betting bill.
Within the House, there are still problems with the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and its 11 native tribes being the only entity to regulate and run legal sports betting.
Rep. Walter Hudson raised the issue of the bill not including horse racing tracks as retail and online betting sites along with the tribal casinos.
The Senate wanted tracks included in last year’s bill. MIGA pulled its support and the legalizing sports betting ended. It's something Hudson wants to see and will likely remain a problem moving forward.
There were also discussions Thursday about the sovereignty of tribal casinos and clarification about how sports betting is included in the commercialization of gambling in Minnesota.
“Oftentimes people talk about gambling at tribal nations as something that the state has given to the tribes,” Stephenson explained. “That is incorrect. The tribes are sovereign. What is different about sports betting…you could just do brick-and-mortar sports betting at tribal casinos and operate under that same premise.
“There might be a compact between state and tribe that indicates how that relationship is going to react with regard to sports betting that occurs on tribal land. The phenomenon that's different now than anything we've ever done before is mobile, where you have an activity that is maybe being organized and regulated and managed by a sovereign nation but occurs off of reservation lands.”
Investing in problem gambling
The Gopher State is surrounded by states that allow legal sports betting, including Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Rep. Stephenson pointed out that Canada to the north also has legalized sports betting.
He hopes sports betting will bring over a billion dollars of revenue a year to Minnesota. And one of his selling points to the committee Thursday is how the state will use its profits to invest in safe gambling.
“Most people can gamble without issue, but for a small subset, it is a real, real problem,” Stephenson said. “We would devote more resources than ever before to confronting this problem. This would be the largest investment by far in any state in the country.”
