Experts and addicts warn Minnesota legislators of online sports gambling's perils
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Some Minnesota legislators and gambling addiction advocates are telling lawmakers to pump the brakes on legalized sports betting as new research outlines pitfalls in other states.
Why it matters: Backers say they're planning to revive their push to make Minnesota the 39th state to legalize sports betting after coming close to a deal at the end of last session.
Friction point: Past efforts to pass sports betting have been derailed by disagreements between tribes and racetracks over who should get to operate sportsbooks and how to distribute revenues.
- A politically split House, plus opposition from Senate Finance Chair John Marty (DFL-Roseville) and two other Senate Democrats, means legalized sports betting needs bipartisan backing in both chambers to pass.
What they found: Researchers from UCLA and USC in October published a study using financial data from the credit reports of 7 million people to compare the financial health of residents of states with and without legal gambling over several years.
- In states with legal mobile sports betting, they found lower credit scores and higher likelihoods of bankruptcy, loan delinquency and debt collection.
Between the lines: Marty called an informational hearing on the issue Wednesday to highlight the perils of online sports betting. The hearing included a presentation from the UCLA/USC researchers.
- "The entire debate at the Capitol among the authors was, 'Who's going to profit, the tribes or the tracks?" Marty said. "[It was] never a look [at] suicide, never [a] look at the mental health challenge, never [a] look at the risk to kids, the risk to athletes. None of that's been heard in 30-some hearings in the Legislature."
The other side: Sen. Matt Klein (DFL-Mendota Heights) said in a statement that the sports betting bill he plans to author this session will have the "most rigorous protections against problem gambling and underage gambling in the nation."
- Those protections include mandatory self-imposed daily wagering limits, prohibiting push notifications from sportsbooks and a three-hour delay from when a deposit is made to when a bet can be placed.
The latest: The Minnesota Indian Gaming Association wrote in a letter to Marty's committee that Minnesotans are already betting on sports online but are doing so through illicit, unregulated operators who take bets from kids and don't generate revenue for the state.
The bottom line: With control of the Capitol in flux and a budget to build, lawmakers may have bigger fish to fry this year than sports betting.
- House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman said in November that she saw the odds of passage as low.