Three conservative state lawmakers, backed by faith-based and mental health advocates, said Wednesday they want to dramatically reform Ohio laws regulating sports gambling, a multi-billion dollar industry statewide.
Rep. Riordan McClain (R-Upper Sandusky), Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery) and Rep. Johnathan Newman (R-Troy) are drafting two bills targeting consumer rights and athletic integrity with the Center for Christian Virtue (CCV), said CCV President Aaron Baer.
Baer said the idea is for Ohioans to be “able to enjoy a football game and not (wonder), ‘Is this rigged?’”
The consumer legislation, he said Wednesday afternoon, limits how much and how often Ohioans can gamble on athletic events and bars them from using a credit card to do so. Outside casinos, it also gets rid of sports gambling online, which is where the vast majority of sports bets are wagered. And it further restricts advertising.
The integrity legislation bans gambling on individual athletes’ performances, often called “proposition” bets or props, and combining more than one wager into one wager, he said. It ends gambling on college games, too.
McClain said the “nature of gambling combined with the modern technology” prompts the need for Ohio to overhaul the relatively young statute.
“The dollars lost to gambling are taken from families, taken from kitchen tables across the state of Ohio,” he said.
Last year, lawmakers considered adding measures legalizing and taxing iGaming and iLottery offerings, but the effort fizzled out because of a lack of backing.
Still, these bills are likely going to be a tough sell with the full legislature. Only 14 of 132 state lawmakers, including Click and McClain, voted against legalization in 2021.
Even before the start date for legal sports gambling, a 2022 survey found that one-in-five Ohioans are considered at least “at-risk” gamblers. Then, in 2023, calls to the state hotline rose significantly.
The Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation and the Lawrence Funderburke Youth Organization, led by the former pro and Ohio State University basketball player, are backing the bills, too.
