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Minnesota's Sports Betting Debate: Positives vs. Opposition
SportsGrid
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1/10/2025
Category
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Sports
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00:00
Now, I know Minnesota is another one of those states, Sam, Pat Evans was on earlier in the
00:04
week and said we have to keep a close eye out on them, but naturally, first they're
00:08
going to hear the positives, and then there's going to be some oppositions coming in the
00:12
way of Minnesota.
00:13
Tell us more what that may look like.
00:16
Yeah, Minnesota is another one of those states still left on the board, obviously, a state
00:20
we've talked a lot about in the past, potentially legalizing sports betting, and it's actually
00:24
gotten pretty close, unlike Alabama.
00:26
There, it's been sort of tribal efforts that have kind of been a roadblock, but it seems
00:31
to, as you alluded to, Craig, that there are new, maybe even bigger roadblocks popping
00:35
up.
00:36
This week, they had one of the first hearings that I've ever heard a state have that hasn't
00:41
had sports betting, where they focused solely on the negatives of sports betting.
00:45
You know, Congress, the U.S. Congress, had a similar hearing pretty recently, and that
00:50
kind of seems to be trickling down to the states a little bit, some of that momentum
00:54
kind of against the industry, kind of looking at it from that point of view.
00:58
But at this hearing, you had a bunch of different folks who are not in the industry, a bunch
01:03
of people who are pretty much against sports betting testifying ahead of their session.
01:09
One of them, you know, Les Bernal, who's the national director of the Stop Predatory Gambling
01:14
Campaign.
01:15
It was pretty vocal about what he says is a phony narrative that the legal industry
01:20
has been pushing.
01:21
A lot of the times, the industry will say legalizing it will help bring it out of the
01:24
shadows and help combat the illegal industry.
01:27
While he said that's true, it actually does more harm when you legalize it than illegal
01:33
gambling goes up as well.
01:35
You had another witness who is the lawyer of the famous ex-Jaguars employee who admitted
01:41
stealing $22 million from the team to play, a lot of it, play fantasy sports on FanDuel.
01:48
He spoke out against the industry.
01:50
No surprise there.
01:51
They're suing FanDuel trying to make them culpable for sort of all the money that he
01:55
took. He said, you know, the industry is predatory.
01:58
They send these specific offers and free bets to certain people.
02:03
They want to bet more.
02:04
So finally, one proponent of sports betting did speak up, though nobody from the legal
02:09
industry was invited.
02:11
Pat was reporting that they had kind of been shut out of this whole process.
02:14
But finally, a senator who wants sports betting, he's an author of one of several bills
02:20
that could be heard in the legislature when it kicks off.
02:21
He spoke up and said, listen, the simple fact is, you know, we've heard the testimony
02:26
against it, but Minnesotans want it.
02:28
And it's kind of our duty as lawmakers to represent the people and what they want.
02:33
There is a poll that came out pretty recently that said that overwhelming majority of
02:37
Minnesotans want it and that most will not probably fall into the problem gambling
02:42
category. Now, whether that is true or not, you'd have to let it play out.
02:47
But so while there does seem to be a lot of kind of resistance to it, there still is a
02:52
big, strong growing swing of it.
02:54
And I think this is just going to be one of those things you see now in states.
02:57
Now we've had sports betting for so long that we're going to start hearing about all the
03:00
negatives, too, during the legal process.
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