Ohio Sports Betting Tax Hike May Not Proceed in 2023

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00:00The other good news for people who are betting on sports in the state of Ohio is it looks like

00:05this tax rate that they're trying to hike like New York and get this a little bit higher may

00:10not happen. So the other thing, Pat, too, is that I wonder how the sports book operators pivot from

00:16this when they don't get the tax rate that they want. They're sort of stabilized here. But how

00:21will sort of the state react to all of this? Yeah, this is an interesting kind of thing

00:26because Mike DeWine, Governor Mike DeWine in Ohio, has doubled sports betting tax rates before. I

00:31mean, back in 2023, he put it from 10% to 20% in his budget, and that was just months after the

00:37sports books launched there in the Buckeye State. And again, he comes out again this year saying

00:43let's double it again in the budget. We need tax revenue. Let's go ahead and raise it from 20% to

00:4840%, which to your point is still below that New York 51%. But you can tell the industry does not.

00:55They always put out statements when there's proposed tax rate increases. And that's no

01:01different here. This proposed rate would go towards funding new stadium upgrades and new

01:06stadiums in Ohio. So it's pretty interesting. But this week or last week, I guess it's Monday, wow,

01:13said one of the lead lawmakers in the budget discussions in the committees,

01:16he said basically there will not be any tax rate increases in this budget. He's a Republican,

01:22so is Governor DeWine. But as we know, Republicans do not like tax increases generally.

01:28And, you know, it was this, it was marijuana taxes and also cigarette taxes. So kind of a

01:34lot of potential tax increases in Ohio. But again, a lead lawmaker in the discussion said,

01:40nope, that's not going to happen. A few other legislative leaders kind of took back and said,

01:45well, we got to discuss this a little bit and see what happens and where things shake out. And,

01:50you know, these have to be right for the Ohio citizens. So yeah, it's again going to be a

01:55process, but it's certainly not the only state we've seen. You know, Governor Wes Moore in

01:59Maryland also proposed doubling from 15 to 30%. That's still in negotiations. And we'll see what

02:06happens there. A few other states had, you know, proposed tax rate increases that didn't really go

02:11anywhere. So certainly plenty of discussion around tax increases. Again, this is one that we're going

02:17to have to watch the committees and see what happens. But, you know, when a lead lawmaker in

02:22a negotiation says something's not going to make it to the final, you know, proposal or final package,

02:28you kind of got to listen at least a little bit.