Time is running out for Minnesota sports betting legalization in 2024. A legislative session that began with considerable optimism has turned into one where lawmakers have considered four different Minnesota sports betting bills.
The Minnesota legislative session ends on Monday, May 20. That means members of the state House and Senate have less than two weeks to work together and help bills become laws.
How did a legislative session that started with such promise get to this point? Let’s take a look.
Minnesota sports betting optimism turns into widespread division
Minnesota sports betting was given serious consideration in 2023. However, multiple bills didn’t quite make enough progress to pass the House and Senate a year ago.
When legislators convened in January, the issue was one most were ready to tackle. Several of Minnesota’s neighboring states have legal, regulated sports betting industries with some of the country’s best online sportsbooks, which got the attention of multiple politicians.
Starting in March, though, amendments began to fly. The first significant one involved a ban on in-game betting, which would be the first prohibition of its kind across the country. The amendment passed, despite dealing a massive blow to projected Minnesota sports betting handle and revenue. Rep. Pat Garofalo deemed this provision a “poison pill” that would ultimately make the bill impossible to pass.
Another amendment doubled the projected tax rate of Sen. Matt Klein’s bill, from 10% to 20%. That figure doubled once again, to 40%, in another bill proposed by Sen. John Marty (one that would direct most revenue to responsible gambling resources). That would be the second-highest tax rate in the country, behind only the 51% clip possessed by NY sports betting.
MN sports betting dragged down by historical horse racing fight
The gambling debate took another turn this spring when Minnesota horse racing venues approved the presence and operation of historical horse racing (or HHR) machines. These operate similarly to slot machines, and Minnesota casinos stand in staunch opposition to this move.
One piece of Minnesota sports betting legislation, HF2000, explicitly bans HHR machines. That bill was met with pessimism by the House Taxes Committee last month, but passed out of that committee by a slim 12-9 margin.
The four Minnesota sports betting bills filed treat horse racing venues wildly differently. Klein’s bill, for instance, directs five percent of revenue to those tracks. HF2000 and Marty’s bill, SF 5330, freeze tracks out entirely.
It’s logical to think the HHR move was the tracks ensuring themselves of another revenue stream regardless of the outcome of this year’s legislative session. Whatever the case may be, though, this saga has added another dimension to a debate that was already getting more and more complex.
Is it too late for Minnesota sports betting legalization in 2024?
There’s still time to get a deal done. With a week and a half to go until lawmakers adjourn, timing is not the biggest issue.
The biggest hurdle to clear is the lack of unity on what Minnesota sports betting should look like. The shape of the industry seems to change with every new bill that’s been introduced and every amendment tacked on. Add in the moves made by horse racing venues, and things get even more complicated.
It’s never a good thing to have multiple pieces of legislation stall. This is what has happened to Georgia sports betting in each of the past several years, and California sports betting had a highly-publicized flop when two ballot measures were trounced on Election Day in 2022.
Barring a compromise in the waning stages of the 2024 legislative session, Minnesota sports betting could add itself to that list.