Minnesota Senator’s Sports Betting Stalls in Committee

Senator Matt Klein’s sports betting bill, SF 757, came to a halt in a Senate committee after concerns about problem gambling gave committee members cause for pause despite support from the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association.

Concerns in Committee

An online sports betting bill that would have granted Minnesota’s 11 tribes exclusive control of the industry has failed to pass muster in the Senate State and Local Government Committee. A 6-6 vote doomed the bill after some legislators expressed concerns regarding the societal costs of problem gambling, which they believed would manifest from sports betting in the Gopher State.

Senator Klein’s fellow Democratic-Farmer-Labor colleague, Senator Erin Maye Quade, made her concerns known by saying, “This benefits literally nobody except a predatory tech industry. There is so much more work to get any sort of real protections. If the industry likes this bill, it’s probably not good.”

Maye Quade pointed out that 75% of the revenue collected by the state would return to ancillary gambling industries and reiterated her position that the social ills she believes sports betting would foster were too grave to ignore.

However, Klein pointed out that there were built-in protections that would combat problem gambling, such as eliminating push notification advertising, advertising on school property, college prop bets, and incentives aimed at bettors.

Support & Opposition

Senator Klein added an amendment at the beginning of the hearing that made SB 757 a bipartisan bill, garnering the support of Republican Sen. Jeremy Miller. Klein stated before the new legislative session that bipartisan support would be critical to getting any sports betting legislation passed.

“The only things that I think we’ll be able to really pass this year are bipartisan initiatives, given the state of the House and a very close division in the Senate, and sports wagering is one of the few things that, from day one, was a bipartisan issue. I think that gives it a smoother pathway than other bills,” Klein stated.

Unfortunately for Klein and his fellow supporters, like the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association (MIGA), which approved of the bill and the 15% of tax revenues that would be earmarked for non-gaming tribes in the state, the trepidation regarding problem gambling was a mountain too high to climb.

Nevertheless, getting the tribal nations on board was a critical achievement and one that had sunk many sports betting bills previously sponsored.

“This bill, for the first time, enjoys the support of the previous combatants in this area: the 11 sovereign tribal nations, Canterbury Park, the Allied Charities, and the Minnesota professional sports teams,” Klein said while introducing the bill to the Senate’s State and Local Government Committee on Thursday.

There were many, however, who were vocal in their opposition, one of whom was Senator Steve Drazkowski, who commented, “I don’t think we should be doing bills that create problems with the hope that government is going to come around and fix them, because, as we know, it doesn’t.”

Fellow DFL Senator John Marty had his own sports betting tabled as well, despite his legislation including more social guardrails than Klein’s.

“If we’re going to legalize, if we’re going to expand this, I think we have to do everything in our power to prevent real safeguards, and not just ones that the industry finds they can live with,” Marty said.