Ohio State Rep. Riordan McClain, R-Upper Sandusky, introducing sports betting legislation, alongside, from left to right, Christian Virtue Center President Aaron Baer and Ohio State Reps. Gary Click, R-Vickery, and Johnathan Newman, R-Troy. (Photo: Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)
Ohio’s three Republican lawmakers are introducing legislation to establish “barriers” to the state’s sports betting system, including ending online/telephone gambling, limiting wagering, banning the exploit of wagering credits and limiting advertising.
They warn that gambling is as addictive as illegal drugs, costs Ohioans enormous amounts of money and threatens the integrity of sporting events.
Clinical Director of Addiction Services at Lindner Center of Hope, Dr. Chris Tuell, explained that among addictive behaviors, gambling has the highest suicide rate.
He added that the main reason for divorces is not infidelity, but financial problems.
“This is Narcan,” he said, holding a diminutive plastic nasal spray in his hand. “We don’t have a cure for gambling problems. We don’t have a pill for gambling problems.”
Ohio state Reps. Riordan McClain, R-Upper Sandusky, Gary Click, R-Vickery, and Johnathan Newman, R-Troy, acknowledge that sports betting is here to stay. But they want to place limits on what, how and where Ohioans can bet.
“The fact is that most of the better guys don’t win,” McClain said, citing statistics only about 5% of sports bettors make money in the long run.
“This means that approximately 95% of Ohioans who place bets are making deposits, not withdrawals,” McClain said.
Click asked: “Is it really worth paying the taxes we earn, putting people’s lives, their mental health, their personal well-being, their families and their homes at risk? I don’t think so.”
“So while we have no intention of turning back the clock,” he continued, “we will put in place commonsense consumer protections to protect Ohioans.”
The legislative language for lawmakers’ ideas is still being finalized, but they expect to present two proposals: one focusing on consumer protection and the other on sports fairness.
Bad bet: Religious and mental health groups reject expansion of online gambling in Ohio
Consumer protection
Newman described the current sports betting landscape in Ohio as a highway “without lines, speed limits and exits.”
“We’re trying to put some lines on the highway, some guardrails, some ramps and some speed limits to stop some of the massive damage we’re seeing,” he said.
The consumer protection measure will place limits on how much Ohioans can bet and how often they can do so during the day.
It will also prohibit players from using credit cards or other forms of debt to place bets.
Sports books would face new restrictions on where and when they can run ads and would be barred from offering financial incentives to engage people.
“The drug comparisons here are incredibly obvious,” said Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue. “Where they say, hey, just come and try it, right? And then you’ll see that you like it, and you’ll keep coming back for more and more.”
Perhaps most importantly, though, lawmakers want to restrict betting to Ohio casinos, effectively banning Ohioans from placing bets on their phones.
“When you combine a gambling addiction with an addiction to one of these devices,” Click said, holding up his cell phone, “it’s synergistic in a bad sense. It multiplies on itself.”
Tony Coder, CEO of the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation, explained that suicide often happens when someone is alone.
“Therefore, language that limits sports betting to only in casinos and not over the phone while sitting alone at night can help prevent this,” Coder said.
“These are moments of loneliness that can become more intense when we are focused on our own thoughts and there is no one there to help the person find help.”
Sports integrity
McClain, Click and Newman are also concerned about the impact of sports betting on the games themselves.
“Think of the outrage we feel when a referee doesn’t use an obvious decision,” Newman said.
“We feel outrage. Do we really want to spend the rest of our lives watching every bad conversation a judge has with who is in his ear? Who is calling him? Who is threatening his family? Is that what we want?”
The Sports Integrity Act prohibits all betting on games, as well as all betting on college sports.
This also eliminates so-called “prop” bets.
These are bets based on a specific player’s statistics in a given game – for example, touchdowns scored, strikeouts scored or three-pointers made.
Already in Governor DeWine’s executive order Prohibited prop betting on college sports but refrained from doing the same for professional competitions.
This solution will also eliminate parlay betting, in which a player combines several different bets into one.
These bets offer higher returns, but the odds are stacked against them heavily stacked against players.
The road lies ahead
However, despite all of sponsors’ legitimate concerns about financial loss and the impact of gambling on mental health, sponsors are likely to face a arduous situation.
In 2021, legislation overwhelmingly passed to legalize sports betting in the state.
Click noted that many lawmakers have concerns about gambling. He emphasized that last year it was not possible to legalize online casinos within the state budget.
McClain admitted that in conversations with colleagues, “the initial reaction is certainly mixed, but there is support for this thesis.”
He added that while the governor has not endorsed their legislation, the proposals include elements he has supported in the past.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
