Progress on Hawaii's Lottery, Gaming, and Sports Betting Push

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00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - You mentioned the lottery.

00:06 If I'm not mistaken, there is no lottery also in Hawaii.

00:10 So, that's been just a place where it's just been

00:14 very hard to get things done generally speaking.

00:16 And I know Fantasy was under some scrutiny there as well.

00:20 I can't imagine that there's a ton of progress here

00:23 with the state, but I know that you have an update here

00:25 from the House Economic Development Committee.

00:28 - Yeah, so Hawaii is again one of those five states

00:31 without a lottery.

00:32 There's no gaming whatsoever in Hawaii.

00:36 And they've, you know, a lot of lawmakers, not a lot,

00:40 a few lawmakers have tried, you know, every year

00:43 to get a sports betting or a gaming bill on the docket.

00:47 They talk about it pretty much every year in a committee.

00:50 And this year is no different.

00:52 There's multiple bills.

00:53 There were two bills that were heard last week

00:56 and will be heard again this week

00:57 in the economic committee.

00:59 One is simply to open up a 40 year license

01:03 for one casino resort on Oahu, which, you know,

01:06 that's getting some pushback

01:08 'cause they just don't want gaming.

01:09 And then another one is to open up online sports betting

01:12 to operators who are in three or more markets.

01:16 And again, that's getting pushback.

01:19 And these, it's an interesting state

01:22 because unlike these states in the Southeast

01:25 and in many of the states that have passed sports betting

01:29 that are Republican controlled and, you know,

01:32 Hawaii is almost exclusively Democrat.

01:35 And that's posing a separate issue

01:37 because in all the other states,

01:39 we see opposition on both sides of the aisle.

01:43 You've got, you know, Republicans who are morally

01:46 against sports betting and believe that it's not,

01:49 you know, ethical and not right.

01:50 And then on the other side, you've got Democrats

01:52 who believe it preys on underserved communities

01:56 and preys on those with addiction issues.

01:59 In Hawaii, you've got the one side

02:02 and that's almost exclusively what we heard

02:04 in this committee is concerns about what's going to happen

02:08 to the people with addiction issues

02:12 or the poor people in the state

02:14 and that they're just preying on it.

02:16 And that actually ended up derailing the bill last year

02:19 when one of the sponsors,

02:20 who is the chairman of this committee said,

02:22 "Yeah, we're not gonna do this this year."

02:26 This year he spoke out last week and said,

02:30 "You know what?

02:31 That's not why I'm putting this bill out.

02:34 I'm not trying to get that tax revenue from that,

02:37 from locals.

02:39 Tourism's pretty flat in Hawaii.

02:41 This is just giving it another amenity

02:42 that people can come and do in Hawaii

02:45 because they can do it in the rest of the US."

02:47 And we'll see if that argument makes

02:50 any sort of difference.

02:51 But again, multiple groups, multiple legislators,

02:55 and even the various Hawaii police departments are saying,

02:59 "Oh no, we already have enough issues

03:00 with illegal card rooms and illegal gambling operations

03:05 that we just don't want to legalize it

03:07 and make it even worse."

03:09 (upbeat music)

03:11 [MUSIC]

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