Optimism for Legalized Sports Betting in Minnesota Flares Up

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00:00 Let's get started and talk about this update out of nowhere that we got from Minnesota,

00:08 dare I say, some potential optimism for getting legalized sports betting there.

00:12 I don't know how this will proceed, but late last week, all of a sudden I saw things coming

00:17 on my social media feed that led me to believe that the door is open again.

00:23 The door certainly is still open in Minnesota, and as you know, and frequent listeners and

00:28 viewers know, I'm very, I've been very bullish the last couple of years on Minnesota and

00:34 this year has been a roller coaster.

00:36 I mean, we've had a great start to the year where everybody had come to the table over

00:41 the break and we're talking about how to get it over the goal line and get it signed by

00:48 the governor and that those talks kind of broke down as the session rolled on.

00:55 I mean, at points this session, we've seen basically lawmakers just throwing things at

01:02 the wall to see what sticks and what we can get over the line.

01:05 That's turned into certain things like a ban on all in-game wagering on the Senate side,

01:10 which you know, that would, no stakeholders wanted that.

01:15 And again, it all comes down to this, this breakdown of the Republicans and the tracks

01:21 and the tribes and the Democrats.

01:23 The tribes as it is stands now has complete exclusivity for sports book operations.

01:29 The tracks want it.

01:31 You need bipartisan support because the majorities are so slim for the Democrats in both chambers

01:38 and there's opposition in both sides of the aisle of two gambling.

01:42 So you need the, you need the agreement between the two stakeholders, the tribes and the tracks

01:48 to get the lawmakers to agree on a deal.

01:51 Now things kind of slowed to a roll last week or last month because the horse racing commission

01:58 came out and said, Hey, we want to put VLTs in the two horse racing tracks.

02:02 The tribes said, well, we don't like that.

02:04 So a new bill came out that's outlawed historical horse racing, which are basically slot machines

02:12 that upset the tracks and the Republicans, the tracks.

02:15 Then one of the tracks then in turn sued a couple of the tribal casinos and said, Hey,

02:20 we're offering games outside of your state compacts.

02:23 So this kind of was a big stalemate, but last week, you know, there was a committee movement

02:28 and in less than an hour, we'll, we'll get started in the Minnesota house, which does

02:35 expect to get through and go over to the Senate.

02:38 This there's Senate dysfunction this year because there's a 51 or a one vote majority

02:46 for the Democrats.

02:47 One of those senators was arrested last month for breaking into her step-mom's house to

02:52 get things like her father's ashes.

02:56 That has caused some interesting dysfunction because the Republicans say, Hey, we want

03:01 her voting rights stripped, which of course would even out the Senate.

03:04 The Democrats stripped her of her committee seats, but left her allowed to vote.

03:09 And so there's been a lot of like stalemates, they're pushing back and forth in the Senate.

03:13 So even if sports betting gets over to the Senate, we'll see what happens there because

03:19 who knows, it might not even get acted on because the session ends Monday.

03:23 And we've got the Republican Senator Jeremy Miller who has sponsored sports betting legislation

03:28 in the past.

03:29 He came out earlier this week and said, Hey, we're still working on it.

03:32 We can come to a deal.

03:33 I'm working on, you know, working with both parties trying to come up with a deal, but

03:38 we're only going to approve it.

03:39 The Republicans are going to approve it.

03:41 If the tracks get a license and the tribes don't want that, the tribes hold a lot of

03:45 power with the Democrats.

03:47 So there's a lot of things at play right now.

03:50 And you know, a couple of industry sources have told me it's about 50/50.

03:54 We've had lawmakers that sponsor it when everything was happening last month, say it was down

03:59 to 20%.

04:01 So I mean, there's some optimism, the door is still open, as you said, but so many moving

04:06 parts that need to come into action with just a few legislative days left.

04:11 [Music]

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