Vermont Considers Repealing Sports Betting Law in 2025

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00:00All right, but how about a place that a lot of people don't like to go? No offense. I just

00:03everyone live watching in Vermont is going to be upset with me now.

00:09So listen, since sports betting has been legalized and they overturned PASPA back in 2018,

00:15I guess maybe, honestly, Pat, we should be a little surprised that some state didn't decide,

00:21oh, you know what, this isn't for us. Now, that's not what we want to hear. Obviously,

00:24the more legal sports betting places we have, the better. But what's going on here in Vermont? Is

00:28there a real possibility that they may pull back on the legalization of sports betting there?

00:34Craig, first of all, I think I'm not a skier, but I hear there's pretty good skiing in Vermont. So

00:39I think skiers might like to go to Vermont. So mad at me, mad at me.

00:44But yeah, so there's a trio of lawmakers up in Vermont who have introduced a bill to repeal the

00:51sports betting law and the lottery. It doesn't have much legs, I don't think so. But it's an

00:56interesting bill. And by any means, because, yeah, to your point, in 2018, we repealed PASPA.

01:05And this huge wave of sports betting went through. And a lot of times you might even think like a few

01:09of these states just kind of legalized without really considering what might be wrong with the

01:15industry or just viewing it as a money grab. And that's what these lawmakers say. They say it's

01:21regressive tax. It preys on the lower income and people susceptible to problem gambling and the

01:29likes. And they say it should be repealed and use more progressive taxes to make up the revenue.

01:36Again, it doesn't seem likely Governor Phil Scott signed sports betting into law in 2023. So he's

01:43still in power. I don't think he's going to want to repeal a law that he signed. So we'll see what

01:48happens there. But yeah, it doesn't seem super likely. But I do think to your point and to our

01:55point, there's this huge wave of states that legalize. There's still plenty, not plenty, but

01:5912 or so states that haven't legalized. And even last week, and we talked about it on Monday,

02:05in Minnesota, we've got the hearings now that it looks like a slam dunk finally to legalize.

02:11But now you've got the opposition people coming up and saying, this is why this isn't good. This

02:15is the problems it can cause. This is why we need to be careful about this and enact this in the

02:21right way. So here we are, we've got one state, Vermont, saying let's repeal this. And we'll see

02:29if this is, you know, I don't, again, don't think it has legs in Vermont, but maybe you start to

02:34hear it kind of pop up in other states of people saying, hey, let's rethink this or let's pull it

02:39back. Again, and we've talked about this a lot too, is a lot of states, while they won't repeal

02:45it, they're taking a closer look at the industry, putting more protections in place, making sure

02:50it's a better industry for the consumer versus maybe the industry. So I think we're going to

02:57see more of that for sure, but maybe a few more bills to say, hey, let's repeal this. Whether or

03:01not any of them work, it is at least starting that discussion of, and maybe moving that discussion

03:07forward, of consumer protections and the like.