Several OH lawmakers want to consider legalizing online gambling

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) – Resources are available. The National Problem Gambling Hotline can be reached at 1-800-GAMBLER. Ohio’s can be reached at 1-800-589-9966.

Several Ohio lawmakers who were tasked with analyzing the current state of the gambling industry have signaled they want their colleagues to look at legalizing online casino and lottery games.

Findings released last Friday by the Study Commission on the Future of Gaming in Ohio touch on the industry at large, from the state of Ohio’s brick-and-mortar casinos and racinos to its lottery system. Early conversations around iLottery and iGaming offerings were high on the commission’s to-do list, which met four times.

“We believe that iLottery and iGaming could be a net benefit to the state of Ohio,” Republican Reps. Jay Edwards (R-Nelsonville), Jeff LaRe (R-Violet Twp.), and Cindy Abrams (R-Harrison) wrote in a letter included in the study.

They and almost every other legislative member, including Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Westlake), communicated the need for it to be legalized cautiously and thoughtfully, according to the study.

“The reality is that many other states are moving in this direction and Ohioans are already using the illicit market,” Sweeney wrote in her own letter. “The General Assembly should give serious consideration to iGaming and iLottery with extensive vetting.”

House Bill 33—the biennial budget—established the commission, which has since ceased to exist. It didn’t have a legislative endgame, Edwards said at the first hearing. But he said then that conversations about iGaming and iLottery offerings in Ohio were if, not when.

The industry remains torn on the issue. Some are big backers, but Dan Reinhard, who lobbies on behalf of JACK Entertainment in Cleveland, said he worries it threatens businesses with bigger commitments to Ohio.

“What seems to be emerging as fairly consistent is your brick-and-mortar properties are getting cannibalized by iGaming,” Reinhard said in an interview earlier this year. “When you look at a dangerous product with a high prevalence of gambling addiction that’s going to eat into your existing brick-and-mortar base, you look at what it’s going to do. How is it going to benefit Ohio? Ohio’s potentially going to lose jobs.”

Problem gambling, in general, can have the highest rate of suicidal ideation among addictive disorders, according to the state’s website Pause Before You Play. Even before the legal start date for sportsbooks and other sports gambling licensees, a 2022 survey found that one-in-five Ohioans are considered at least “at-risk” gamblers. In 2023, calls to the state hotline rose significantly.

Other commission findings and full testimony can be read here.