CINCINNATI — Five months after Ohio banned bets on the individual performance of college athletes, some state legislators are calling for a replay review.
Three House Republicans who served on the Study Commission on the Future of Gaming in Ohio argued the rule should be rescinded because college athletes can be compensated for their name, image and likeness.
“Players are now being paid to play (and to perform) in certain sports,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter that accompanied the commission’s July 12 final report. “That is no different than any other professional sport.”
The letter was signed by Reps. Cindy Abrams of Harrison, Jeff LaRe of Violet Township and Jay Edwards of Nelsonville. Edwards, who chairs the House Finance Committee and co-chaired the commission, said supporters of the ban made “ridiculous” arguments that prop bets lead to harassment of college athletes on social media.
“I don’t care if you have a bet on it or not,” Edwards said. “If a quarterback goes out and lays an egg, they’re going get beat up on Twitter, simply for losing the game.”
The Ohio Casino Control Commission said it has no plans to reconsider the rule and Edwards said he is not aware of any legislative proposal to force the change.
And that sounds like good news to Ricardo Hill, boys basketball coach at Indian Hill High School.
“I don’t believe that anyone should be able to bet on collegiate sports because it’s still considered amateur,” Hill said. “I’m not a bettor, but I know what the point spreads are if I just go to a UC game or Xavier game.”
The proposal to rescind Ohio’s ban on prop bets is one of several new ideas to emerge and fail to gain consensus from the “Future of Gaming” panel. It heard more than six hours of testimony on Ohio’s gaming industry and issued a 354-page report in July.
Ohio dramatically expanded legalized gambling with the launch of sports betting in 2023. The 11-member legislative group was established to explore possible next steps for the industry. It invited comments from gaming companies and their trade groups, the Ohio Lottery, the Ohio Casino Control Commission and experts on gambling addiction.
Among the new ideas:
- An expansion of iGaming in Ohio could generate up to $410 million in new tax revenue for the state, according to testimony from the Sports Betting Alliance, a trade group for sportsbooks. It says eight states have legalized online apps for poker, slots and other casino games. Ohio neighbors Michigan and Pennsylvania have two of the biggest markets for iGaming, each claiming more than $1.7 billion in bets last year. Casino operators and lottery officials are worried that iGaming would harm their existing operations in Ohio. Lottery officials said its Keno sales are already down 7% due to sports betting. It wants the ability to offer iLottery games online.
- Brick-and-mortar sportsbooks are having a tough time competing against betting apps like FanDuel and DraftKings, prompting State Senator Nathan Manning to propose a tax cut for operators like the BetMGM Sportsbook at The Banks. Manning said he would try to cut Ohio’s 20% tax rate to 10% for retail sportsbooks by offering amendments to the state budget process. “These brick-and-mortar locations provide jobs for many Ohioans, and it would be beneficial for everyone to work alongside them to find commonsense solutions,” Manning wrote in a letter to the study commission.
- The Ohio Casino Control Commission is spending $400,000 on a behavioral science consultant to help it develop new responsible gaming tools that Ohioans will actually use. In a March 20 hearing, Executive Director Matt Schuler said all sportsbooks are required to offer tools that let gamblers limit the time and money they spend on betting apps. “The problem is, I think we got 2% of those that use the app utilizing any of those tools,” Schuler told the panel. “And so, we’re convinced we’re going about it wrong.” The U.K.-based Behavioural Insights Team is helping state officials test new approaches that can be deployed to all sportsbooks next year.
Of all the new ideas discussed in Ohio’s Future of Gaming report, the behavioral science research appears to be furthest along. The Casino Control Commission expects an initial report on the effort by this fall.
Behavioural Insights has spent several months analyzing the effectiveness of existing tools for responsible gaming, typically identified with an “RG” button on sportsbook apps. The company’s Chief Behavioral Scientist, Michal Hallsworth, said the key to increased use might be incorporating bet limits into ordinary play — as opposed to telling bettors it’s a way to avoid problems.
“These are not tools for people who have a problem. They’re tools for anyone,” Hallsworth said. “When you’re in that moment, you get so absorbed, you kind of forget the context, where you’re coming from, why you’re doing this and how much you wanted to spend. Those kinds of things, you might think about when you stop.”
The panel’s co-chairs, Rep. Jay Edwards and Sen. Nathan Manning, said it might be a few years before there is legislative support for another major expansion of gambling.
“iGaming is popular one to discuss because it is happening in other states,” Manning said. “But I know that Gov. DeWine has expressed some concern and senate members certainly have expressed concern. Expanding into sports betting was a big step. Maybe we should pump the brakes a little bit and see how that’s going.”
That seems to be the approach on college prop bets as well, much to Edwards’ chagrin.
The former Ohio University football player, now serving his fourth and final term in the House, thinks the Casino Control Commission made a mistake by banning prop bets on college athletes. He argues the ban won’t keep athletes from being harassed by fans. And he claims Ohio will be less able to catch corruption, like it did in 2023 when it blocked an Indiana man from using inside information to be on a University of Alabama baseball game.
“Before we legalized sports gaming, we would have never caught this,” Edwards said. “This bet could have been put on Bovada or one of these off-shore accounts. They would have never been caught. It’s the fact that we have a regulated market, we’ve driven out the black market, that we’re able catch these types of things.”
In his March 20 testimony to the Future of Gaming panel, Schuler said Ohio law allows for any sports governing body to propose rule changes on bets allowed.
The NCAA argued players were being harassed on social media and it was concerned about bettors influencing the outcome of games. Schuler told Edwards he talked to athletic directors around the state and grew convinced Ohio’s college athletes were at risk without a rule change.
“When a particular bet that you know is going to be offered is solely dependent on you, there may be a temptation to alter your behavior,” Schuler said. “They feel the pressure. They have harassment. They don’t want to say anything. They don’t want to be the poster child for the problem.”
Hill attends about a dozen college games each year because it helps him stay in touch with former players, including MaCio Teague, who helped Baylor University win a national title.
“I’ve had guys tell me that they can hear fans screaming, ‘I need you to get this amount of points tonight.’ They’re calling me and they’re kind of laughing it off but if that person was in some sort of financial difficulty, I mean, it’s just too risky to me,” Hill said.
