Minnesota Delays Sports Betting for Third Straight Year
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00:00A new state not having sports betting in the second half of the year, I didn't think that
00:06would happen.
00:07No, I mean, this is for a third straight year now, Minnesota, you know, had a deal that
00:14everybody kind of thought could come together and could happen.
00:19And then on Sunday night, before the deadline, they adjourned with no sports betting passage.
00:25And so again, Minnesota is going to be without sports betting for at least another year.
00:29Now, there's a few developments that we'll get to that, you know, could set it up promising
00:33again next year.
00:34I mean, as you know, well, no, I've come into the session the past two years, very bullish
00:39on Minnesota because of how close they got the year previous.
00:44So who knows really what happens?
00:46And we'll discuss that in a second.
00:47But I just want to talk about the roller coaster of a week that was last week for sports betting.
00:53It was on the calendar, Rep. Zach Stevenson's sports betting bill that gave exclusive online
01:00sports betting to the 11 tribes in the state, a little bit of money to the tracks.
01:06Of course, there was a bipartisan split there.
01:10And because of opposition on both sides, you need, you know, bipartisan support.
01:16And the Republicans want what the tracks want.
01:20And for the most part, the tracks have always said they want at least the licenses and there's
01:24two tracks in the state, so they want two licenses.
01:28So without the Republican support, the Dems don't have enough.
01:32And on Wednesday, when it was on the calendar to be discussed in the House, there was an
01:36eight hour discussion on some other unrelated bill.
01:40The House speaker just jumped after a little bit and just called for a vote on that bill,
01:44which the Republicans did not want.
01:46And the Democratic Party has the majority in both chambers.
01:51So that really upset the Republican minority.
01:54And at one point, as we went into the Friday, Saturday, Sunday sessions, the minority leaders
02:00said, hey, if you keep doing stuff behind our backs, we're not going to support any
02:05issue that needs bipartisan support.
02:07And so that's where everybody kind of goes, oops, sports betting is going to be on the
02:11back burner here.
02:12And despite that, there's reports out that there were ongoing discussions between the
02:20tracks and tribes to try to come to an agreement.
02:23And even as we entered into the last hours of the session on Sunday, there was reports
02:27that there was an agreement on the table, they just were going to run out of time.
02:33And I talked to a couple of stakeholders.
02:35One of the tracks told me, yep, there's a deal in place that we were happy with.
02:40The tribes apparently were happy with some sort of also revenue sharing for the smaller
02:44tribes to say, hey, if we're giving money to the tracks, these little tribes will be
02:48okay too.
02:50And you know, Egypt simply just ran out of time at that point.
02:54And it's because of really a lot of partisan bickering and really interesting yelling going
03:01on on the House floor and the Senate side.
03:04But anyway, does the deal that they've apparently come to now mean that, hey, it's in place,
03:11let's get to next session and it'll roll right through?
03:15I don't think so.
03:16Unfortunately, there's certainly a chance with the knowledge that, you know, it wasn't
03:21going to get to the finish line that at least one of the stakeholders said, yeah, this deal
03:25is fine.
03:26This is great for the time being, because they knew it wasn't going to pass.
03:29That's possibility.
03:31All of the House seats in Minnesota are up for election in November.
03:37You know, that could greatly change the dynamics of the politics in Minneapolis, or St. Paul,
03:42excuse me.
03:44So who knows what happens next year?
03:46Again, you know, I've come in both the last two sessions very bullish because of how much
03:51progress was made on the deals.
03:53Well, this year, apparently they had a deal, but that I don't think really means a whole
03:57lot adding into next January.
03:59So Minnesota, I still think it's probably the best state to do it legislatively soon.
04:04We'll talk about a different way up next, but does that mean it gets done next year?
04:10We'll have to see.