Licensed operators who currently pay a 10% tax rate will have to fork it out twice over from next year, after an amendment to Ohio sports betting was announced in the 2024-2025 executive budget.
Ohio Sports Betting Tax Rate Increase
Mike DeWine, the Governor of Ohio, has announced a raise to the state’s sports betting tax rate in his 2024-2025 executive budget.
The increase represents a jump to 20%, which is double the the current rate that gambling operators have to pay.
The proposed increase was announced in the state House earlier this year, but the amendment dubbed ‘Bill 33’ has been officially enacted and will come into effect next year.
Sports betting is currently thriving in Ohio after finally launching in January of this year. Residents took no time in welcoming its new legal operators, and the state set an all-time record for monthly sports betting volume in its first month, taking over $1.1 billion in handle.
Since then, Ohio has generated $507 million in taxable revenue, and it appears state legislators are eager to bump up that figure as the total bets placed nears the $4 billion mark.
Ohio will also become the first US state to pass through a sports betting tax rate increase.
State tax rates in relation to sports betting vary from state to state, with the lowest coming in Wyoming at just 3.1%, while it is as high as 51% in Michigan.
Betting handle in the state experienced 15% decline from April after falling 30% from March to April, but this is reflective of the US sports calendar with the NFL and NBA off-seasons ongoing.
The chief operators in the state, FanDuel and DraftKings, combined for 68.6% of market share in May, although total revenue was down around 9% despite retail sportsbooks actually reporting an uptick.
This is unlikely to have had a bearing on lawmakers in the House with the announcement coming earlier in the year, but reports suggest it is a ploy to try and suppress sports betting advertisement by reducing revenues for operators.
