Minnesota's lawmaker fights for legalizing sports betting

The member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, State Rep. Phyliss Kahn, has introduced a new bill to legalize sports wagering online services in the state of Minnesota. The lawmaker presented the bill last Monday 12th, looking forward to a positive response from the state government. Even though this is not her first time trying to legalize gambling in the state, this could finally be Minnesota’s first attempt to have an online gambling legislation, starting with legalizing sports betting. Last year, the state recorded more than $1 billion on online gaming, but only from charitable gaming. The main Native American Tribal casinos and the main horse races tracks, Canterbury Park and Running Aces Harness Track, they all have nothing to do with this figure, a fact that has led the State Representative to introduce the second bill of her career as one of Minnesota’s main politicians. She is also thinking on pushing the envelope by taking the fight to another stage. As soon as the bill passes, the lawmaker will take it all the way to the top of the administration, to the Federal Government. Minnesota’s bill could be one more formal request from another US state to regulate any category of gambling on a federal level.

For the US State Representative, this bill would make possible for Minnesota’s residents to bet online on any legal sport event, as well as for state to collect taxes. The member of the Minnesota House of Representatives sounded very optimistic this time during a recent interview for CBS 5 Eyewitness News: "There already is plenty of betting on sports happening on the internet and we don't get to take advantage of the benefits of this. It is hypocritical of us to allow certain forms of gaming, but not others". On the other side, Annette Meeks, from the Minnesota Freedom Foundation, has stood up against the bill that would bring taxes into online gambling: "This is nothing more than a tax on the poor and it just makes more money that allows for the expansion of government and not the private sector. No need to waste taxpayers’ money on a legal challenge to the federal law".