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Every child deserves more at OHEA.org, The House approves the bill with millions for local projects over the objections of some majority Republicans.

It's Super Bowl weekend in Ohio's sports betting sites and apps are expecting a workout.

But did Ohio win or lose with legalizing it?

And I'm Sara Donaldson in downtown Columbus.

Amtrak has big plans for the state of Ohio.

And if they work out, tracks like these could be eventually used to carry people, not just freight.

This week on the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm karen Kasler.

The Ohio house passed a nearly $2 billion spending bill this week.

But as has happened often over the last year, it didn't go through without some drama house bill to hit the floor.

Less than 24 hours after the details of the bill were made available.

And just hours after it cleared a House committee with no public testimony, it allocates $350 million to local projects through excess money from the state budget for welcome centers and community parks to bridge rehabs and pickleball courts, among other things.

Some of the biggest are $22 million for the Hamilton County Convention Center District.

$13.7 million for the Cincinnati Open tennis tournament, $10 million each for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and the downtown Columbus Capital line.

$10 million for the Buckeye Lake, North Shore Park and Pier.

$7 million for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

$20 million for the Tiger County North Coast Connector, a land bridge between Cleveland and the Lake Erie shoreline.

$5 million for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

And three and a half million dollars for development in the flats.

It also provides $600 million for the school building program Assistance fund, $400 million for the Public Works Commission.

$397.6 million for projects at 36 higher education institutions and $250 million for local jail construction.

All of the 19 no votes were from Republicans, some of whom stood up to speak but were not recognized and most of whom opposed House Speaker Jason Stevens and supported Derek Barron for that role.

Marin had also wanted to push for a vote on Senate Bill 83, which would ban most diversity training.

Require what the bill terms intellectual diversity on controversial topics and had banned faculty strikes, though that was take it out.

There was no vote on Senate Bill 83.

The only people that oppose it are the Democrats and effectively Jason and Jason.

Stephen.

So what we have right now is just absolute tyranny where Republican members are recognized on the floor.

But Stevens had a different view.

They were just being ornery because this is the last this is the last session before the primary.

It has been blatantly obvious that, you know, some members of our caucus are working actively against Republican members of this caucus.

And that was just showmanship.

And, you know, there was it was interesting.

Lee Marin was among the 75 yes votes on House Bill two.

It now goes on to the Senate.

But President Matt Huffman, who's likely to challenge Stevens as speaker if they are both elected to the House later this year, put out a memo to his members just before the vote.

It said Passing such a large spending bill without additional debate would be, in his word, irresponsible and that the House did not work with the Senate before approving House Bill two.

Columbus is considered the largest city in America without passenger train service.

But if rail backers get their way, Amtrak stations could pop up in central Ohio by the turn of the decade.

But there's a lot of money involved here.

State House correspondent Sarah Donaldson has more on that.

Columbus is one of the biggest cities in America without passenger rail.

But if rail backers get their way, Amtrak stations could pop up in central Ohio by the turn of the decade.

Still, there's a lot of track ahead.

The federal government greenlit studies of four Amtrak routes crossing through Ohio's major cities in December as part of its corridor identification program.

They include new and extended lines from a3c and D connector between Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati to a midwest Connector running through central Ohio from Pittsburgh to Chicago.

William Murdock is the executive director of Mercy, the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

The council works with nearly 100 governments in and around central Ohio.

Murdock says December was big for the region and the state.

Ohio did very well.

But since the announcement, he and other stakeholders have been getting a lot of questions they don't yet have the answers to.

Ohio is in the first phase of the corridor identification program, where it will use $500,000 of Federal Railroad Administration money to chisel out a high level view of construction and service feasibility.

That will answer those questions that everybody wants to know.

How much, how fast will it go?

Where will the stations be?

What's the exact alignment?

So what had been an idea and a planning process is now actually in the federal pipeline.

Murdoch says the study will also identify how to make freight and passenger rail better simultaneously.

It's a long haul.

Phase one could take anywhere from a year to three.

The state would have to kick in 10% of the funding in the second phase and 20% in the third phase.

Initially, Murdock believes there will be fewer stations in between the major hubs and the trains won't go faster than cars.

So a trek across the state would still take several hours.

But Amtrak's spokesperson, Mark Magliari, says if the train isn't frequent or it's not reliable, it doesn't matter how fast it goes.

He argues on Amtrak.

You can get more done working, texting, nodding off.

All things you shouldn't do while driving.

Are things you can do safely on an Amtrak train.

Magliari says he feels the current momentum right now to bring and build out service in Ohio.

He wants to feel what he calls stick to itiveness.

Because mayors or state legislators or governors come and go.

The earliest we would expect trains to start rolling would be about 2030, and it's 2024.

So that's not as far away as it seems.

But the potential project timeline outlasts Governor Mike DeWine's remaining years as governor and even Ohio's next leaders first term.

It's not all a waiting game, though.

All aboard Ohio is making its case around the state.

Some lawmakers, mostly Democrats, trickled in and out of a breakfast.

The rail advocacy organization held Wednesday, where they shared results of a recent study by public policy research firm Zero Analysis.

That study says the three C and D corridor alone could create more than a thousand jobs and generate between 64 and $66 million statewide.

But it's estimated the cost to build the line would be at least $1,000,000,000.

Sarah Donaldson, Statehouse News Bureau.

In just the span of a year, sports betting became a $7.6 billion legal industry in Ohio.

Well, more than double the estimate from the researchers who work for state lawmakers.

And 98% of all bets are online.

A survey by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services released last year down just over half a million Ohioans or about 3% of the state's population, are estimated to have a gambling problem, triple the percentage of possible problem gamblers from the survey in 2017.

The head of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, which oversees sports betting in Ohio, says it's hoping to take that on.

And we just got our funding released from the state to do this as begin a project using A.I.

to be able to take the same kind of data that's being used now.

All the data points for players by our operators and use that same thing to help them engage in safer play so that the very use of a sports gaming app can be a prevention tool itself.

And help people not lead to a gambling problem.

Using the best of neuroscience, A.I.

clinical experts and scientific experts, bringing them all together and putting a very unique best in class product that will be embedded in each operators app.

I talked about the wins and losses in sports betting in Ohio with Democratic former state Representative Dan Dodd, who's now a lobbyist representing the industry.

Some people seem to have a difference of perception between the person who goes out to the casinos, sits down at a slot machine and plays for a while, versus the person who downloads an app and bets from the couch.

But they are both gamblers.

Has sports betting caught on because it's convenient?

Is it more socially acceptable?

Is it finally legal?

Why is it caught on in such a big way?

Well, I think one thing that's important to understand is that people have been betting on sports for well over a century.

You think about the the Chicago Black Sox, they were playing the Cincinnati Reds.

That was back in 1918, I believe it was.

So this is something that's been going on for a long time.

I think technology has caught up to what people are expecting and what is convenient for people.

So especially with Ohio and the way that the casinos are set up in the racetracks, a lot of those locations are not convenient for people for a variety of reasons.

But when you have an app that you can use on your phone from anywhere within the state, as long as you're geofence within the border, it's just a lot more convenient to do from your couch, to do from the game, to do from the restaurant or the bar where you're watching it.

And so that's why I think it's caught on and it's something, you know, sports is a big business here and we are blessed not to have so many professional teams, but Division one, college athletics teams as well.

So we're a great market for it.

You know, one of the top ten in the nation.

And we continue to expect to grow, hopefully to become a top five market in the next couple of years.

And that brings me to the question about the revenue the state has brought in $936 million in revenue, which Matt Schuler with the Casino Control Commission says puts Ohio in one of the top five states in terms of revenue being brought in.

Last year was quite a year that you had Ohio State, the national championship, you had the crew winning a championship, you had the Bengals coming off a Super Bowl year.

What are the expectations going forward?

I think moving forward, there will be a couple of things that we have to keep in mind.

One, the the numbers from this year, especially in the early part of the year when we were around the launch date, a lot of that was spurred by promotional revenue.

So, you know, bet $5, get 150 and bonus bets.

The state total still taxes those promotional credits.

You're not going to see as much of that in year two.

But what I think you will see are more consumers who are signing up and placing probably smaller bets on more sporting events and using this as basically part of their their daily maybe not daily, but weekly sports viewing.

So we would expect, I think, to see the market grow somewhat.

We will still have new people signing on, but I think you will start to really see it set a win and become a big part of how people view sports and how they watch sports.

Gambling addiction, which we have to talk about here, is considered the most dangerous addiction.

And people can lose their homes.

They can lose their savings, they can be charged with financial crimes.

It's got the largest number in terms of percentage, people who die by suicide over any other addiction.

But casinos have long been offering perks and trying to get people to come in, including targeting problem gamblers.

Now, online operators are using the Internet to try to reach the people who are most likely to bet on sports.

Young men, usually college educated.

I'm wondering, you've said that sportsbooks are trying to attract recreational bettors who are betting smaller amounts.

So what kind of guarantees are in place to make sure that problem gamblers are not being targeted or even created?

Well, I think that's one of the advantages that you have with using an online app as opposed to betting in-person, which you can do largely anonymously, depending on the amount of money that you're betting.

But an online app has stringent know your customer protocols when you register and then also when you are making deposits.

So those folks who sign up for the apps can set their own limits when they sign up for the app or can do that at any time.

Regarding the amount of money that they're depositing the frequency with, which they're depositing and and the length of time that they're spending on the app.

What you have also the advantages that the online app provides is that the credit card processors and other types of folks who are monitoring how these accounts are being used can troubleshoot and see when people are making too many deposits.

If they're using multiple apps to make multiple deposits.

There's a lot more of a paper trail or a digital trail that we have with online betting that we don't really have on the real retail side.

And we certainly didn't have when it was illegal last year.

Some operators were sanctioned by the Casino Control Commission for advertising free or risk free promotions or bonuses, but gamblers were required to incur a loss or risk their own money to get those, and some did not include the problem.

Gambling number that is required.

Were those oversights or was that intentional?

Those were largely oversights.

So the the the the gambling prevention language is is pretty boilerplate.

And so when there are instances where it's not provided that, that's just an oversight, I think in terms of the risk free bets, that's a that's an issue of terminology.

And it's something where, you know, they have been doing this in other states, advertising it as risk free.

And the fact is, is that the Casino Control Commission didn't see it as accurate, saw it as misleading.

And so when those operators were notified, they changed the language.

And other states have followed that lead that Ohio took in, prohibiting the use of risk free as a as a way to describe the promotional credits that they offer.

What about kids, especially high school age kids, early college young men who are very into sports?

There were mailings sent out to people under 21 that was a sportsbook event held at the University of Toledo.

My son was 16 when he got a football betting guide from a sports operator.

How do you ensure that people who are too young to gamble aren't being targeted.

Depending on the way that the communication is done, certainly with in the in the context of direct mail?

There is vetting that operators can do with addresses and names to determine how old the recipient is.

There's always, you know, I shouldn't say always, but a lot of times there will be mistakes.

Just something slips through the cracks.

And and operators are always trying to use the new and best technology and databases to make sure that that doesn't happen.

But nothing is really going to be 100%.

But I do think that they are making an honest effort, especially because the Casino Control Commission is handing out those fines.

I think where you start to run into some issues, you know, events on college campuses are one thing when you are conducting things, you know, at a professional arena, certainly you're expecting everybody to be over 21.

But it it is something that I think the operators are cognizant of and understand that they do need to follow the rules and the statutes that are in place.

One of the issues I think that that has come up is that the operators may think they're following the statute in the rules, and then they may find out that there is a different interpretation of the rules or that the rules are going to change.

And and at that point, you know, there was a big run up between when House Bill 29 passed and then when gambling launched or sports gaming launched in in January of 2023.

And operators had expectations.

They expected a 10% tax rate and six months later as 20 and so I think when you build up an operation, expecting a certain set of of statutes and rules to be in effect, and then they change.

So, so soon after the launch, it can throw them off and it and it can make operating difficult.

And so that's why we continue to to reach out to the commission to make sure we have a good understanding of what their expectations are and then also provide them our point of view as to what we think is a correct interpretation, but also what is the best business practices that we've seen in other states and also how operators are trying to do the right thing.

Let's talk about that 20%.

It was 10%.

It did double to 20% in the current state budget.

There is a proposal to take it back to 10%, but that hasn't moved at all.

What was the reaction in the community, the industry, to this doubling of this tax, which was intended, I think to really go after some operators that Governor Mike DeWine thought were not acting appropriately?

Well, I think that it was disappointment.

Obviously, when you go through the entire process that the industry went through with House Bill 194 and Senate bill, you know, two sessions ago and then finally getting it passed and everybody, you know, operating from the understanding it was 10% and then launching and then finding out, you know, a couple of months later that the governor wants to to double the rate.

It was disappointing.

It was the only tax that was raised in the budget.

And and I don't think it was done out of a need for money and I think what our understanding of it was is that there were people who were disappointed with the amount of advertising that operators were doing.

Advertising is essential to for an operator to get a the market share that they need to be profitable.

And so you're going to see a lot of ads.

You're going to see a lot of promotional credits.

Ohio is one of the states that taxes those promotional credits, even though the operator isn't making any money off of it.

If somebody loses $150 in bonus bets and the operator is paying 20% on that, even though it's their money.

And so I think it was certainly disappointing to see it because agreements were signed with proprietors on, you know, market share agreements, minimum revenue guarantees, and then for all of those to be thrown into flux because the tax rate doubled with little to no warning that it was going to be, it was extremely disappointing that.

Any operators leave the state.

Not yet.

I think it's early to say.

You know, everybody is going to want to go through the first year.

But when you look at the the revenues that come out from the Casino Control Commission every month, some of them were struggling at a 10% rate.

I think at 20%, you're going to see even more struggle.

And I think, you know, in a year or two, you will probably see that number decrease in terms of the operators that are active here.

Another possible change is the NCAA has requested the Casino Control Commission banned bets on individual college players known as player proposition bets if they are stopped, it would be the first time the state has restricted or prohibited any specific wagers or events.

Should the state ban those player prop bets?

In my personal opinion, no.

I think this is something that was considered by the General Assembly when the legislation was moving through the process.

The General Assembly chose to allow betting on college events.

Some states have not, but the General Assembly did.

The language in the statute requires the governing body, in this case, the NCAA, to present, you know, a reason why a certain type of betting be banned.

And the Casino Control Commission is to grant that for good cause.

In my personal opinion, I don't think mean tweets constitutes good cause.

I think that there needs to be a lot more evidence provided to take out an entire category of betting from the state's catalog.

And I think that there is a burden that the governing body assumes that has not been met through anecdotal evidence that has presented not based on the integrity of the sporting event.

Nobody has alleged that somebody has thrown a game or or patted stats or incurred negative stats on in in order to benefit from sports betting.

And so absent that proof, I think that the NCAA has to demonstrate a lot more to to make the case to the commission that good cause exists, but we'll see what they choose to do.

So the mean tweets, you don't see those as threats.

It would depend on the context.

I don't know that the NCAA provided any of them.

I know that there was the instance regarding University of Dayton and the men's basketball team, the coach complaining about it.

We don't actually know, to my knowledge, that that was related to a prop bet.

So, you know, a prop bet when you're betting on somebody to score a certain number of points is a lot different than a a spread bet where you're betting on the final outcome of the game.

And so that's another thing I think the NCAA should demonstrate that the the conduct that they are concerned about was related to prop bets that were made by bettors in Ohio.

You know, people aren't going to start getting negative messages on Twitter.

They're not going to stop if this passes.

You know, it might not be from people betting on it in Ohio, but those messages are still going to come through.

I think that is the responsibility of the NCAA and the commission to demonstrate that the conduct that they are concerned about is a result of the types of bets that they are seeking to prohibit.

There's a ton of personal data that is shared through these apps and online, just like with online shopping, that information can be used to both prevent problem gamblers but also to target them.

Couldn't it be?

In theory, it could.

I think those who are on the exclusion list either voluntarily or placed there by the Casino Control Commission, are not going to be targeted.

That's already against the law, both in statute and in rule.

I think that technology does have a role in determining who is using the technology in an appropriate way.

And I think that the industry would would certainly embrace any reasonable use of that type of intelligence to weed out those who are betting above their heads and not with it.

And finally, there's a House Senate panel that's going to convene later this month to talk about the future of gambling in Ohio and sports betting.

What do you expect that group to do?

I think that they're going to take testimony and hear and receive input from people who have varying opinions on a lottery or I Casino or iGaming and figure out what the state wants to do with those.

You know, when it comes to iGaming, we have states around us who offer it.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia.

Right now, Indiana may join those ranks soon.

And it's something where we want to make sure that that those individuals who want to engage in gaming in a responsible way have all of the options available to them that are that are feasible and and I think that they'll hear a lot of viewpoints, probably both positive and negative.

But we're hoping that something comes of it where the state can can offer those everybody in the state, regardless of where they live, the opportunity to engage in gaming in a responsible way.

The revenue from sports betting helps fund resources for gamblers concerned that they might have a problem.

The helpline is 805 899966.

Pause before you play dawg and keep it fun.

Ohio dot com.

Also have information as well as change the game Ohio dot org which is aimed at preventing kids from gambling and gamblers can voluntarily ban themselves from casinos racing and sports gaming at time out Ohio dot com.

And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the statehouse news bureau of Ohio Public Radio and television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at state Newstalk or find us online by searching the state of Ohio show.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statehouse news bureau comes from medical mutual dedicated to the health and well-being of Ohioans offering health insurance plans as well as dental, vision and wellness programs to help people achieve their goals and remain healthy.

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The Law offices of Porter Wright Morrison, Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

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Porter Wright inspired every day.

The Ohio Education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools.

Every child deserves more at OHEA.org.