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SportsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - You mentioned the lottery.
00:06 If I'm not mistaken, there is no lottery also in Hawaii.
00:10 So, that's been just a place where it's just been
00:14 very hard to get things done generally speaking.
00:16 And I know Fantasy was under some scrutiny there as well.
00:20 I can't imagine that there's a ton of progress here
00:23 with the state, but I know that you have an update here
00:25 from the House Economic Development Committee.
00:28 - Yeah, so Hawaii is again one of those five states
00:31 without a lottery.
00:32 There's no gaming whatsoever in Hawaii.
00:36 And they've, you know, a lot of lawmakers, not a lot,
00:40 a few lawmakers have tried, you know, every year
00:43 to get a sports betting or a gaming bill on the docket.
00:47 They talk about it pretty much every year in a committee.
00:50 And this year is no different.
00:52 There's multiple bills.
00:53 There were two bills that were heard last week
00:56 and will be heard again this week
00:57 in the economic committee.
00:59 One is simply to open up a 40 year license
01:03 for one casino resort on Oahu, which, you know,
01:06 that's getting some pushback
01:08 'cause they just don't want gaming.
01:09 And then another one is to open up online sports betting
01:12 to operators who are in three or more markets.
01:16 And again, that's getting pushback.
01:19 And these, it's an interesting state
01:22 because unlike these states in the Southeast
01:25 and in many of the states that have passed sports betting
01:29 that are Republican controlled and, you know,
01:32 Hawaii is almost exclusively Democrat.
01:35 And that's posing a separate issue
01:37 because in all the other states,
01:39 we see opposition on both sides of the aisle.
01:43 You've got, you know, Republicans who are morally
01:46 against sports betting and believe that it's not,
01:49 you know, ethical and not right.
01:50 And then on the other side, you've got Democrats
01:52 who believe it preys on underserved communities
01:56 and preys on those with addiction issues.
01:59 In Hawaii, you've got the one side
02:02 and that's almost exclusively what we heard
02:04 in this committee is concerns about what's going to happen
02:08 to the people with addiction issues
02:12 or the poor people in the state
02:14 and that they're just preying on it.
02:16 And that actually ended up derailing the bill last year
02:19 when one of the sponsors,
02:20 who is the chairman of this committee said,
02:22 "Yeah, we're not gonna do this this year."
02:26 This year he spoke out last week and said,
02:30 "You know what?
02:31 That's not why I'm putting this bill out.
02:34 I'm not trying to get that tax revenue from that,
02:37 from locals.
02:39 Tourism's pretty flat in Hawaii.
02:41 This is just giving it another amenity
02:42 that people can come and do in Hawaii
02:45 because they can do it in the rest of the US."
02:47 And we'll see if that argument makes
02:50 any sort of difference.
02:51 But again, multiple groups, multiple legislators,
02:55 and even the various Hawaii police departments are saying,
02:59 "Oh no, we already have enough issues
03:00 with illegal card rooms and illegal gambling operations
03:05 that we just don't want to legalize it
03:07 and make it even worse."
03:09 (upbeat music)
03:11 [MUSIC]