Sports Betting

Question A: Legalization of sports gambling in the state of Ohio would create economic benefits that outweigh the policy's economic costs.

Question B: Legalization of sports gambling with new revenue dedicated to education or low-income tax breaks would reduce inequality in the state of Ohio.

Question A: Legalization of sports gambling in the state of Ohio would create economic benefits that outweigh the policy's economic costs.

Economist	Institution	Opinion	Confidence	Comment
Jonathan Andreas	Bluffton University	Uncertain	6	If gambling brings in revenues from suckers in other states, that would benefit Ohio, and it would be beneficial if it is merely replacing illegal gambling and gambling money that Ohio suckers are sending to other states, but it wouldn't be an economic benefit if it just replaces other less-addictive forms of entertainment in the state. I don't know enough about the current situation to guess.
Bizuayehu Bedane	Marietta College	Uncertain	8
David Brasington	University of Cincinnati	Strongly Agree	10
Kevin Egan	University of Toledo	Agree	5	I think it is possible for benefits of legalized sports gambling to be greater than the costs however the law needs to be carefully designed to maximize small amounts of recreational gambling and minimize problem gambling. A relatively high tax rate for legal gambling is optimal to discourage problem gambling and ideally part of the tax revenue be used to help the few that do become problem gamblers. Optimally gambling needs to be taxed at a higher rate than other substitute forms of entertainment.
Kenneth Fah	Ohio Dominican University	Uncertain	8
Bob Gitter	Ohio Wesleyan University	Agree	7	Probably true but no great effect. Have to consider additional gambling problmes but hard to put a dollar value on additional enjoyoment of legal gambling
Nancy Haskell	University of Dayton	Uncertain	6
Paul Holmes	Ashland University	Uncertain	8	It's clear some people enjoy sports gambling, the increased consumer enjoyment is the main benefit, though there are other potential benefits also. Whether or not these outweigh the negatives from the inevitable increase in problem gambling is hard to predict.
Faria Huq	Lake Erie College	Agree	5	Tax revenue and job creation would be some of the economic benefits. However, there would be social costs due to the addictive nature of gambling which would disproportionately affect lower income households.
Michael Jones	University of Cincinnati	Disagree	3	Mobile sports betting is highly competitive and will cannibalize higher margin, on-site casino revenue. If mobile betting is legal, Ohio citizens will be more comfortable with the technology (and gambling in general), and they will turn to global, cryptocurrency platforms with built-in anonymity. This will simultaneously deprive the State of any of this potential tax revenue while siphoning revenue from existing gambling sources.
Fadhel Kaboub	Denison University	Strongly Disagree	10	The State legislators didn't bother to commission studies on the negative social and economic impacts of gambling. They simply took the industry's own analysis, saw dollars signs, and voted yes.
Charles Kroncke	Mount Saint Joseph University	Strongly Agree	10
Trevon Logan	Ohio State University	Uncertain	7
Joe Nowakowski	Muskingum University	Agree	4
Curtis Reynolds	Kent State University	Disagree	7	Research on expansions of sports gambling suggest that tax revenue gains are relatively small (and may be offset by declines in tax revenues from other sources such as casinos). So economic benefits may not be that large, costs are harder to quantify.
Lewis Sage	Baldwin Wallace University	Uncertain	1
Thomas Traynor	Wright State University	Agree	8	Sports gambling is already prevalent in Ohio, the state will now earn revenue, anti-gambling law enforcement spending will decline, and Ohio wage and salary earnings will rise. However, gambling addiction problems will increase and many gambling losses will be suffered by low income households.
Ejindu Ume	Miami University	Uncertain	7
Andy Welki	John Carroll University	Agree	7
Kathryn Wilson	Kent State University	Uncertain	3
Rachel Wilson	Wittenberg University	Disagree	7	It will not bring in enough new dollars, but rather reallocate state entertainment spending.

Question B: Legalization of sports gambling with new revenue dedicated to education or low-income tax breaks would reduce inequality in the state of Ohio.

Economist	Institution	Opinion	Confidence	Comment
Jonathan Andreas	Bluffton University	Disagree	5	In theory, this could undo some harms that gambling tends to disproportionately inflict upon low-income and low-education people, but education spending is fungible and existing funding is likely to get crowded out by gambling funds with zero long-run increase. Plus gambling revenues are more volatile than traditional tax revenues, so the instability from year to year would create new challenges for education funding.
Bizuayehu Bedane	Marietta College	Uncertain	8
David Brasington	University of Cincinnati	Agree	6
Kevin Egan	University of Toledo	Uncertain	5	Depends on if higher income or lower income people do more legal sports gambling and depends on the substitution away from state lotteries or will legal sports gambling be complementary and lead to more state lottery, etc? Either way, income inequality is a major issue so regardless I support the use of the funds to assist lower income households, such as through state universal high quality pre-k education for everyone.
Kenneth Fah	Ohio Dominican University	Agree	8
Bob Gitter	Ohio Wesleyan University	Disagree	8	When Ohio said we would use lottery funds to support education, other state education expenditures did not remain constant. Just a different source of funding.
Nancy Haskell	University of Dayton	Agree	6
Paul Holmes	Ashland University	Disagree	6	Would the 'new revenue' supplement or replace existing (planned) spending? Public Finance history tells us it's likely to replace it, so that suggests there would be little effect on spending. But the negative financial effects of gambling will fall on lower- to middle-class people (mostly men) so I would guess a small worsening of inequality.
Faria Huq	Lake Erie College	Uncertain	4	It would depend on HOW the revenue is distributed within education. In addition, while it may redistribute some income to low income households, it would also increase income for wealthier households, and may end up widening the income gap.
Michael Jones	University of Cincinnati	Disagree	3
Fadhel Kaboub	Denison University	Strongly Disagree	10	Education is only a component of what it takes to tackle inequality. I see this as a regressive social policy that will actually contribute to increasing inequality in the long term.
Charles Kroncke	Mount Saint Joseph University	Strongly Disagree	10
Trevon Logan	Ohio State University	Uncertain	7
Joe Nowakowski	Muskingum University	Agree	4
Curtis Reynolds	Kent State University	Disagree	7	Revenue gains are not likely to be large so not much help on reducing inequality. However, research does appear to suggest that this is less regressive than other forms of gambling taxes, so may not worsen inequality. Ultimately, probably has no measurable effect in aggregate.
Lewis Sage	Baldwin Wallace University	Uncertain	1	sports betting will only help education if it does not displace other funding sources sports betting will reduce inequality only if bettors are upper-income and the revenues are spent on lower-income households
Thomas Traynor	Wright State University	Uncertain	5	Since state government can shuffle other funds around, it is unclear whether state gambling revenue increases net spending on education or low-income tax breaks. Also, low income households, as a whole, may be a net payer of gambling tax revenue relative to their benefits.
Ejindu Ume	Miami University	Agree	8
Andy Welki	John Carroll University	Agree	7
Kathryn Wilson	Kent State University	Agree	3	This depends greatly on how exactly the tax revenue is spent. If it is targeted towards education with a disproportionate number of low-income children then it may help reduce inequality some. However, I would not expect it to be a large effect.
Rachel Wilson	Wittenberg University	Agree	6