Ohio Lawmaker Proposes Sports Betting Fee
Mike Goodpaster Published 17/04/2026
Legal and regulated sports betting sites in Ohio already pay a 20% state tax. If a new bill that’s been put forth by a State Senator is approved, an additional 2% will be charged as a fee on every sports bet placed in Ohio.
State Senator Louis Blessing III, a Republican from Cincinnati, is the lawmaker behind Senate Bill 199 (SB 199), which would impose this 2% tax on every sports bet placed in the Buckeye State. The bill proposes revising the current legal code for sports betting to levy a fee on gross sports gaming wagers and to use revenue from the fee to support publicly owned professional sports facilities and interscholastic athletics.
Blessing is pushing a plan similar to the one proposed by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine in his most recent budget. The Senator believes the plan is a win because it would essentially be the sportsbooks paying these costs, rather than the public coffers. He estimates the 2% per-bet fee could raise $204 million a year for the state.
"If we really do put school funding to bed for the foreseeable future - it's a public good, and again people forget that school funding is in fact property tax relief," Blessing told Ohio television station WSCX.
A Democrat is blasting this plan as foolishness
Blessing’s plan already has its opponents, none louder than State Senator Bill DeMora, a Democrat from Columbus. He pointed to Blessing’s description of his 2% per-bet levy as a Pigouvian tax. That is a levy intended to raise revenue while discouraging bad behavior. Blessing believes that in this instance, sports betting is bad behavior.
"Why are we just taxing gambling because some people don't like it, including the governor, who doesn't like anything that's fun?" DeMora said.
He also derided the recently proposed Save Ohio Sports Act. That’s a House proposal, which, if passed into law, would bring an end to online sports betting in Ohio and eliminate prop and parlay wagering.
“I’m morally opposed to what the bill introduced to the House is, because that’s ludicrous,” DeMora said. “No one’s going to bet if you don’t have prop bets and parlay betting. And I’m not sure those two sponsors of that bill actually know what those things are.
“I know our governor doesn’t know what they are, actually.”
Levying a per-bet tax has proven disastrous in Illinois
Ohio has already doubled its tax on sports betting from 10% to 20%. State lawmakers rejected Gov. DeWine’s budget proposal to again double that rate to 40%.
If Blessing’s bill were to become law, it would effectively do just that.
In 2025, Ohio sportsbooks paid $209 million in taxes at the new 20% rate. Blessing’s plan would add an additional $204 million to the coffers if Ohioans were to equal the $10.24 billion they wagered on sports last year.
That isn’t a given, however. Ohio lawmakers only need to look to nearby Illinois to see the negative impact a per-bet tax can have on the sports betting market.
A per-bet tax in that state led to massive decreases in sports betting. The Illinois state legislature is now considering a bill that would eliminate the per-bet tax.
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