Ohio kicked off 2023 in game-changing fashion by legalizing sports wagering at retail venues plus online sportsbooks statewide. The long-awaited day finally arrived January 1st after years of legislative red tape.
The Buckeye state is home to two MLS teams in Columbus Crew and FC Cincinnati, so MLS betting is very popular there, but they had significant set backs in getting the sports betting bill signed off.
It’s all gone through now though.
Ohioans and those just visiting the state can make bets in person and online thanks to sportsbooks’ location monitoring technology, and the sportsbooks themselves find Ohio a welcoming place to do business thanks to the agreeable 10% tax charged.
In other words, Ohio is not only a place where you can legally bet on soccer, but it’s also one of the best states to do so.
Ohio Went from Anti to Pro Gambling
Like many other Midwestern states, Ohio was mainly an anti gambling state for much of its early history. This is because it had a very religious population who considered gambling a vice.
Attitudes have shifted over time though, and coupled with a necessity to earn tax money, betting and gambling have now become accepted forms of entertainment accompanying soccer and other sports.
This shift started in the 1930s, when pari-mutuel betting was allowed on horse racing. However, all bets had to be placed on site, so betting wasn’t something Ohioans had easy access to. A state lottery was introduced in 1974, and then, in the 1990s, racetracks began to diversify their offerings in an attempt to save horse racing, which was in decline.
Casino gaming was legalized in 2009, prompting race tracks to turn themselves into racinos, and from this point on Ohio can be thought of as a pro gambling state.
It took them a while to legalize sports betting after PASPA was repealed in 2018, though. In fact, Ohio were only the 29th state to take advantage of the repeal, finally getting sports betting over the line on January 1st, 2023.
Opposition and Delays
The reason it took so long to legalize sports betting in Ohio wasn’t because the Buckeye state didn’t want it, but because they couldn’t decide who should run it.
House Bill 194 was introduced in the legislature in 2019 in order to lift the ban on sports betting, but both the Ohio Lottery Commission and the Ohio Casino Control Commission wanted regulatory powers.
There were also robust debates over how tax money earned from betting should be spent, plus concerns over the safety of punters.
This all took so long to iron out that it ran into the COVID pandemic, which put further delays on proceedings.
Representative Bill Seitz and Senator Kirk Schuring were instrumental in moving things forward, coming to a compromise with House Bill 29 in 2021. Regulatory authority went to the Ohio Casino Control Commission, with a structure that allowed betting kiosks in bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and other small businesses, as well as mobile betting and sportsbooks at casinos.
This was in part to ensure fair competition throughout the state, and is quite different from the rules in many other states.
It worked well for Ohio though. Governor Mike DeWine signed the bill into law on December 22, 2021, and although it took a full year for the system to be set up, Ohio quickly became one of the biggest states for betting in the country. They took $1 billion worth of bets in the first month alone, creating hundreds of millions in tax dollars.
MLS Teams in Ohio
Columbus Crew and FC Cincinnati are the two MLS teams in Ohio, so the state’s 12 million residents have a choice to make over who they will support.
In terms of location, Columbus Crew are situated in the very heart of the state, while FC Cincinnati is right on the border with Kentucky and not far from Indiana either. In fact, Cincinnati is the exact point at which the state border ends, along the Ohio River.
The location of both clubs leaves Ohioans in the North with a bit of a journey if they ever wanted to go see a game live, but then again, you can drive across the state in around 4 hours so it’s not impossible.
For this reason, Crew fans could claim Columbus to be the Buckeye state’s main club, especially since they were a founder member of the league, but I don’t think Cincinnati fans would go down without a fight despite only joining MLS in 2015.
Columbus are certainly the more successful, having won the MLS Cup and the Supporters Shield on several occasions, as well as the US Open Cup. FC Cincinnati have won the Supporters Shield, but that’s it. Then again, Columbus won many of their trophies when the league was much smaller, so these things are relative.
Interestingly, FC Cincinnati are one of the most heavily supported clubs in MLS. They regularly pull in capacity crowds at their 26,000 seater stadium. Columbus Crew are in the bottom 10 for average attendance, but then their capacity is only 20,000 and they regularly reach capacity. Social media can be more telling, but while Columbus Crew have more followers on X and Instagram, it’s not by much.
People in Ohio clearly love soccer though, and they clearly love betting on it too. Having two MLS clubs to follow must make the league even more exciting.