Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine Signed A Law Legalizing Sports Betting. He

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - If Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine could turn back time, he would not have signed the law that legislated sports wagering in his state.


With 2 Cleveland Guardians pitchers and an Ohio-born guard for the Miami Heat snared in different betting-related criminal probes, the second-term Republican says he now "absolutely" regrets unleashing this unbridled new market on Ohioans with his 2021 signature.


"Look, we ´ ve always had betting, we ´ re always going to have gambling," DeWine told The Associated Press recently. "But just the power of these companies and the deep, deep, deep pockets they have to advertise and do whatever they can to get somebody to place that bet is really various once you have legalization of them."


His comments reflect a reckoning that's unfolding throughout sports and politics as sports wagering becomes more ingrained across much of the U.S. The wave of legalization over the last few years let loose an enormous market centered around wagering and, more just recently, a wave of investigations and arrests connected to allegations of rigged video games. It's a vibrant that DeWine says he doesn't think legislators totally anticipated.


"Ohio shouldn't have done it," he said.


DeWine just recently emerged as a crucial player in the negotiations in between Big league Baseball and its authorized video gaming operators that led to the capping of prop bets on individual pitches at $200 and excluding them from parlays. The offer was announced earlier this month, a day after Guardians pitchers Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase were arraigned and accused of rigging pitches at the behest of gamblers. Both have pleaded not guilty.


FILE - Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Brennaman, right, speaks with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, left, throughout "Marty Brennaman Day" prior to a baseball game between the New york city Mets and the Cincinnati Reds, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean, File)


"Gov. DeWine really did a big service, I believe - to us, definitely, I can ´ t speak for any of the other sports - in terms of kind of bringing forward the need to do something in this area," MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told press reporters recently.


And DeWine doesn't plan to stop there. Shortly after Ortiz and Clase were very first put on paid leave this summer season, he revealed he 'd be asking the commissioners and gamers' unions of all the major U.S. sports leagues to prohibit prop bets - sometimes called micro-betting - like those implicated in the Guardians scandal. While that goal has not yet been achieved - micro-betting is important to business method in a market with over $11 billion in earnings in the U.S. this year - DeWine stated limits put in place for baseball are a great initial step.


"It requires to be holistic, it requires to be universal," he told the AP. "They ´ re just playing with fire. I imply, they are just requesting a growing number of problem, their failure to address this."


DeWine's recent sentiments mark a notable position shift after he pledged to - and after that did - sign a legalization law that was sweeping in scope. The legislation permitted adults 21 and older to position sports bets online, at casinos, at racinos and at stand-alone wagering kiosks in bars, restaurants and professional sports facilities. Wagering was allowed under the costs on professional sports groups, automobile racing, Olympic occasions, golf, tennis and even significant college sports, including Ohio State football.


It was clear in the run-up to DeWine ´ s re-election in 2022 that the gambling market was extremely thinking about what was transpiring in the state.


An AP investigation that year discovered that casino operators, slots makers, gaming technology business, sports interests or their lobbyists contributed almost $1 million in 2021 and 2022 to the nonprofit Republican Governors Association, which supported pro-DeWine committees through its campaign arm. Entities and individuals with ties to the market also donated more than $22,000 directly to DeWine's project, according to campaign finance reports.


A review of more current campaign filings discovers that market largesse has continued to stream to Ohio politicians with sway over gaming's future.


Lobbyists and a PAC with ties to Jack Casino, DraftKings, FanDuel, MGM, Gamewise, Hard Rock, Underdog, Rush Street or Caesars have donated about $130,000 to Ohio state legislators in the past 3 years, records reveal - about a 3rd of that directed to top House and Senate leaders. Then-Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, who was positioning as DeWine's most likely gubernatorial follower, had gotten about $9,000 from industry-connected entities and people before being designated to the U.S. Senate.


A minimum of one effective state lawmaker, Republican House Finance Chairman Brian Stewart, had actually pledged to present legislation safeguarding prop bets prior to professional baseball's crackdown.


"I think that prop bets are a considerable part of sports wagering in the state of Ohio," Stewart told cleveland.com in August. "It ´ s something that clearly a great deal of Ohioans have actually participated in and delight in, and I wear ´ t think there ´ s something that we must remove completely."


Amid such pushback, DeWine and others now see voluntary buy-in from leagues, gamers' unions and sportsbooks as an exceptional technique to pursuing betting constraints on a state-by-state basis, where the authority lies.


Matt Schuler, executive director of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, stated the baseball offer DeWine assisted broker has actually revealed it can be done.


"He ´ s using the bully pulpit and he ´ s able to link with the ideal individuals in that method," Schuler stated of DeWine. "Nobody believed that everybody might get on the exact same page, however now they did due to the fact that everybody understands the danger. The bets are little, however the risk is huge, therefore, having observed video gaming and controlled it for about 14 years, this is excellent."


DeWine said his interest in sports betting began almost as soon as Ohio's law took impact in 2023. Very rapidly, his office began receiving reports that bettors were threatening members of the University of Dayton basketball team.


So he called NCAA President Charlie Baker, whom he understood from Baker's time as governor of Massachusetts, and discovered that he shared DeWine's issue. He got Baker to write a letter asking for the removal of collegiate prop bets from the list of legal wagers that in Ohio could position, which permitted DeWine to usher the change through the gambling establishment commission.


After the Guardians case emerged this summer season, DeWine approached Manfred with the exact same concept. They hadn't both been guvs, however DeWine did have one cache entering: his household's veteran ownership of North Carolina's Asheville Tourists. DeWine stated Manfred asked him to hold back on pressing unilateral action in Ohio, in hopes of getting the celebrations to accept a brand-new nationwide rule.


"I would have chosen to have actually completely done away with the micro-prop bets, but this is the location that he was able to settle on with them, and I was pleased with that," DeWine said. "Therefore, I think that ´ s development."


DeWine, who deals with term limits next year, said he would be pleased to sign a repeal of Ohio's sports betting law at this point, however he's certain there's inadequate assistance for that at the Ohio Statehouse.


"There's not the elect that. I can count," he stated. "I ´ m not constantly right, but I can basically guarantee you that they're not ready to do this."


Instead, he'll continue to make his case in other ways.


DeWine, an avid baseball fan, especially of his home town Cincinnati Reds, stated he thinks "these sports are having fun with dynamite here and the integrity of the sports is at stake."


"So, you attempt to do what you can do, and you attempt and alert individuals, and attempt to take action like we finished with collegiate, and you attempt take action like what we ´ re doing with baseball," he stated. "But we ´ ve got to keep pressing these other sports to do it, too."


AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum added to this report.


FILE - Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, right, waits to give out checking out certificates to children before a Cleveland Guardians baseball video game versus the Minnesota Twins in Cleveland, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Phil Long, File)