Hawaii to Sit Out 2025 Without Sports Gambling Regulation

Once again, Hawaii came fairly close to legalizing sports gambling during the current legislative session, but in the end – the same old issues continued to crop up without middle ground outlined by either camp.
A bill that sought to regulate sports gambling failed to muster the necessary support, consigning the issue to the backburner, and not to be raised before the legislative session next year.

Disagreements Over Taxation and Control Stall Progress

Rep. Daniel Holt, who sponsors the bill and is one of its backers, has said that everything in his power was done to see this piece of legislation through, but ultimately, some details proved too incendiary and no agreement was reached on matters such as taxation, as well as who would run the industry.
Hawaii has been historically opposed to the idea of allowing mainland companies from the United States’ continental body to set up shop in the archipelago-state.

It is what it is, and we just got to work harder next year, try to answer the questions that the rest of the members and the public has and see if we can capture this tax revenue that we much need for our state, Rep. Holt acknowledged, while remarking that some progress in the matter has been achieved nevertheless.

Advocates Focus on Long-Term Planning

T. George Paris and Hawaii Ironworkers Stabilization Fund representative, Cliff Laboy, said that the current bill was not for naught. In fact, a lot of good has come out of it, helping to calibrate future proposals’ language and ensuring that they are tailored to address the qualms and fears of those opposing the legislation.

Get the task force, go out there, find out, study, do your due diligence, come back, go back to the table, and figure out which way you want to go. But Hawaii needs something like this. There’s no other way… unless the legislators can come to the general public with a plan on how we’re gonna bring new money into the state, Laboy said, outlining the future strategy for next year’s push to introduce sports gambling in the state.

Naturally, opponents have not sat quietly on the sidelines, but argued that by introducing online gambling, Hawaii would de facto open a casino in every bedroom and at every place with a connection to the Internet. Hawaii badly needs fresh sources of revenue, but for the time being, fears of the negative knock-on impact of legalizing sports gambling far outweigh any touted economic gains paraded by proponents.