How Massachusetts May Impact Idaho Sports Betting

In the absence of any material Idaho sports betting updates, everyone monitoring the situation must look elsewhere to see whether there’s anything afoot that could prompt change in The Gem State.

For so long, there has not been anything that meets this criteria. Make no mistake, sports betting in the United States has undergone plenty of changes and evolution over the past seven years. But most of these tweaks do nothing to incentivize states currently disinclined to even discuss the legalization of sports betting.

However, this may have changed with the introduction of the Better Health Act in Massachusetts. Proposed by Senator John Keenan, it is the kind of legislation that could change the industry. That includes inviting more conversations about the legalization of sports betting in Idaho.

The catalyst driving this hypothesis? That would be the unprecedented level of regulation sportsbooks would be subject to under the Better Health Act

What is the Better Health Act in Massachusetts?

There is a lot in this bill to parse. With a quote from Keenan himself, Paul Burton of WBZ News recently laid out all the necessary details:

“[As Senator Keenan says:] ‘It's a multi-billion-dollar business that is growing every single day. Now, what I'm hearing from people is that they feel that they can't even watch a sporting event without something coming up relative to placing a bet. And they feel that it is too much.’ The bill intends to:

- Raise the tax rate on online betting platforms from 20 percent to 51 percent
- Ban sports betting advertisements during game broadcasts

Limit how much people can bet each day until gambling opportunities can conduct affordability checks, ensuring that someone has sufficient funds.

That final detail is the most important one as it relates to the future of Idaho sports betting. The same goes for another aspect of the Better Health Act which calls for online sportsbooks to increase the funds they contribute to “public addiction services.”

Effective regulation ranks among the chief concerns for every state that has yet to legalize sports. As sports betting in Massachusetts is now proving, it’s even top-of-mind for markets that already offer it.

So many problematic elements fall through the cracks. Underage betting, questionable advertising practices, artificial intelligence tools being used to pilfer sensitive information from sportsbooks, betting scandals, increase rates of report addition—the list goes on. Plenty of states with more liberal stances on gaming have expressed concern over these trends. So of course this is an issue for The Gem State. Officials aren’t just against Idaho sports betting. They have generally taken a hard-line stance against all forms of gambling, except the ones offered in a limited capacity on tribal properties.

Would Stricter Regulation Lead to Idaho Sports Betting Legalization?

This is a difficult question to answer. We need to see whether the Better Health Act makes it through the various batches of red tape it must still clear. And then we need to see whether it effectively curbs the risks that come with legal sports betting.

The prospect of affordability checks might go a long way toward spurring Idaho sports betting discussion. Most believe policymakers have avoided the subject for two reasons: limited tax-revenue upside compared to other markets, and the adverse socioeconomic impacts sports betting can have on large segments of the population.

That second worry is incredibly fair—not to mention accurate. Multiple studies have shown markets that legalize sports betting incur dramatic upticks in problem gambling reports. Meanwhile, more recent research suggests that bankruptcies are on the rise in the age of sports betting as well.

Implementing more thorough financial background checks could, in theory, help limit the downside. Sportsbooks will push against it. These checks will be expensive to run, and it exposes them to more liability should customers with financial issues bet them into a hole. Still, it would also force them to be more diligent about who they accept wagers from, while also ensuring they cannot as haphazardly offer special promotions with the sole purpose of getting unvetted users to deposit and gamble more money.

Don’t Hold Your Breath for Idaho’s Stance on Sports Betting to Change

Now, while the fate of the Better Health Act in Massachusetts could absolutely be something that Idaho policymakers clock, we are not talking about an imminent shift.

The Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act back in 2018. This gave states the individual power to legalize sports wagering. In that time, exactly zero Idaho sports betting bills have received any meaningful consideration. That speaks to how far The Gem State is from changing its views.

But this is also why the Better Health Act and significantly increased regulation can mean so much. Idaho sports betting isn’t a singular issue. It is a reflection of the state’s view gambling at large. For their impressions of gaming to change, the industry itself and the potential fallout from legalizing it must change first.

Truthfully, this has yet to happen. Every major alteration seems geared toward sports betting taxes, licensing, consumer fees, tax-revenue allocation and a host of other issues. Certainly, extra layers of regulation have been added. But the Better Health Act is the first of its kind. And if it’s successful, it could become a new industry standard—one potentially effective enough to start an Idaho sports betting discussion for basically the first time.

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