A bill filed in Ohio would make the state the first in the U.S. to tax online sportsbooks on both their handle and their gaming revenue.
Sen. Louis Blessing’s SB 199, which was introduced on May 14, would add a 2% tax on total wager dollar amounts to the existing 20% tax on adjusted gaming revenue for online sportsbooks. The handle tax would also apply to bricks-and-mortar sportsbooks’ activity.
While Tennessee has taxed sports betting operators at 1.85% of their handle instead of 20% of their revenue since 2023, Ohio would be the first state to tax both simultaneously if the bill were to pass.
The proposal would dedicate the vast majority of the extra money from the handle tax to maintaining and upgrading publicly-owned sports facilities such as the stadiums of men’s and women’s pro sports teams in the Buckeye State, as well as constructing new stadiums.
How much more money would handle tax bring in?
Ohio has had legal sports betting since January 2023. In the nearly two-and-a-half years since the market launched, more than $19 billion in total handle has been wagered on licensed sportsbooks.
Had the 2% tax been in place for all of that time, it would have yielded more than $380 million for the state. To date, Ohio has earned $359 million in tax dollars from its revenue tax rate, which was doubled by Gov. Mike DeWine from 10% to 20% within six months of the state going live with online sports betting.
The Ohio Casino Control Commission’s latest figures show that in March 2025, Ohio sportsbooks made more than $66 million in taxable revenue from $985.8 million in sports wagers. That revenue sum yielded $13.3 million in tax revenue; 2% of handle would have produced $19.7 million extra.
Ohio wants more gambling revenue, but how?
It remains to be seen whether Sen. Blessing’s bill gets his fellow senators’ blessing, but his novel proposal is the latest suggestion from an Ohio lawmaker on how the state can make more revenue from gambling.
DeWine wanted to double the sports betting tax rate again, this time from 20% to a high 40% rate, but his proposal was rejected by state lawmakers and scrubbed from the budget.
Meanwhile, noises from lawmakers suggest that the state may be ready to more seriously consider legalizing online casino as a revenue-generator.
The day before Blessing filed his handle tax bill, Sen. Nathan Manning introduced a measure that would authorize online casino, online lottery games and online horse racing wagers. It would set a tiered tax system that would charge operators either 36% or 40% depending on how they provide online casino. Manning predicted that legalizing online casino and taxing it this way would bring in anywhere from $300 million to $1 billion in annual revenue for the state.
Meanwhile, in the House, Finance Committee Chair Rep. Brian Stewart is working on his own piece of online casino legislation, also with the aim of generating revenue for the state.
