Daily Fantasy Sports to be legalised in Ohio

The bill that would legalise DFS in Ohio cleared the House, is now in the state Senate and could become law this fall.

Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) could be legalised this fall, according to Representative Jonathan Dever, who introduced H132 with Rep. Rob McColley and projected it to make it to the floor of the Senate by Thanksgiving and be enacted in the first quarter of 2018. The bill easily cleared the House and sits now in the upper house, waiting to be discussed.

As reported by Legal Sports Report, the bill was one of the items on the docket for yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing in the capitol but the legislation wasn’t voted. However Rep. Dever is confident that it will be voted soon enough in order to make DFS a reality in Ohio by early next year. His optimism was backed earlier by an industry lobbyist who said the state was likely to pass a bill this year.

There were some other failed bills in the past that tried to legalise DFS but didn’t make it, after Attorney General Mike DeWine urged lawmakers to address the issue. In 2016, Sen. Bill Coley introduced S 356 but it wasn’t friendly to the industry. Sen. David Burke followed with the introduction of S 375, which eased up on the terms, but the calendar run out and both bills were put on hold until 2017. This year, Reps. Dever and McColley introduced H 132, which was swiftly voted by the House and is set to turn into a law soon.