Ohio, California Could Be Next States to Legalize Sports Gambling

State Senators in Ohio passed legislation that would legalize sports betting in the Buckeye State while California politicians discuss the possibilities of adding additional tax revenue via gambling.

Sports and Business News: May 28th

Betting in the Buckeye State

State legislators in Ohio passed a bill that would legalize sports gambling and are now waiting for Ohio’s House of Representatives to pass the bill. H-194 was introduced to Ohio’s legislature in October of 2019. Representative Dave Greenspan told Legal Sports Report the goal is to have the bill on the governor’s desk by the end of 2020.

Legalized sports gambling could be coming to the Golden State, as one California representative introduced the idea to help combat a budget deficit of more than $50 billion. California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a budget cut of $14 billion, but Assemblyman Adam Gray says tax revenue from sports gambling could help generate $2 billion which would be a record high among states with legalized gambling.

There are 18 professional sports teams in California. Florida has the second-most in the United States with 13. There are 17 states in America that have legalized sports gambling. 

Boras Battles MLB Owners

The battle between Major League Baseball players and owners continues as the two sides cannot agree on salaries for the shortened 2020 season. The most recent plea on behalf of the players comes from super-agent Scott Boras, who told his clients not to negotiate with the owners on further salary cuts.

The MLB owners and Players association originally agreed to a prorated rate on March 26th and Boras is advising his clients to ensure the owners stick to that agreement which cut minimum salaries down from $563,000 to $262,000 and the league’s highest-paid players from $36 million down to $8 million.

In an email obtained by the Associated Press, Boras told his clients to “let owners take some of their record revenues and profits from the past several years and pay you the prorated salaries you agreed to accept or let them borrow against the asset values they created from the use of those profits players generated."

According to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, MLB owners would lose about $4 billion if games were played without fans and they paid the players the agreed-upon prorated amount.

Daily Coronavirus Update 

There are 5.7 million cases of the virus worldwide with over 356,000 deaths. In the U.S. there are 1.7 million cases. The U.S., per data from Johns Hopkins, has now surpassed 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus. In Brazil, there are now over 411,000 cases with over 25,000 reported deaths, per Johns Hopkins. 

The Labor Department said 2.123 million Americans filed jobless claims for the week that ended May 23rd, down slightly from 2.438 million claims for the week earlier as parts of the U.S. economy slowly began to reopen after more than two months of being shuttered amid the coronavirus pandemic. Continuing claims, a number that tallies not just people filing for unemployment benefits but staying on them, were 21.052 million for the week that ended May 16th, down from a record 25.073 million.

TheStreet's Katherine Ross contributed to this report.