HONOLULU (KHON2) — Online sports gambling won’t be coming to Hawaii anytime soon. A bill that would have made it legal died in the state legislature April 25, the last working day of the session.
HB1308, introduced by Rep. Dan Holt, would’ve made online sports betting legal.
“We just haven’t come to an agreement on the details with number of operators, tax rate, fees and those kinds of things,” Holt said. “And there’s still some kind of questions left unanswered by some of the members who have concerns about sports betting.”
The big question is the estimated $10 to $20 million in revenue gambling could bring in, worth the problems associated with it like crime and addiction.
“It’s a good chunk of money,” Holt said. “It wouldn’t fix all our problems, but it is a sizeable amount of money that we could’ve had to address some of our issues.”
“This is the fifth state in 2025 that said no to expanding online gambling,” said Les Bernal, Stop Predatory Gambling national director. “Because other states have seen the harm, both financial harm and public health harm that predatory gambling has inflicted in the states that have legalized online gambling.”
Sen. Lynn DeCoite introduced the senate’s version of the bill.
“For me, I was asked to introduce that, introduce the bill, which is why it brought a lot, it brought a lot of information,” DeCoite said. “People came out and then like when I go home, a lot of people I talked to were like ‘you know we should have gambing.’ I’m like ‘well where are you when we’re testifying.’”
DeCoite says she’s actually against legalized gambling. Although these bills started a good dialogue, they’re putting the cart before the horse, and the state should have a working group first to understand all the potential effects before making gambling legal she said.
“I think it is where it should have been–right here dead,” DeCoite said. “So that we can come up with the right information to make better sound decisions on whether this is what the community wants.”
Gamblers know there’s no such thing as a sure bet. But gambling supporters say there’s one thing that is guaranteed–they will fight for legalized gambling again next year.
“Do you think sports gambling will ever be legal in Hawaii? You know, we’ll give it another try next year and we’ll see how it goes,” Holt said.