Titus seeks new allies in decade-long quest to kill federal sports betting tax
Will this be the last year Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) files legislation to end the handle tax? Like clockwork, the Nevada congresswoman has again submitted a bill to end the excise tax on sports wagers. But she’s hoping bipartisan support and D.C.’s tax-cutting environment kills the 70-year-old levy.
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A decade ago, Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) was alone in seeking the repeal of a small federal excise tax on sports wagers. At the time, Nevada was the only state with legal sports betting and the $9 million collected by the Internal Revenue Service from taxing the state’s $3.6 billion in sports wagers didn’t draw much notice.
But with sports betting now legal in 38 states and Washington, D.C., the IRS collected nearly $370 million from the federal handle tax in 2024 — and the push to repeal the levy has gained traction in states beyond Nevada.
Titus first started looking into the tax — 0.0025 percent on every legal sports wager — in 2014.
Nevada sportsbooks took in $7.9 billion in sports bets during 2024, with operators paying a combined handle tax of almost $20 million. Titus said the levy does nothing except “penalize legal gaming operators for creating thousands of jobs in Nevada.”
Titus, who has filed bills to repeal the handle tax at the start of every session of Congress since 2014, reintroduced the legislation last week along with Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA). The two are co-chairs of the Congressional Gaming Caucus, which has 32 members.
She’s hopeful that having bipartisan co-sponsors, including fellow Nevada Reps. Steve Horsford (D-NV) and Mark Amodei (R-NV), will finally put an end to the handle tax, which was created in the 1950s as a way to track illegal gambling activities.
“More states are involved and there are more co-sponsors,” Titus said of the 2025 bill. “This seems like it will be a big tax session where we’re looking at all kinds of tax policy. So maybe there is a chance to hook it on to something else.”
Congressional Republicans are currently pushing forward on a massive tax bill that could cut taxes by up to $4.5 trillion and sets a goal of cutting federal spending by $2 trillion, but the future of the legislation is uncertain given united Democratic opposition and the House GOP’s small majority.
Others have pushed for a repeal of the tax, including Circa owner Derek Stevens, who told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he planned to talk to President Donald Trump about repealing the handle tax during the president’s rally in Las Vegas last month.
According to the Washington, D.C.-based American Gaming Association, sportsbooks nationwide took in more than $147.9 billion in wagers last year. Given sports betting’s rapid growth in the nearly seven years since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, Nevada has gained support from other states to eliminate the tax.
In addition to Reschenthaler, Titus said the legislation gained support from Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly, a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Pennsylvania was the nation’s fifth-largest sports betting state with revenue of $782.1 million on $8.4 billion in wagers in 2024. Eliminating the handle tax would have saved the state $21 million.
Titus said ending the handle tax would “seem to fit the Republican mantra of cutting back on taxes. So maybe we have a shot at it.”
The AGA is backing Titus’ effort.
The trade organization opposed a bill introduced last September by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) that would create a federal framework for regulating online sports betting and use the funds raised by the handle tax to pay for problem gambling treatment programs. The bill was reintroduced in February as the Gambling Addiction Recovery, Investment and Treatment Act, or GRIT Act.
“We disagree with that approach,” AGA Senior Vice President Chris Cylke said last week, adding that the gaming industry has spent millions of dollars funding problem gambling research and other treatment programs.
Cylke said efforts to eliminate the handle tax made “significant strides” in the last congressional session, and the “massive amount of legwork” the AGA has undertaken could be helpful with the tax policy issues coming up for discussion in the new session.
“We feel like we're in a better position with something bipartisan and bicameral,” Cylke said, noting that much of the tax discussions often deal with multibillion-dollar pieces of legislation.
“Ours is a relatively small ask but it does have a real significant impact for the industry,” he said.
Unused funds to demolish Tropicana to roll into Bally’s resort development
More than $125 million remains in the fund that Gaming and Leisure Properties set aside for Bally’s Corp. to demolish the Tropicana Las Vegas and develop a new property on the 35-acre south Strip site.
Gaming and Leisure’s President Brandon Moore said the real estate investment trust spent $48 million out of the $175 million it set aside for both October’s demolition of the Tropicana and for the gaming company to build something to complement a $1.75 billion, 33,000-capacity Major League Baseball stadium for the relocated Athletics.
“We’re waiting to hear from Bally’s to better understand the development and what might be expected from us,” Moore said of the plans for a resort to replace the Tropicana. His remarks came on the company’s quarterly conference call last week.
Bally’s leases the site from Gaming and Leisure, paying $10.5 million in annual rent. The casino operator is providing the Athletics with 9 acres for the domed stadium. In October, Bally’s released preliminary plans showing a 3,000-room integrated resort surrounding the ballpark site.
Moore said the prospects for the “more certain stadium location” were clearer than Bally’s plans.
The A’s are expected to play home games the next three seasons at a minor league ballpark in Sacramento until moving to the Las Vegas stadium in 2028.
Nevada continues to fall in the sports betting rankings
Nevada casinos produced $15.6 billion in 2024 gaming revenue — more than the combined total of the next two largest states — Pennsylvania with almost $6.9 billion and New Jersey with $6.3 billion — according to a February report from the American Gaming Association (AGA).
But Nevada — once the lone place where someone could place a legal sports wager — has fallen out of the top 10 sports betting destinations just seven years after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed states to legalize the activity.
Nevada’s sportsbooks reported $482.1 million in revenue, a single-year record for the state. However, New York’s sports betting industry topped the nation with almost $2.1 billion in revenue, followed by Illinois with $1.2 billion and New Jersey with $1.1 billion.
According to the AGA, sports betting revenue from 38 states and Washington D.C., grew 25 percent in 2024 to $13.7 billion. The American Gaming Association said 95 percent of all sports betting was done online.
Analysts have said that unless the state changes a sports betting regulation to allow a customer to register a mobile account without requiring the person to physically enter a casino’s sportsbook, Nevada will continue to tumble in the rankings.
Remote registration helps states challenged by geography. For example, New Jersey’s retail sportsbooks — at horse racetracks in the north and Atlantic City’s casinos in the south — are separated by nearly 125 miles.
According to the Gaming Control Board, mobile wagering accounted for 66 percent of all sports bets in Nevada in 2024.
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Resorts World Las Vegas hires new CFO as management changes continue
The management shake-up at Resorts World Las Vegas continued last week with the hiring of gaming industry veteran Carlos Castro to a dual role as the property’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer.
Castro was most recently CFO at Aria Resort and Casino. He’s also held senior leadership positions with Hilton Hotels Corp., Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International.
His hiring follows last month's appointment of Alex Dixon as CEO and a part-time board of directors, led by gaming industry veteran Jim Murren.
Castro replaces Terry Vavra, who took over as interim CFO in 2023 following the firing of former property President Scott Sibella. Sibella was replaced by Resorts World CFO Peter LaVoie, who, according to a source familiar with the operation, is no longer with the Strip property but is working with Resorts World owner Genting Berhad.
According to a Resorts World Las Vegas spokeswoman, Vavra is remaining at the property in another capacity.