The Monday After: Exploring 'The Gambling Game' 25 years ago

"You'll never stop people from ... drinking and gambling."

A bookie named "Joe" said that 25 years ago to The Repository.

"On a bad weekend," he added, "I'll make about $5,000."

The gambling that "Joe" engaged in was of an illegal nature in back rooms of bars and a bookie joints.

Statistics reported in recent months by various media outlets seem to verify the popularity and the profitability of legalized sports gambling in Ohio since online sports betting became legal at the beginning of this year.

The state reported that Ohio betters placed more than $1 billion in sports wagers, bringing in more than $208 million in revenue and $24 million in taxes, during the first month following baseball's Pete Rose placing Ohio's first legal sports bet at a kiosk in the Hark Rock Casino in Cincinnati on Jan. 1, 2023.

Ohio had grossed more than $1.7 billion in sports gambling by the end of February, and Ohioans bet almost $2.5 billion in the first three months of 2023.

The state's sports gamblers had placed nearly $4 billion in wagers in the first six months of legalized betting.

Many Ohioans obviously like putting their money where their rooting interests are. But, is their gambling simply an avid entertainment activity or an addiction?

That was the debate being fostered 25 years ago in Ohio when an issue to prevent an off-track betting venue from being established in Stark County was being considered on the November 1998 ballot. Support for turning down the measure and thus approving the betting site came from an unlikely source.

"I'm all for it. As a matter of fact, I don't know what has taken them so damn long," said another local bookie. "My God, look at the money you would keep in the area. People are leaving Ohio and taking their money and blowing it in other states that border us. Pretty soon the state will wake up and realize how much money it is losing."

Investigative series ran in Repository

Others didn't look upon gambling with such favor.

"Gambling ruined my life, and it's ruined a lot of people's lives," one gambler told The Repository for a six-part series – "The Gambling Game" – that the newspaper published in October 1998.

Late in the 1990s was an era when most gambling was everywhere, but it was relatively invisible, engaged in on motor-coach junkets to faraway casinos, wagered quickly by people buying lottery tickets at gas station convenience stores, hidden in the shadows cast by the operations of bookies, and illegally competed in during smokey backroom card games.

Oh, money from wagers on golf courses was openly exchanged at the end of rounds and permits were available for bingo offered by churches as entertainment. But, the former was considered just what golfers do to make the game more exciting and bingo games were operated as fundraisers.

"Between the Ohio Lottery and charitable bingo, Stark Countians wagered nearly $105 mllion last year," an introduction to the series estimated. "Millions more (one bookie estimates he handles as much as $100,000 a football weekend) is bet illegally on sports and in informal wagers over the 18th hole."

Add to that Monte Carlo nights, parlay sheets and bus trips to legal casinos in other states. And, in 1998 there was the chance off-track betting would become a stitch in the gambling fabric of Stark County, if the issue on the ballot failed to be approved by voters.

"This week, The Repository is examining the extent of gambling – legal and illegal – in Stark County and by Stark Countians," the newspaper announced to its readers on Oct. 18, 1998.

Series captured all gambling

The series said that while some gambling addicts might bet on everything – horses, casino games, sports, etc. – usually they focused on personal interest.

For a particular 27-year-old compulsive gambler interviewed, sports was that interest.

"I was good at poker," he said, claiming he once won $30,000 on a hand of poker at a casino. "But that was never enough money for me. I wanted more."

So, he turned to betting on games that others played, beginning with football and eventually extending to basketball and baseball.

"Then I would bet on everything (in the game)," he said, noting that a lot of the bets he placed depended on luck instead of research and an educated judgment of skill. "I would bet on who would make the first shot of a game, how many turnovers someone would have."

The gambler estimated he lost about $70,000 in 10 years of sports gambling, but that put him on the low end of losing.

"Seventy grand is a lot of money, but that's nothing. I'd be just warming up compared to other people."

That was the financial level and moral atmosphere in which voters in 1998 passed the gambling issue that spurned the off-track betting venue in Stark County.

"All bets are off for an off-track betting parlor – at least for now," the Repository reported on Wednesday Nov. 3, 1998, the day after Election Day. "Voters passed Issue 10 by a 10% margin Tuesday night. The issue prohibits off-track betting in Stark County for five years."

According to the article, the ban was approved by all five cities and 17 townships the country. It passed narrowly in Canton. A no vote would have cleared the way for Northfield Park to build an off-track betting parlor in the 3000-block of Atlantic Boulevard NW.

"Gambling is bad for the social fabric," said voter who had approved the issue on what the newspaper called "moral or practical terms."

"It does more harm than good, and disrupts families."

Legal betting begins in Ohio

The approval of the sports gambling in Ohio met with a warmer welcome nearly two years ago.

"We want to get this up and running as soon as possible, but we're building a whole new industry." said Sen. Kirk Schuring, R-Canton, soon after Ohio General Assembly approved House Bill 29 late in 2021, kicking off the development of a system by which Ohioans could place bets on professional, college and electronic sports.

It would take until January 2023 for that betting system to be built in the Buckeye State. When it was in place, and bets had been placed for a few months – with 98 percent of revenue earmarked for education and the remaining 2 percent headed toward providing assistance to problem gambling – a USA Today Network article provided readers with a list of the "Best Sportsbook Apps."

"The best Ohio sports betting apps offer exciting promotions, high-quality software and appealing odds on the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and various other leagues," said the article published on Sept. 19, 2023. "Our experts have reviewed every licensed betting app that has launched in the Buckeye State since the legal wagering industry began on Jan. 1, 2023. We can now reveal the seven best Ohio betting apps on the market."

Online sports gambling was a reality. All that was left was to educate betters about how to do it right.

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP.

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: The Monday After: Exploring 'The Gambling Game' 25 years ago