SCOTT COUNTY, Minn. - The complicated nature of legalized gambling in Minnesota could be summed up by a guy under an umbrella.
- Minnesota's gambling restrictions are unique, but modernization and other help through mobile sports betting is possible.
- Proposed legislation would legalize mobile sports betting via tribal partnerships, allocate tax revenue to support horse racing and charitable gambling, and help level the playing field against unregulated offshore competitors.
- Despite broad support from key stakeholders including tribes, charities, and racetracks, legalization efforts continue to stall due to political resistance and concerns about problem gambling.
That red-and-white Budweiser umbrella, a chair, and a small table, are on a wooden deck on the outskirts of the patio at the Boardwalk Kitchen and Bar in Shakopee, Minn., a literal stone’s throw from the racing surface at the Canterbury Park racetrack. It could even be a pretty big stone, as the deck and the umbrella are just that close to the track.
But because of its proximity, the guy who sits under the umbrella can take bets on races run over his shoulder at Canterbury Park. A nearby sign attached to the black chain-link fence running around the restaurant’s patio and the wooden deck says “WAGER ON CANTERBURY PARK RACES HERE,” and the umbrella guy is said to do brisk business on race days.
However, if the guy under the umbrella took just a few steps toward the restaurant (and it may not be a guy, I was just told he was a guy), he’d be off the deck, and he couldn’t take any of those bets.
A new dining and entertainment venue is coming to Shakopee in spring 2025, located just 25 feet from the racetrack at Canterbury Park. 🏇
— Minnesota Monthly (@MNMOmag) November 19, 2024
Read about the offerings at Boardwalk Kitchen & Bar here: https://t.co/BqHkpiZmgN
📸: Boardwalk Kitchen & Bar pic.twitter.com/tlwpzNFV6f
That is because Minnesota allows wagering on Canterbury Park races when you’re at Canterbury Park, but only then. While the sign informing patrons that they can wager on Canterbury Park races with the umbrella guy also has a QR code directing them to the 1/ST BET mobile app, an online racebook, you can’t bet Canterbury Park races using the app. A so-called "advance deposit wager" in the state can only be made on races run outside of Minnesota.
Put differently, in Minnesota, you can bet on Canterbury Park races when you're at Canterbury Park, full stop. You could legally bet on the Kentucky Derby from a table at the Boardwalk Kitchen, but not on a race at the track you can literally see from the restaurant.
Maybe the idea of a guy under an umbrella taking bets strikes you as silly, but it works and provides some insight into the unique gambling industry in Minnesota. It also helps explain why supporters of online sports betting sites are trying to show how legalized mobile wagering could ease the concerns of opponents and fix some of the state’s existing gambling issues. While the unique nature of gambling in the state shows why legalizing Minnesota sports betting has been difficult there, it's also possible that sports betting could provide some help.
For example, a provision tucked into an online sports betting bill introduced this year in the Minnesota legislature proposed tweaking the state’s horse racing rules. S.F. 757, which wasn’t passed this year but will carry over into 2026, would make it so that an online wager could be made on "any horse race that is conducted inside or outside of the state."
In other words, no more needing to travel to the Boardwalk or Canterbury Park just to bet on Canterbury Park races. You could just do so from home using an app or website (and the same would go for races at the state's other track, Running Aces). That would be a win for Canterbury Park, according to CEO Randy Sampson, as online horse race wagering “is a big part of our business model.”
Handle @CanterburyPark Sept. 10
— Canterbury Press Box (@CBYTrackFlack) September 11, 2025
On Track: $81,933.10
Out of State: $499,887.98
Total: $581,821.08
While Canterbury Park would no doubt welcome more people to the track, Minnesota is a big state. Not everyone who wants to bet Canterbury Park races can make the trip on any given day, and an additional bet there would help no matter where it’s placed.
The current setup presents an obstacle to more wagering on Minnesota horse races, which means less money for the state’s horse racing industry.
Bettors 'migrating' WHERE?
The Minnesota Racing Commission’s latest biennial report showed annual advance deposit wagering in the state fell to roughly $56.4 million in 2024, down from nearly $61.3 million a year earlier, from $65.1 million in 2022, and from $77.5 million in 2021.
“Following the height of the pandemic, as other gaming and entertainment options returned to pre-pandemic standards, there has been a steady decline in horseracing wagering on ADW platforms,” the regulator said in its report. “Some of the decrease may also be due to bettors migrating their wagering dollars toward sports betting, even though such gaming has not been legalized in the state.”
The phenomenon is not exclusive to Minnesota. Pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing has taken a hit across the U.S., and this is happening as legal sports betting spreads and other, unauthorized forms of gambling continue to linger and grow.
Canterbury Park also has a casino on the grounds with poker and table games, albeit with certain restrictions, such as a maximum table game wager of $300. According to Canterbury Park's latest financial filings, total casino revenue was $18.7 million for the six months ended June 30, down from $19.9 million for the same period of 2024.
The company attributed the decrease to, among other things, “increased competition.”
Again, that competition isn’t just from locally regulated business rivals either. Daily fantasy operators, sweepstakes casinos, offshore sportsbooks, and, most recently, federally regulated prediction markets offering sports event contracts are all accessible in Minnesota. They are all competing for the same gambling dollar as Canterbury Park, too.
“It's the Wild West out there right now,” Sampson told Covers in an interview this week.
While Canterbury Park was interested in getting a sports betting license of its own in Minnesota, the track and Sampson have adjusted their position, and become supportive of a mobile wagering model that runs through the state’s Native American gaming tribes.
Something for everyone
This is because of what else is in a bill like S.F. 757. In addition to the ADW tweak, it includes statewide mobile sports wagering and the tax revenue that comes with it via a 22% tax rate. Out of the tax revenue collected, 15% would flow to the state’s horse racing industry for prize money and other expenses.
All that said, Minnesota has not legalized the same forms of sports betting as 39 other states have done, including all of its neighboring states. And lawmakers have tried repeatedly, including earlier this year, without success.
One of the challenges in legalizing sports betting in Minnesota has been the various gambling stakeholders already authorized in the state and their various concerns and interests. Sports betting legislation has been proposed that tries to address those concerns, and will likely be re-proposed or tweaked in 2026 to try again.
Consider now what goes on in literally hundreds of bars in Minnesota every day, when patrons walk in, sit down, and ask for some paper pull-tabs. The tabs are basically a tradition in Minnesota, with people plunking down cash across the state for a shot at winning even more cash. And, for the modern pull-tab enjoyer, there are electronic versions on tablets, which were legalized to help pay for the Vikings’ stadium.
The tabs are seemingly everywhere in the state, including at the track and in casinos, and they could be considered a big-money business in Minnesota. However, at the end of the day, money is supposed to flow to charitable causes.
That’s a lot of money won over the weekend! pic.twitter.com/XQacHG9Q9A
— 3 Diamond Pull Tabs (@3DiamondGaming) August 4, 2025
More than $4.7 billion was wagered using paper and electronic pull-tabs in Minnesota for the year ended June 30, 2024, according to the Minnesota Gambling Control Board. Net revenue from tab wagering was more than $650 million, and out of that money comes expenses, taxes, and regulatory costs.
The remaining cash is “available for mission,” the money that goes to various charitable causes. In the 2024 fiscal year, that was nearly $140 million from all forms of charitable gambling in Minnesota, not just tabs.
“Statewide, licensed organizations had an average of 20¢ of every dollar available for their charitable mission,” the Minnesota Gambling Control Board said in its annual report. “A major factor impacting the amount available for an organization’s mission is its expenses – something that the Board is monitoring.”
There has also been a significant change to charitable gambling in Minnesota. In 2023, following litigation, the legislature banned the “open all” feature for e-pull-tabs, something that the state’s gaming tribes saw as a little too much like slot machines. Those changes took effect this year, and the Gambling Control Board has said it is keeping an eye on how sales of pull-tabs are affected.
Keeping tabs on it
Some state lawmakers already see an issue, and want to undo the “open all” ban. In February, for example, Republican Rep. Marj Fogelman put out a press release saying that since the “watered-down” electronic pull-tabs were put in place, local veterans’ groups “have noticed a dramatic drop in activity, ranging from 20% - 44% statewide.”
Even a 30% drop in revenue could translate into a $115-million annual loss for groups relying on those charitable proceeds, Fogelman warned.
“It’s time to restore the original electronic pull tabs in Minnesota,” she said.
Electronic pull tabs have been a huge success story in Minnesota, but now proposed changes to scale back their features have charitable gambling groups saying they were blindsided. https://t.co/pMBdT74hdJ
— FOX 9 (@FOX9) April 19, 2023
Well, S.F. 757 doesn’t propose restoring the “open all” feature, but it would provide 45% of all online sports betting-related tax revenue to charitable gambling groups for tax relief. Like horse racing, there would be something in mobile sports wagering for charities struggling with Minnesota’s tweaks to gambling law.
Arguably, though, the biggest winner if Minnesota were to legalize sports betting could be the casino-operating Native American tribes in the state. That is because a model that puts tribes at the center of mobile sports wagering (as S.F. 757 does) appears to be the most likely candidate for success.
For example, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, which owns and operates the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, could run their own online sportsbook or partner with an operator like DraftKings or FanDuel to do it for them.
The tribe could also open a retail sportsbook at its casino, which opened a new restaurant this August called the Hop House. The sports bar looks like it was designed to be a sportsbook as well in the future, with “state-of-the-art screens” for watching the game and spaces for kiosks or to position ticket writers.
The hometown boy is back @athielen19!! 😏 As always, skol! Can't wait for our next watch party.#vikings #skol #Thielen #McCarthy @Vikings pic.twitter.com/S8MjFbURdu
— Mystic Lake Casino (@mysticlake) September 11, 2025
S.F. 757 (and its companion in the Minnesota House, H.F. 1842) even promised money to tribes that had no or little interest or success in the online sports betting business. According to the legislation, 15% of tax revenue would be transferred to a “sports betting equalization account,” from which tribes that have no sports betting partner or a sports betting partner with less than 10% market share could get paid.
This is an important compromise. While Minnesota has 11 federally recognized Native American tribes, only nine are in the gambling business. So, not every tribe may wind up with a big-name sportsbook partner, but every tribe could still realize a financial benefit from sports betting.
“The equalization account guarantees that every Minnesota tribe will either have success in the market or be eligible to collect a small piece of every mobile sports bet made in this state,” said Andy Platto, executive director of the pro-sports betting Minnesota Indian Gaming Association (MIGA), during a panel discussion at the Indian Gaming Association's mid-year conference on Tuesday at the Mystic Lake Casino.
Of course, any debate about legalizing sports betting includes opponents wary of expanding gambling for fear of increasing problematic play and addiction. Indeed, that was basically how the conversation around legalization got started in Minnesota this year, with a hearing focused on risks rather than rewards.
“They're basically preying on vulnerable people, and they don't want to talk about that,” Democratic-Farmer-Labor Sen. John Marty said of online gambling operators that ducked the hearing.
Minnesota will restart the conversation around sports betting legalization today with a committee hearing that will focus on "economic, health, and social harms resulting from online sports betting." pic.twitter.com/Tg6Ey5IBgB
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) January 8, 2025
Yet the legislation introduced as the year went on tried to address those concerns as well, such as S.F. 757 promising 10% of tax revenue for problem gambling programs.
“We have members of both parties who have concerns about the dangers of problem gambling, and so am I,” DFL Sen. Nick Frentz said Tuesday at the IGA conference. “Our last incarnation of our bill was one of the strongest in the nation, to provide resources for those that need support with problem gambling and still allow those Minnesotans that feel responsible to have the fun that they want to have.”
Sports betting supporters are working to sell the other side in the legislature on their problem gambling approach. They are trying to open the opposition’s eyes to the widespread online gambling already happening in Minnesota.
Exactly how much is already being bet in Minnesota with entities the state hasn’t legalized is hard to nail down. Nevertheless, Frentz (a sponsor of S.F. 757) said that the state has “billions of dollars of illegal online sports betting” happening right now.
During another panel, Gene Johnson, executive vice president of Victor-Strategies, presented data from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming estimating sweepstakes revenue in the U.S. this year could top $14.3 billion (albeit including California, which is on the cusp of banning sweeps).
Minnesota would account for a slice of that sweepstakes revenue, and disproportionately more than some other states of similar population size, because Minnesota has no legalized forms of online gambling to compete. It does, however, have in-person forms of gambling, such as the Mystic Lake Casino where the IGA conference was held.
“These are an existential threat to what we have going on in this building today and anywhere else in a legally regulated casino in the state,” said Brendan Bussmann, managing partner for gambling consulting firm B Global, during an IGA conference panel.
If Minnesota had online sports betting, it would at least have that to compete with offshore sportsbooks, prediction markets, and sweepstakes casinos. It would also, as MIGA’s Platto said, act as a vote of confidence in the tribes for their ability to manage any further online gambling expansion in the state.
Canterbury Park’s Sampson said there is urgency to move on legalization given the unauthorized rise of online gambling in Minnesota.
“These other models are taking over,” Sampson said. “The wagering is taking place. It's just not taking place in a regulated marketplace in Minnesota."
What's the holdup?
But for legal sports betting to happen, a bill will have to be passed in the Minnesota legislature. That has proven to be a big problem, albeit one lawmakers are still hoping to solve as early as next year.
Success for mobile sports betting will hinge in part on whether all of the various quirks and concerns of Minnesota’s existing gambling industry are addressed. It’s very possible that next year will bring new quirks and concerns that will need to be addressed as well. Comments made at the IGA conference suggested as much, that more tweaking could be needed to get a sports betting bill passed.
Even so, Platto said charitable gaming groups, the state’s professional sports teams, Canterbury Park, sportsbook operators, and the tribes have all voiced support for the tribe-centric sports betting model.
So, with a united front forming, what ultimately decides the issue may go beyond money and unity, even if those things can't hurt the cause.
“We’re going to have to keep working,” Frentz noted. “It’s not the details that are holding us up, it’s some foundational objections.”
