by Jon Styf
Tennessee saw a record $405.3 million in sports gambling wagers in October, according to numbers released on Thursday afternoon.
The previous high was $386 million in January.
With that, the state collected $6.99 million in taxes, the second-highest amount on record after collecting $8.7 million in taxes for September wagers.
Tennessee has now seen more than $6 billion in wagers since it opened for online sports gaming in November 2020 with $94.4 million in taxes collected over that span.
Tennessee collects 20% of the industry’s net operator revenue in taxes. Of the sports gambling taxes, 80% of the taxes collected from sports gambling goes to education, 15% goes to the state for distribution to local governments and 5% goes toward mental health programs.
The council expected the tax numbers to rise after the committee issued a memo to sportsbooks this summer stating that, starting July 1, it would be creating new standards for how earnings are reported and how the taxes are calculated.
The June 15 memo defined how sportsbooks need to calculate profit numbers, including how it pertains to promotional bets given to gamblers as deposit bonuses, odds boosts, free bets and more.
– – –
Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies. Styf is a reporter for The Center Square.Â
Photo “Horse Racing” by clarencealford.
Let the gamblers pay for roads as well. TDOT can cease whining about not having enough money for road repairs in the future, despite the 30% gas tax increase they got only 3 years ago.
I hardily agree with you on this one point. Tennesseans are overtaxed and the state under delivers. Maybe it would be better if Lee had been dumped but, now we have him for another 4 years. Gd help us.
Of course, it might be bad to desire to run the government on gambling taxes when so many children go hungry. At least, the government is telling me that they are going hungry in order to give away more of my tax dollars.
Is it not time to end the sales tax on groceries? Let the gamblers cover the loss of grocery tax revenue.