Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Charitable Gambling Electronic Pull Tabs topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Minn. GOP pushes bill to restore electronic pull-tab features as charities report revenue drops
Summary
State Representative Bjorn Olsen and charity representatives urged reinstating removed features in electronic pull-tab games through House File 733, citing month‑over‑month revenue declines and community impacts; the bill cleared the Veterans Committee and was referred to Commerce.
State Representative Bjorn Olsen (R‑District 22A) told a committee hearing that House File 733 would “essentially remove all the restrictions” placed on electronic pull‑tab games two years ago and restore features charities say are critical to their fundraising. The bill was passed out of the Minnesota House Veterans Committee and referred to the House Commerce Committee during the hearing.
The bill’s supporters said the 2023 law that removed interactive features from electronic pull‑tab games has sharply reduced revenue for local charities and veterans organizations. “The new games have been in play for one month, but the revenue has dropped,” Amanda Jackson, gambling manager for the Spring Lake Park Lions Club, told the committee. She said the club’s gross e‑tab sales fell from $947,000 in January 2024 to $816,000 in January 2025 and that the club “netted a loss of $7,000 while paying $78,000 to the state of Minnesota in taxes.”
Why it matters: charities including Lions clubs, American Legion posts and school activity foundations say much of their local giving — equipment for fire departments, student scholarships, school program support and food and clothing pantries — depends on proceeds from charitable gambling. “We serve,” Jackson said, summarizing the clubs’ plea to legislators.
Testimony from Bloomington and veterans groups described similar declines. Rachel Keller, president of the Bloomington Kennedy Activities Foundation, said the foundation partners with Post 550 and that last year the post gave the foundation more than $30,000. Tim Engstrom, gambling manager for the American Legion in Bloomington and communications director for the American Legion Department of Minnesota, said net receipts for one of his long‑running locations were down about 29 percent year‑over‑year and that e‑tabs specifically were down about 44 percent compared with the prior January.
Allied Charities’ executive director Rachel Jenner described statewide figures and the relationship to potential sports‑betting revenue. Jenner said e‑tab revenue deposited last year was about $386 million and warned that a 20 percent decline “would be over $70,000,000 in losses.” She said charities support the sports‑betting bill as a potential revenue source but that projected sports‑betting allocations (about $40 million in relief, as discussed among stakeholders) would not fully offset large percent declines in e‑tab receipts.
Committee questions and next steps: committee members asked whether sports‑betting allocations could make charities whole and whether any current games exist that lack the banned “open all” feature while retaining other bonus playability. Olsen said manufacturers and regulators had to redesign games and that, under the 2023 law, “they actually had to extend the deadline for the new games because there was no such thing as a game that would fit this requirement across the entire United States.” He told the committee the bill had been advanced from veterans to commerce and said he was optimistic about further movement.
Discussion versus action: the hearing record shows extended testimony and committee discussion but no recorded floor vote on the bill. The formal committee action recorded in the hearing was that House File 733 was moved out of the Veterans Committee and referred to the Commerce Committee for further consideration. No committee vote tally is included in the transcript.
Voices from the hearing included charity managers and veterans who described specific grants and services supported by gambling proceeds: lifesaving vehicle‑extraction equipment for a small fire department, summer English instruction funded after a school cut the program, school supplies and clothing pantries, youth sports and arts programs, and direct assistance to families in need.
The hearing record includes supporters urging lawmakers to restore e‑tab playability features and opponents’ concerns (as summarized by Olsen) about legal challenges tied to a prior lawsuit related to the “open all” feature; Olsen said there may be room for compromise on some features. The transcript does not record testimony from tribal representatives in this hearing, though Olsen said he spoke with a tribes representative earlier that morning and relayed that comment to the committee.
