Latest news with #sportsgambling
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Louisiana hikes sports gambling tax to subsidize college athletics
The LSU baseball team celebrates after winning the College World Series against Florida, 18-4, on June 26, 2023, at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska. (Jacob Reeder/LSU Sports Information) Louisiana legislators have approved a plan to give most college athletic programs in Louisiana nearly $2 million in state tax revenue annually. House Bill 639 by Rep. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, cleared the Senate on a 35-3 vote Sunday, after previously passing the House 74-15. Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign it into law. Riser's bill would increase the tax on sports gambling in Louisiana from 15% to 21.5%. One-fourth of that revenue would go to the Supporting Programs, Opportunities, Resources and Teams (SPORT) Fund to benefit student-athletes at Louisiana's public universities that compete at the NCAA Division I level — UL Lafayette, UL Monroe, Louisiana Tech, LSU, Grambling, McNeese, Nicholls, Northwestern State, Southeastern, Southern and the University of New Orleans. Under the new tax rate, Louisiana would receive about $77 million annually from sports gambling, with about $20 million dedicated to the new fund. Each school would get approximately $1.7 million annually. The money could be used for new scholarships, insurance, medical coverage, facility enhancements, litigation settlement fees and Alston awards, which are education-related awards universities give to college athletes. The $1.7 million allocation is a small drop in the bucket for LSU, which has an athletics budget of over $200 million. But it would be a significant lifeline for schools such as Southern, Nicholls and ULM, which each spend less than $20 million a year on their sports program. The proposed increase in sports gambling taxes has bipartisan support, with both sides saying the revenue should be used to offset the 'social ills' of gambling. The higher rate would generate more money for addiction programs. But the decision to dedicate some of the revenue to college athletics at a time when the state is under budget constraints troubles some progressives. 'Legalized mobile gambling has created or exacerbated many social and cultural problems, including addiction, bankruptcies and even increases in domestic violence,' said Peter Robins-Brown, executive director of Louisiana Progress, an advocacy group for working-class and marginalized communities. 'New tax revenue should be used first and foremost to address some of those problems before we talk about spending more money on college sports.' Currently, the state's split for sports gambling tax revenue calls for 25% to go toward early childhood education, 10% to local governments, 3% to gambling addiction programs and the rest to other priorities and the state general fund. Under Riser's bill, childhood education, local governments and addiction recovery would retain their existing share of tax proceeds. In addition to the 25% for college athletics, another 3% would be dedicated to the Louisiana Postsecondary Inclusive Education Fund to finance programs for students with disabilities. The rest goes into the state general fund for a variety of government needs. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Louisiana hikes sports gambling tax to subsidize college athletics
The LSU baseball team celebrates after winning the College World Series against Florida, 18-4, on June 26, 2023, at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska. (Jacob Reeder/LSU Sports Information) Louisiana legislators have approved a plan to give most college athletic programs in Louisiana nearly $2 million in state tax revenue annually. House Bill 639 by Rep. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, cleared the Senate on a 35-3 vote Sunday, after previously passing the House 74-15. Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign it into law. Riser's bill would increase the tax on sports gambling in Louisiana from 15% to 21.5%. One-fourth of that revenue would go to the Supporting Programs, Opportunities, Resources and Teams (SPORT) Fund to benefit student-athletes at Louisiana's public universities that compete at the NCAA Division I level — UL Lafayette, UL Monroe, Louisiana Tech, LSU, Grambling, McNeese, Nicholls, Northwestern State, Southeastern, Southern and the University of New Orleans. Under the new tax rate, Louisiana would receive about $77 million annually from sports gambling, with about $20 million dedicated to the new fund. Each school would get approximately $1.7 million annually. The money could be used for new scholarships, insurance, medical coverage, facility enhancements, litigation settlement fees and Alston awards, which are education-related awards universities give to college athletes. The $1.7 million allocation is a small drop in the bucket for LSU, which has an athletics budget of over $200 million. But it would be a significant lifeline for schools such as Southern, Nicholls and ULM, which each spend less than $20 million a year on their sports program. The proposed increase in sports gambling taxes has bipartisan support, with both sides saying the revenue should be used to offset the 'social ills' of gambling. The higher rate would generate more money for addiction programs. But the decision to dedicate some of the revenue to college athletics at a time when the state is under budget constraints troubles some progressives. 'Legalized mobile gambling has created or exacerbated many social and cultural problems, including addiction, bankruptcies and even increases in domestic violence,' said Peter Robins-Brown, executive director of Louisiana Progress, an advocacy group for working-class and marginalized communities. 'New tax revenue should be used first and foremost to address some of those problems before we talk about spending more money on college sports.' Currently, the state's split for sports gambling tax revenue calls for 25% to go toward early childhood education, 10% to local governments, 3% to gambling addiction programs and the rest to other priorities and the state general fund. Under Riser's bill, childhood education, local governments and addiction recovery would retain their existing share of tax proceeds. In addition to the 25% for college athletics, another 3% would be dedicated to the Louisiana Postsecondary Inclusive Education Fund to finance programs for students with disabilities. The rest goes into the state general fund for a variety of government needs. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pete Rose, Donald Trump and the corruption of literally everything
On May 13, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Rob Manfred, issued a decision reinstating Hall of Fame eligibility of 17 deceased former players, all of whom had previously been permanently banned from possible inclusion. BFD, you might say, and you would be right. Given climate change, the planet's wars and the horrific last four months that sane Americans have had to endure, what difference does any of that make? You may think that professional sports are mere Roman circuses to keep the proles diverted from matters their rulers don't want them to think about, except that unlike the circuses of the Roman Empire, which were free, the American varieties charge exorbitant admission prices (either directly or through cable and streaming charges). Even more inviting of cynicism, Manfred's reinstatement involves players who gambled on their own sport while they were actively competing. In light of the explosive growth of sports gambling ($13.7 billion in revenue in 2024) since it was legalized nationwide in 2018 — by the U.S. Supreme Court, eager to give a boost to a sleazy corporate enterprise that breeds addiction), isn't it hypocrisy to care whether the players bet too? Perhaps. But the commissioner's action throws a revealing light on American politics and class sociology. What the story is all about is not the other 16 players — all more or less forgotten today — but the potential Hall of Fame reinstatement of Pete Rose, Major League Baseball's all-time leader in hits, who was disqualified for gambling on games as a player and a manager. I won't belabor the biographical details except to note that from his debarment in 1989 till his death in 2024, Rose tirelessly lobbied for reinstatement, and each time, the commissioner refused. Manfred himself denied Rose's petition several times – till now. So what's different this time? Manfred met with Donald Trump in the White House a couple of weeks before this decision. That is the only salient reason. Trump has said that he, as president, would grant Rose 'a complete pardon'; since that cannot logically pertain to the Baseball Hall of Fame issue, it probably refers to Rose's conviction on two charges of tax evasion, for which he was fined and briefly imprisoned. That long-ago criminal case is irrelevant to Hall of Fame candidacy, as was the successful paternity suit lodged against Rose, and the statutory rape allegation, for which he was never charged but which he admitted (sort of), and which cost him his commentary gig at Fox Sports (part of a larger organization with a stratospherically high bar for personal misconduct). Lots of sports stars have been less-than-stellar characters: we need only think of Ty Cobb and all the 'roided-up players who established suspicious home run records. But it seems reasonable to assume that Trump's sudden obsession with Hall of Fame eligibility standards has to do not merely with Rose's baseball infractions, but also with the ballplayer's moral turpitude off the field. As has been the case with virtually all Trump's pardons, Rose is exactly the sort of person for whom our president would feel a natural affinity. If liars, cheaters and tax evaders can be exonerated, then Trump has symbolically defined our national deviancy down to his own level, and of course wins thereby. He displays a virtually demonic lust to corrupt everything he touches. We must also understand this incident in its larger context, as one of a series of actions by the Trump regime to insert itself into every facet of American life: from effectively taking over private universities and dictating their curricula to banning books from the Naval Academy, dictating prices to retail businesses, attempting to change cartographic nomenclature like ('Gulf of America,' indeed) and vetting exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution, which is not formally a part of government and has had an independent policy on exhibits for the last 178 years). Finally, we get to sports. Ironically, these intrusions are enthusiastically supported by the same voters who whine incessantly about the nanny state. Americans have seen a massive spike in the use of the word 'authoritarian' in the last few years, but what we are now witnessing is the incipient stage of totalitarianism: a regime's efforts to gain control of all aspects of life, not just the overtly political, and effectively to erase the distinction between the state and civil society. In his eyewitness account of Nazi rule in Germany, William L. Shirer repeatedly emphasized the smothering control of the regime over everyday existence, which made it difficult even for those who wanted simply to retreat into private life to evade the constant barrage of propaganda, publicity stunts, parades and regimentation. Hitler believed the German people must never be allowed to 'cool off'; on the contrary, they had to be subjected to a perpetual drumbeat. Alexander Solzhenitsyn's documentation of Stalinism strikes the same note: the elimination of a private existence away from politics, with the regime constantly forcing itself upon one's attention, feeding each individual's growing atomization and learned helplessness. The true goal of totalitarianism is not to turn all of us into enthusiastic believers, just as transforming Pete Rose into a retrospective hero will not convince the skeptical, and censoring books and museum exhibits will not persuade us that slavery never existed. Rather than brainwashing us, the objective of the totalitarian is to bludgeon us into apathy, resignation and passivity. If you're fed up barely four months into the regime's misrule, how will you feel 44 months from now? Of course no such regime can impose itself on a society that is overwhelmingly unwilling to play along. I have already written about the profound streak of irrational thinking and resentment, and the nihilistic urge to 'burn it all down,' felt by many ordinary Americans. But what is noteworthy about this attempted imposition of totalitarian control on activities hitherto exempt from government meddling is the behavior of many of our so-called elites, who don't have the excuse of poor education or low income. Evidently, half the electorate grew bored, confused and uncomfortable living in a free country, however imperfect it may have been. In Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film "Germany in Autumn," a character explains German acceptance of Nazi rule: 'Sometimes, people just want somebody to think for them.' That same attitude applies to millions of Americans. Rob Manfred, like so many politicians, corporate titans, university presidents and others, proves that the leaders of our society are laughably easy to compromise and corrupt. He is no different than Jeff Bezos; all it took was a phone call for the Amazon mogul to backtrack on breaking out the separate cost of Trump's tariffs in the prices his company advertises, and then to pretend that he'd never intended to do such a Columbia University's trustees caved in to Trump's demands to dictate university policy rather than touch the university's $14.8 billion endowment as a substitute for federal grants. Why did ABC News settle a lawsuit Trump had filed that the network was almost certain to win, and then pay him $15 million for the privilege? These craven handovers will have an entirely predictable result: They will only encourage further extortionate suits against news organizations. Perhaps worst of all are the partners in the big law firms. Their entire business model, their whole inner nature, is predicated on hair-trigger litigiousness, predatory aggressiveness and a hunger to win at all costs. But when faced with Trump's illegitimate ultimatum not only to cease serving clients he disapproves of, but to provide future legal services pro bono to clients or causes he prefers, they instantly consented to 'agreements' that resemble the confessions signed by the defendants in Stalin's show trials. This disposition among America's elites to bend the knee and betray their supposed principles did not first manifest itself at noon on Jan. 20; the rot in this country, the so-called land of the free and home of the brave, has been worsening for years, like termites slowly and patiently gnawing away at the wooden sills of a house, leading to inevitable collapse.
CBS News
23-05-2025
- Sport
- CBS News
Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks speaks out against "deplorable" online threats he received after loss
Ahead of Friday's afternoon game at Fenway Park, Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks spoke out against online commenters who sent him and his wife death threats after Wednesday night's loss to the New York Mets. Hendriks held court with reporters ahead of Friday's Game 1 against the Baltimore Orioles, and lashed out against those who wished him harm after he was tagged with the loss in Boston's 5-1 defeat to the Mets. Hendriks said online threats are nothing new and something everyone in the locker room deals with. "Unfortunately it's rampant within sports. I've had people from different organizations, I've had people in different sports reach out about their own experiences with it. I've had people that have had their home addresses leaked, people that, it's a lot more deplorable than what we've had," said Hendriks. He added that most of the threats from Wednesday night were made during the game, so he didn't see them until later in the evening. He also said the threats have gotten "a lot worse" with the rise of sports gambling around the country. "Unfortunately, that tends to be what it ends up being -- whether it be Venmo requests, whether it be people telling you in their comments that I was like, 'Hey, you blew my parlay. Go [expletive] yourself.'," Hendricks said Friday. "And then it's, 'Go hang yourself. You should kill yourself. I wish you died from cancer.' That one kind of hit a little too close to home for me with everything I've gone through." Hendriks underwent treatment for non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2023. He said Friday that many players have become numb to the online heckling and even some of the threats, but the ones he received Wednesday night went too far. He said he's turned over a number of the messages to MLB security over the last several years. Hendriks initially took aim at the social media warriors Thursday morning with a post to his Instagram story. He hopes that speaking out about the actions leads to more consequences to those posting the threatening messages. "This is something that is deplorable. There needs to be some sort of punishment so that people can think twice before they start doing this stuff," Hendriks said. "At some point, everyone just sucking it up and dealing with it isn't accomplishing anything. We pass it along to MLB security. We pass it along to whoever we need to. But nothing ends up happening and it happens again the next night. "The more eyes we get on it, the more voices we get talking about it, hopefully it can push it in the right direction," he added. Who is Liam Hendriks? Hendriks has made three All-Star teams over his 14-year MLB career, including in back-to-back seasons with the Chicago White Sox in 2021 and 2022. He saved a career-high 38 games for Chicago in 2021 and closed the door on 37 games in 2022. But he pitched in only five games in 2023 while received treatment for non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He signed with the Red Sox ahead of the 2024 season, but missed the entire campaign as he recovered from Tommy John surgery. The 36-year-old righty has appeared in 11 games for Boston this season, and has allowed seven runs over 11.1 innings of work for a 5.56 ERA. Hendriks has struck out 11 while issuing six walks and allowing 10 hits in his time on the mound for the Red Sox. He had eight straight scoreless appearances out of the Boston bullpen, but Hendriks has allowed five runs over his last 1.1 innings over two appearances.
