DraftKings-Funded Super PAC Backs Select Republicans in Ohio Primaries
Jeff Kubina via Wikimedia Commons
The Ohio political situation has become important enough to DraftKings that it has funneled $1 million through a pair of political action committees to support certain candidates in the state’s Republican primaries.
Cleveland.com reports that the American Conservative Fund has spent that million dollars on a series of ads, most of them focused on one of five key races in the primaries. That organization’s only recent source of income is donations from another super PAC, Win For America, which is known to be funded by DraftKings’ parent company, DK Crown Holdings.
According to OpenSecrets, DraftKings has spent over $4.5 million through super PACs since 2024. Although some of that has gone through the transparently-named DraftKings PAC, the bulk of it has followed more circuitous paths to its destinations. About $2 million went to Win for America, to be split between American Future and American Conservative Fund, which support various Democrat and Republican candidates respectively.
A certain amount of political spending is not unusual for gambling companies. However, dropping $1 million in a single state is unusual for DraftKings. Even during the height of the sports betting boom, it was only spending a total of about $2 million annually on all state-level efforts combined.
State spending is not even its focus at the moment. Both DraftKings and FanDuel devoted most of last year’s political spending to federal efforts in light of the alarming policy developments on that front.
And yet, what’s currently happening in Ohio may be just as alarming to DraftKings. A group of Republican lawmakers has proposed reversing course on sports betting, banning everything except in-person bets for moderate stakes.
Save Ohio Sports Act Could Be a Watershed Moment
DraftKings has an obvious financial interest in maintaining Ohio sports betting. At 12 million residents, it’s one of the biggest regulated markets in the country, and DraftKings earned $327 million in revenue there last year.
The proposed restrictions on Ohio sports betting would be almost equivalent to banning it entirely. Retail sportsbooks make, at best, a few percent of what their mobile peers do. Moreover, DraftKings lacks any access to that part of the market.
The indirect impacts of Ohio reversing course could be greater still. We’ve seen a lot of “follow the leader” in gambling legislation. During the boom years, states raced to keep up with their neighbors in tapping this new source of revenue. There’s now a significant danger that momentum could swing the other way.
Gov. Mike DeWine is not the only politician to say he regrets allowing sports betting in his state. Meanwhile, we’ve already seen the domino effect at work with tax hikes. New York’s 51% tax rate on sportsbooks led Illinois to decide it was undercharging and pass a law to rectify that. Other states then began wondering if they could get away with it too.
The consequences to DraftKings and the other online sportsbooks could be catastrophic if Ohio established the idea that a U-turn was politically feasible.
Conversely, other Ohio lawmakers have floated the idea of pressing on and expanding online gambling to include casino games. For DraftKings, that would be an even bigger money-maker than sports betting.
Whatever happens in Ohio could prove to be a watershed moment for the online gambling industry.
The American Conservative Fund’s ads don’t mention gambling at all. But it’s hard to imagine that DraftKings is backing candidates.
Following the Money
Cleveland.com identified the following races as accounting for the bulk of the ad spending:
- Senate District 1 ($313k): Rep. Jim Hoops vs. former Rep. Craig Riedel.
- House District 96 ($225k): Former Sen. Frank Hoagland vs. Rep. Ron Ferguson.
- House District 88 ($190k): Eric Watson vs. Rep. Gary Click.
- Senate District 19 ($170k): Ryan Rivers vs. Rep. Beth Lear.
- House District 62 ($143k): Incumbent Rep. Jean Schmidt vs. Dillon Blevins.
Of these, the House District 88 race appears most directly connected to the current threat to sports betting, as Rep. Click has been one of the more vocal proponents of the bill.
Image Credit: Jeff Kubina via Wikimedia Commons (license)
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