The first bet accepted by the St. Croix Casino in Turtle Lake was placed by Georgia Cobenais, a member of the Turtle Lake Tribal Council. She noted the amount of time and effort it took to bring sports betting to the casino.
"Nerve-wracking, exciting," she said, "but we had a great team all the way around and everybody worked together." Sports betting was legalized in Wisconsin in 2021, however, St.Croix Casino had to work through the final approvals of their set-up with federal agencies.
Jeff Merrill, the sportsbook manager for St. Croix Casino, said: "A process that should take a month or two, we made it into about a five-month process unfortunately."
He continued: "So the biggest hurdle was clearing the hurdles at the federal government level." The casino is located just beyond the Wisconsin and Minnesota border, which isn't far from the Twin Cities.
Some feel that with the St. Croix Casino now accepting sports bets, that pressure will be put on Minnesota to approve sports betting in their own state. However, with only five weeks left in the session in St. Paul, it's unlikely to get done this year.
Merrill believes sports betting in Minnesota is "inevitable", stating: "I would think it’s inevitable. And my thought is that, good luck, because it’s competition. It’s just business and competition makes it good for everybody."
Cobenais, the St. Croix Tribal Council member, also said: "We’re all in tribal gaming, so we’ve got to support all our people in all our tribes across the nation, so yeah, good luck. I think there’s enough to go around."
Over 30 states have some form of legalized sports betting, this includes all of the states surrounding Minnesota.
