A new federal proposal seeks to use tax revenues from sports betting to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.
U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, sponsored the proposal, the Giving Alien Migrants Back Through Lawful Excise Redistribution (GAMBLER) Act.
Rulli said he introduced the betting tax bill on Wednesday. It’s not yet available online.
The lawmaker told Fox News Digital that the legislation would reroute about $300 million per year that’s currently going into the U.S. Treasury’s general fund through taxes on state-regulated sports gambling operators.
“It’d be a shame to take all that money and put it in the general fund, and it would just be lost when we could use it just for our border [needs], which we all saw in this last election is the No. 1 issue in the country,” Rulli said.
The federal government levies an excise betting tax of 0.25% on all money wagered on sports in the U.S., which is deposited into the general fund.
The GRIT Act
As of 2025, the federal government doesn’t designate any funds for problem gambling treatment or research.
Despite rapid U.S. online gambling expansion in recent years, funding to help people with gambling problems is left solely to the states.
Many advocates for reducing gambling harm support a bill known as the Gambling Addiction Recovery, Investment, and Treatment (GRIT) Act.
The GRIT Act, introduced in 2024 by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), seeks to allocate 50% of the federal sports-betting excise tax toward combating gambling addiction.
Blumenthal is also behind the SAFE Bet Act, another bill related to gambling harm pending in Congress.
The National Council on Problem Gambling has supported the GRIT Act. Meanwhile, the casino industry has backed the WAGER Act.
Repealing the Federal Betting Tax
The U.S. gambling industry has supported efforts to repeal the 0.25% excise tax placed on all legal sports bets.
In February, Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nevada, and Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pennsylvania, reintroduced legislation to abolish the betting tax rather than use it for other purposes.
“The Discriminatory Gaming Tax Repeal Act of 2025 repeals a tax that does nothing except penalize legal gaming operators for creating thousands of jobs in Nevada and 37 other states around the nation,” Titus said in a statement.
Titus said she once asked the IRS where the revenue from the “handle tax” went in the federal budget. According to Titus, the agency responded that it didn’t know.
Titus has been calling for the abolition of the betting tax, enacted in 1951, since at least 2019.
Bottom Line
As of mid-2025, it appears highly unlikely that anything will change soon regarding the federal betting tax.
Repealing it has bipartisan support. Meanwhile, advocates for people suffering from problem gambling make a strong case for using the tax revenue to fight addiction.
A third option—using it to support ICE and border enforcement—appears even less likely.
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