Indiana has joined the ranks of US states that will take a fresh look at online gambling legislation aiming to authorize and regulate the market segment during 2025. Indiana State Rep. Ethan Manning, a long-time backer of online gambling expansion in the state, has introduced House Bill 1432, an omnibus measure of gambling-related topics, including the approval of online poker and other casino-style online games.
Manning has sponsored or backed several previous gambling measures, the last of those coming in 2023 with his House Bill 1536. Manning's new measure, HB 1432 (2025), had been teased earlier in January but was finally introduced on Tuesday, then immediately assigned to the House Committee on Public Policy, which Manning chairs.
Manning is also the sponsor of a second bill regarding charitable-gaming initiatives that will also receive early-year attention before his committee. Both gaming-related bills are scheduled for initial discussion on Tuesday, January 28.
iGaming returns to Indiana's legislative debates
In 2023, Indiana had been considered one of the US states most likely to approve online poker. The state had been a relatively early adopter of online sports betting, and iGaming in Indiana appeared ripe for a similar run toward approval. However, a prominent corruption scandal involving another gambling-expansion proponent sent the state into a cool-off period, legislatively speaking, and Manning's once-promising bill was allowed to expire and an informal moratorium on the topic went into place for all of 2024.
The issue, which lawmakers believed put a temporary taint on iGaming in Indiana, was the charging of one-time State Rep. Sean Eberhart as part of a scheme to benefit Spectacle Gaming, a former provider of off-track betting services at a small number of northern Iowa venues.
As part of the scheme, Eberhart lobbied and advocated for slashing or eliminating fees connected to two gaming licenses to be acquired by Spectacle. In return, Eberhart accepted the promise of a future position with the company with an annual salary of $350,000. In late 2023, Eberhart agreed to plead guilty and was ultimately sentenced to a fine and a prison sentence of year and a day.
