Seven thousand Minnesota kids—mostly boys in eighth, ninth, and eleventh grade—are gambling weekly. Not “playing games.” Gambling. Real money, real losses, real destruction. Offshore apps like Bovada, MyBookie, Luckyland, Fortune Coins, and the rest of the dirty dozen are still wide open on every kid’s phone, sucking cash out of family budgets, college funds, and Sunday offering envelopes. These aren’t harmless apps. They’re digital loan sharks with cartoon graphics—designed to hook the vulnerable and leave families broken.
And the worst part? This isn’t some accident. It’s a deliberate setup by the DFL machine.
Back in November 2025, Attorney General Keith Ellison stood at the podium, chest puffed, and sent “cease-and-desist” letters to fourteen of these thieves. Gave them a big scary deadline of December 1. Big press release. Sounded tough. “I will not stand for it,” he said. Four months later? Nothing. Zero raids. Zero asset seizures. Zero prosecutions. The sites are still operating, still targeting Minnesota kids, still laughing all the way to offshore banks. That wasn’t enforcement—that was pure theater. A cheap performance to make it look like the syndicate cares while the grift continues uninterrupted.
Meanwhile, what are the politicians actually doing? They’re in St. Paul right now pushing Senate File 4139—the tribal-led sports betting legalization bill. Up to eleven mobile licenses. Twenty-two percent tax haul. “Responsible gambling” window dressing. The same DFL machine that couldn’t be bothered to shut down the illegal predators is now obsessed with legalizing a bigger, taxable version of the same poison. Why? Because now the tribes get first dibs, the state gets its cut, the nonprofits get their “treatment” grants, and everyone in the connected class gets paid. Families get the wreckage.
This is racketeering, plain and simple. Create the crisis with weak enforcement. Ignore the predators preying on children. Then pivot to “regulation” that funnels taxpayer dollars and addiction fallout into the same pockets. While real Minnesotans—working dads in Bloomington, farm families in rural counties, single moms in Duluth—watch their kids spiral into debt, anxiety, and despair.
Picture it: a thirteen-year-old boy in his bedroom at 1 a.m., phone glowing, betting on March Madness while his parents sleep down the hall, completely unaware. Losses stacking up. Lies starting. Trust shattering. That’s not “youth entertainment.” That’s a generation being sacrificed on the altar of political profit.
And the legacy media? Crickets. A buried paragraph here and there about “7K kids gambling,” always tied neatly to the push for legalization. No outrage. No demands for Ellison to explain his empty letters. No front-page exposés asking why parents still haven’t received a single school alert, PSA, or warning flyer. Silence is complicity.
We deserve answers—right now:
• Keith Ellison: Where are the raids? The blocks? The prosecutions? Or was that November press conference just another DFL performance piece?
• DFL legislators: Why are you spending time writing new gambling licenses instead of emergency legislation to shut these apps down at the source?
• Legacy media: Why bury the human destruction while hyping March Madness and tribal tax schemes?
This syndicate doesn’t care about the least of these. They care about control and cash flow.
Our vision for Minnesota is different. A constitutional republic where families are protected, not preyed upon. Where kids are raised with integrity, not addiction. Where faith, hard work, and real opportunity come first—not grift disguised as “regulation.” We will audit the nonprofits, seize the assets of these predators, hold the politicians accountable, and end the racket once and for all.
The thieves have had their turn. Now it’s time for justice.
Phillip C. Parrish
Candidate for Governor of Minnesota 2026
Campaign Manager: Heidi Wanty – heidi@parrish4mn.com
1 (612) 460-1717
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