New Hampshire
New Hampshire towns opt out of hosting casinos – Valley News
Eight New Hampshire municipalities have moved to block the opening of casinos within their borders, taking advantage of a new state law that gives communities the power to opt out of hosting gambling establishments.
Amy Manzelli, president of the board of Granite Staters for Responsible Gaming, said the law, which took effect last year, has been widely welcomed by residents who value the ability to have a direct say in which establishments shape the character of their town or city.
“In New Hampshire, there’s a pretty deep and passionate vein of local control,” she said.
Henniker, N.H., Candia, N.H., Bedford, N.H., Barrington, N.H., Hancock, N.H., New London and Littleton, N.H., voted to bar casinos within their municipal boundaries. The city of Portsmouth, N.H., moved to block gambling establishments within its city limits within three months of House Bill 737 being signed into law by the governor.
Conway, N.H., is expected to hold a similar vote on April 14.
This is separate from the option towns and cities have to opt out of Keno, a state-run lottery game.
State Rep. Bill Boyd, R-Merrimack, who sponsored both the casino opt-out bill and the legislation allowing social districts in municipalities last year, said the two laws share the same philosophy: giving towns more control over what is allowed within their boundaries.
“I’m not surprised, but I’m very happy with the immediate engagement because it tells me that people are paying attention to local control and how they want their communities to look,” Boyd said of the number of towns that have already acted under the new law.
When gaming establishments were first legalized in New Hampshire, they were envisioned as small, locally-owned operations. The industry has since grown dramatically, with gaming halls now functioning as large-scale entertainment venues complete with restaurants and live shows. New Hampshire’s gaming industry is on track to become a $1.1 billion market within three years, according to experts.
That rapid growth has left many communities uneasy about the demands large gambling venues could place on local infrastructure, including emergency services and traffic management, Manzelli said.
“New Hampshire doesn’t really have a great mechanism for making sure municipalities have a way of dealing with those impacts,” she said. “As the gaming industry evolved, the laws were written for your classic ‘Mom and Pop’ type bingo night, very small-scale establishments.”
The law includes a grandfather clause protecting casinos that are already operating or were in the pipeline at the time a community votes to opt out.
In Littleton, plans for a casino proposed by an out-of-state operator have been in development for at least three years. In February, a casino developer, GSG Littleton Propco LLC, purchased a property in town for a gaming establishment, according to state and town records.
Since those plans predate the town’s opt-out vote, they would not be affected by it, Boyd said.
Under the law as written, it only prevents new casinos from being sited in communities that have passed such a vote.
“Even if towns like Littleton don’t want you, you’ve got 260-some odd cities and towns that exist in the state of New Hampshire. “I would think they (casinos) could find a community that would say, ‘we really want you to come to our community,’ and they will welcome them with open arms and work with their local system to make the facility happen,” Boyd said.
New Hampshire
Trans athletes drop lawsuit to gain access to girls’ sports in New Hampshire after SCOTUS ruling
Fighting the transgender sports ban is ‘utterly misogynistic’: Riley Gaines
Fox News discusses the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold transgender sports bans. Former NCAA All-American Riley Gaines states it’s ‘insane’ to challenge biological sex in sports, asserting boys should not compete in girls’ sports. She calls the opposing movement ‘misogynistic,’ advocating for female athletes’ rights and fair competition, a view echoed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon. This highlights the contentious issue in women’s sports.
A pair of trans athletes in New Hampshire have dismissed their lawsuit to challenge the state law that protects girls’ sports after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Title IX ruling on June 30.
The trans teenage plaintiffs, Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, originally filed the lawsuit in 2024 to challenge a current New Hampshire state law prohibiting trans athletes from participating in girls’ sports. The lawsuit later expanded to add President Donald Trump’s administration to the defendants after Trump signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order on Feb. 5, 2025.
The lawyers for the trans athletes claimed Trump’s executive order, along with parts of a Jan. 20 executive order that forbids federal money from being used to “promote gender ideology,” subjects the teens and all transgender girls to discrimination in violation of federal equal protection guarantees and their rights under Title IX.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
A transgender athlete and the Supreme Court (Getty Images)
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire then ruled last year that female athletes represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys were permitted to intervene in the case to defend the state’s women’s sports law and the administration’s executive orders.
Now, after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, which protects state laws that ensure only females compete in girls’ sports, there is no room for the trans teens to fight the law in New Hampshire.
“Women and girls deserve privacy, safety, and equal opportunities. That can’t happen when males are competing in women’s sports, taking spots on women’s athletic teams, and winning women’s championships,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Litigation Strategy Jonathan Scruggs said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital.
USA POWERLIFTING, ONCE IN TRANS ATHLETE LAWSUIT, SUPPORTS SCOTUS RULING: ‘LAW HAS CAUGHT UP WITH THE SCIENCE’
“President Trump’s executive orders and New Hampshire’s law recognize common sense and track Title IX, the federal law that ensures equal opportunities for women in athletics. We are grateful this case is coming to an end and that New Hampshire is free to protect its female athletes.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Tirrell and Turmelle’s attorneys at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) for a response.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
A protester waves a transgender pride flag outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on June 18, 2025 in Washington, DC. Advocates organized a rally in response the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in US v. Skrmetti, in which the justices ruled to uphold state bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The SCOTUS rulings in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, the high court upheld state laws requiring student-athletes to compete on sports teams that correspond with their biological sex at birth rather than their gender identity, in a 6-3 decision.
However, there are still 23 states, including California, New York and Massachusetts, that don’t have any such laws, and some of those have laws to protect trans athletes in girls’ sports.
New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte (Getty Images)
New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte has signed legislation requiring public school employees to disclose information about transgender students to their parents or legal guardians, reversing a 2024 state Supreme Court ruling that upheld students’ privacy rights in certain circumstances.
Ayotte’s office announced on 2 July that the legislation had been signed into law. Under SB 430, educators must respond to written requests from parents for “material information” about their child, even if a student has asked that the information be kept confidential or fears negative consequences at home.
Supporters of the legislation, such as Republican state Senator Tim Lang, argue the measure strengthens parental rights and enables families to better support children who may be struggling. “If you don’t tell the parent, the parent can’t watch for the signs of self-harm,” Lang told New Hampshire Public Radio.
Educators and LGBTQ+ advocates, however, say the law places teachers in an impossible position by forcing them to choose between complying with the law and protecting vulnerable students. Megan Tuttle, president of NEA-New Hampshire, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said in a statement that the legislation is “vaguely written and risks putting educators in a position of outing a student.” She added that schools should remain places where every student feels “safe, seen, and free to be themselves.”
Aimee Terravechia, executive director of LGBTQ+ advocacy group 603 Equality, warned the law could erode trust between students and educators while speaking with New Hampshire Public Radio. “Schools should be a place of learning… and a place of critical self-examination,” she said. “Placing educators into a role of monitoring and reporting removes the trust necessary for a thriving academic environment.”
The legislation also effectively overturns a 2024 New Hampshire Supreme Court decision, in which justices ruled that keeping a student’s gender identity confidential did not unlawfully interfere with parents’ rights, noting that parents still retained numerous ways to support and communicate with their children outside the classroom.
Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.
-
Technology3 minutes agoGoogle turns old phones into cloud servers
-
Business10 minutes agoWaymo is starting robotaxi service in San Diego
-
Entertainment13 minutes ago‘Children of Blood and Bone’ author won’t see film after feud with star Amandla Stenberg
-
Lifestyle18 minutes agoAfter her son’s death, she found a new purpose. ‘He’s whispering: Mom, this is your path’
-
Politics25 minutes agoIran ceasefire is ‘over,’ Trump says, and orders additional strikes
-
Science28 minutes agoDiarrhea-causing cyclosporiasis exceeds 1,000 cases in U.S. What Californians should know
-
Sports33 minutes agoArthur Fery’s fairy-tale Wimbledon run puts British wild card on brink of history
-
World43 minutes agoBurnham on course to become next UK PM with backing of 322 Labour MPs
