INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — This will be the first full football season that Ohioans will be able to take part in sports betting and restaurants and bars will likely benefit from it. The Winking Lizard Tavern, with several locations around Ohio, is among them. 

Angelique Bull, the assistant manager of the Independence restaurant, said they added sports betting kiosks into their restaurant more six months ago, but she said it hasn't necessarily translated to their bottom line.

“Sports betting is very popular, however, it’s not a lot of people getting up going to the physical kiosk. It’s a lot of people on their phones doing it instead,” she said.

Bull explained they are seeing more people coming to watch sports though due to sports betting.

“There are more people watching the games just to see how their bets are going to go, where they wouldn’t have watched it before,” she said.

She hopes this upcoming football season brings more sports betters and business into the restaurant.

“Hopefully it brings in a good amount of business and everybody’s having a good time with it because they’re hopefully winning or tipping our servers when they win,” she said.