Chipping Away
Chipping Away
The list of companies and groups concerned about online casinos effect on land-based revenue and jobs continues to grow.
The Bulletin Board
NEWS: Las Vegas Sands’ concerns deal another blow to online casino legalization efforts.
WEEKEND CATCHUP: Virginia Tech hoopster dismissed from team; Sportrade live in VA; PizePicks live in DE and MO
NEWS: CFTC will unwillingly police election betting markets.
NEWS: France drops its budget amendment to legalize online casinos.
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: Betting is on everyone’s mind.
STRAY THOUGHTS: Redefining terms.
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New York’s Online Casino Hopes Take Another Hit
Online casino legalization is facing an uphill battle in New York.
As I previously mentioned, the downstate casino licenses will play a significant part in determining if and when the state takes the plunge:
“The land-based industry is a mix of pro and anti-online gambling companies, and even within the pro crowd, there is a lot of disagreement over the licensing structure (tethered, untethered, or a mix of both).
“The winning bids are not expected to be announced until the end of 2025, so the likelihood of the New York legislature tackling online casinos before then is slim to none.”
As intimated above, who gets the license is of the utmost importance, and little is likely to happen until the licenses are awarded. According to Las Vegas Sands CEO Rob Goldstein, that decision will not be made until Q1 2026.
The timeline change to Q1 2026 was a revelation in itself, but Goldstein dropped another bomb when he raised concerns about online casinos.
Of the company’s New York casino proposal, he said:
“We remain interested in the process… The only concern is the ongoing strength of online gambling.
“We can't ignore what's happening in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. But we build capital-intense buildings that require a long-term perspective. And I must admit that there's got to be some kind of way of thinking about how the online impact would be… My personal thinking has been influenced somewhat by the last six months as I see the growth of online gambling.”
Goldstein was asked if the company was reevaluating its New York bid, to which Goldstein said:
“It goes beyond that. My concern is our buildings take a long time… they take years to finish. I need some understanding of how the market, if any market, does legalize it to think about what it means to my capital investment.”
Weekend Catchup: VT Hoopster Dismissed; Sportrade Live in VA; PizePicks Live in DE and MO
Virginia Tech basketball player dismissed from team: “Virginia Tech Hokies men’s basketball guard Hysier Miller, a transfer from Temple, has been dismissed from the program,” Per SI’s Pat Forde. “It’s unclear what vetting Virginia Tech did of Miller’s time at Temple, but sources say new information came to light earlier this month regarding the probe at Temple.” The Temple probe was due to unusual betting activity flagged a Temple-UAB game. As I wrote then, “Unusual line movement (a 6.5 swing at one sportsbook) led U.S. Integrity to flag a March 7 game between the Temple University Owls and the University of Alabama-Birmingham Blazers.”
Sporttrade is live in Virginia: Straight to the Point featured sponsor Sporttrade launched in its fifth state last week: Virginia. Sporttrade is also available in Colorado, New Jersey, Arizona, and Iowa. “We are incredibly proud to keep the Fall 2024 momentum going with our launch in the Commonwealth,” Sporttrade founder and CEO Alex Kane said in a press release. “There is an appetite for premium betting in Virginia, for significantly better prices at higher limits, for instant in-play betting and a mobile experience that is sleek and intuitive.”
PrizePicks Arena has been approved in two more states: PrizePicks has been awarded daily fantasy sports operator licenses in Delaware and Missouri. Per the press release, it will launch Arena, its peer-to-peer contests, in both states. Arena was launched after states began cracking down on player-vs-the-house DFS products. Friday, I noted that the Sports Betting Alliance’s Jeremy Kudon, the group that led the charge against DFS 2.0, signaled that the P2P versions of these games were acceptable.
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CFTC Chair: We Were Thrust Into the Role of Election Cop
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Rostin Behnam told Bloomberg the agency would police the new election betting markets (something the CFTC said it didn’t want to become). This is happening in parallel with the CFTC’s appeal of the September court decision that greenlit companies like Kalshi to offer election betting markets.
Behnam said the CFTC’s appeal is still under review.
“We don’t believe listing event contracts on political elections is legal, but while we have this ongoing legal challenge, we’ll allow them and do what we can to protect the integrity of the markets,” Behnam said. “Whether or not there has been manipulation or fraud remains to be seen.”
Asked about the CFTC’s ability to detect fraud, Behnam said, “We have typical regulatory authorities over registrants… we get a sense of how they conduct their business, and we get to ask questions, conduct examinations, and collect data to monitor trading patterns.”
According to Behnam, most of the enforcement (within derivatives) is driven by the public, who notices anomalies in trading.
Behnam ended by saying that the CFTC will continue to vigorously fight this in court and that Congress members are becoming interested in the issue.
France Withdraws Plans to Legislate Online Casino
This entry is a little far afield from my usual territory, but it is an important enough development to cover in the newsletter.
France has withdrawn the ‘proposed amendments’ to the 2025 Budget that would have added online casino games to its list of authorized offerings — the amendment called for a 55.6% tax rate.
France was considering updating its 2010 gambling law, which authorizes sports betting, online poker, and horseracing but prohibits online casino games.
As reported by SBC News, France Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin said more conversations were needed to avoid the negative impacts and job losses warned by regional stakeholders.
Those stakeholders harbor the same concerns some US operators have, such as revenue and job loss.
“There was talk that the government would submit an amendment. This is no longer the case. I believe we need to work among ourselves first,” Saint-Martin said during a radio appearance. “I am very vigilant about this issue. We must not make mistakes. We must ensure that it doesn’t harm certain stakeholders, especially land-based casinos.”
Jake Pollard from the Gaming and Co Substack, who is all over France’s gambling markets, had a terrific rundown of what the proposed legislation would do way back in July 2023 — In a prophetic moment, Pollard wrote that legislation would occur in 2025.
More recently, Pollard examined the opposition’s concerns, noting that land-based casinos and 130 mayors have criticized the government’s plans.
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Around the Watercooler
Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.
Betting came up on a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience with guest Luke Bryan, who, within the first five minutes, noted that his Las Vegas residency routine included the craps tables after his shows:
Rogan also mentioned the MMA scandal involving trainer James Krause, which resulted in UFC staff not being allowed to place wagers. Bryan then talked about his path to sports betting, which started innocently enough (considering Bryan’s finances) but devolved into Bryan betting random games at all hours.
Election betting was brought up in a recent Real Time Bill Maher episode. Maher was joined by Marc Cuban, Joe Scarborough, and David Hogg. I’d say that the biggest shock was Maher’s surprise that these markets existed (Cuban is an investor in Polymarket, so he was able to explain the landscape) and Scarborough’s surprise that foreigners might bet on US elections:
Stray Thoughts
This, by Harry Lang, is how I feel about the entirety of the gambling industry, which is obsessed with redefining things:
"In our navel-gazing, inwardly focussed myopia, us marketers seemingly covet the complex and unintelligible domains we’ve created, enjoying the process of crafting new, unnecessary titles, channels, descriptions, and acronyms every year, as if staying still or demystifying what we do is tantamount to failure. It’s what we do – we create – and we’ve created a massive f*cking hole for ourselves without the foresight to create a ladder.”