2024's Unfinished Tales
A look at six gambling industry stories from 2024 that will continue to be a big part of the conversation in 2025.
The Bulletin Board
THE LEDE: Six stories from 2024 that will resurface in 2025.
NEWS: Previewing ICE 2025’s Tribal Gaming Sessions.
BEYOND the HEADLINE: AI is paying dividends (for conference organizers).
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: Online gambling is like
crack cocainefentanyl.STRAY THOUGHTS: Resolutions take time, but not that much time.
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The Lede: Stories from 2024 That Will Carryover to 2025
In yesterday’s newsletter, I unveiled my selections for the five biggest stories of 2024, which I termed on social media as the most pivotal year in gambling since 2018:
Election Betting and the Rise of Prediction Markets
Scandals, Get Your Scandals Here
DFS 2.0 Gets Overshadowed by Sweepstakes
The West Flagler Decision and the Shifting Tribal Landscape
States Tell Gray and Black Market Operators to Cease & Desist
Today, I will cover six more stories that emerged in 2024 that could very well be some of the biggest stories in 2025.
Affiliates Feel the Heat
2024: Gambling affiliates had a challenging year in 2024, with rounds of layoffs at former juggernauts Catena Media and Better Collective, XL Media selling off its assets, and Google taking aim at the entire sector with site reputation updates in May and December.
2025: My biggest fear for the affiliate sector is that fallout from the rash of layoffs will force affiliates to lean further into what I believe caused many of its problems: cheap(er) boilerplate content (which looks more and more like AI) that tries to meet Google’s SEO whims.
Online Casino’s Labor, Cannibalization, and PG Issues
2024: Online casino legalization was already trying to counter cannibalization claims from some casino owners and the usual concerns from the responsible and problem gambling crowd. Still, in 2024, a new(ish) opposing force emerged: Labor unions.
2025: Given its current messaging and strategy, I don’t see how the industry overcomes this trifecta of opposition. That makes legalization unlikely, although I have some hope that the messaging will change.
Congress, the SAFE Bet Act, and Federal Oversight
2024: The federal government was poking around the gambling industry all year:
The GRIT Act and the industry’s desire to end the federal excise tax
The Department of Interior’s new tribal compact rules
Classifying problem gambling as a coverable mental health disorder
Still, things came to a head in mid-December when the Senate Judiciary Committee held an ominously titled hearing on sports betting (you can find STTP’s recap here): America’s High-Stakes Bet on Legalized Sports Gambling.
2025: The hearing went as well as expected, setting the stage for a potentially fiery year for the gambling industry at the federal level in 2025. Will anything come of it? Who knows. But, looking at it through a three-year window, it’s hard to imagine the federal government doesn’t get involved if things continue on their current path — and there’s no indication the industry is going to change on its own.
Tax Rates and Surcharges
2024: Ohio doubled its sports betting tax rate in 2023, and Illinois one-upped its neighbor by bumping its rate from a flat 15% to a tiered system ranging from 25%-40% in 2024. Even more riveting (and somehow almost wholly forgotten) was the response by DraftKings, which tried to sell a surcharge as the solution to the taxation problem. This idea went over like an all-you-can-eat pasta dinner at a Celiac convention.
2025: I expect to see more states explore raising gambling tax rates. There are growing calls to rein in the prevalence and in-your-face nature of online gambling (and what better way to kneecap an industry than saddle it with heavy financial burdens). Further, online casino and sports betting expansion efforts have run into a brick wall, so when states look for new gambling revenue, their only option is to squeeze existing operators.
Limiting, VIPs, and the No-Show Heard Around the World
2024: Regulators in Massachusetts (and later Wyoming) started asking sportsbooks about their VIP and limiting bettor practices, and to no one’s surprise, the industry tried to sidestep the issue. Where the industry went a bit too far was its decision to almost universally no-show a roundtable discussion on the topic in May. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission offered them a mulligan in September, and the operators came to their collective senses and showed up.
2025: The MGC has already requested data on limiting and VIP customers. As I previously wrote:
“Last week, the MGC unanimously approved a plan to collect data on the practices of limiting bettors and designating customers as VIPs from the state’s licensed sports betting operators.”
I expect more states to do the same, and I expect VIPs to be a much bigger topic of discussion than limited bettors going forward. My big question is: Will the sportsbooks fully comply with the request, or will they hold back some of the data?
The NCAA and Player Prop Bets, and Other Vanishing Markets
2024: Legal US sports betting markets are being whittled away. The NCAA was able to successfully lobby a few states to remove college player prop bets from their lists of approved betting markets. During the congressional hearing in December, NCAA President Charlie Baker made the case for a national ban on college player prop bets, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that Congress could save him a lot of time by instituting a national ban.
The NBA also convinced sportsbooks to remove specific wagers, including under bets on players on two-way or 10-day contracts. And then there is Colorado, which restricted numerous “negative” wagering markets.
2025: STTP expects this trend to continue. Every scandal or story about athlete harassment will simply fuel the calls to restrict specific betting markets, and even though these prohibitions are ineffectual, they allow advocates to unroll the mission accomplished banner.
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News: Previewing the Tribal Gaming Track at ICE
Tribal gaming was one of my big stories in 2024, and considering the mobile sports betting efforts unfolding in California, Oklahoma, and Minnesota, it will continue to be a massive story in 2025.
Victor Rocha has created an intriguing education track for ICE Barcelona 2025 next month.
Rocha, the Conference Chair of the Indian Gaming Association, emphasized the importance of the seminar, saying, "ICE Barcelona is the perfect platform to spotlight the innovation, resilience, and global impact of tribal gaming. This agenda not only highlights our successes but also strengthens our position in the evolving gaming industry."
One particular session caught my attention: Tribal Partnerships in U.S. Interactive Wagering: Unlocking New Potential. The seminar’s description reads: “A deep exploration of how tribal entities and global operators can create sustainable partnerships in the interactive wagering space.”
The session will be a one-on-one conversation between Rocha, who will serve as the moderator, and Ernest Stevens, Jr., Chairman of the Indian Gaming Association. Commercial operators looking to partner with tribes would be wise to pay close attention to every word spoken (and even read between the lines a bit).
There are three other tribal sessions on the agenda:
Opportunities and Challenges in U.S. Sports Betting: Is There Still Room to Play?
Derrick Watchman, Chairman of the Board, National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development
Jonodev Chaudhuri, Principal, Chaudhuri Law
Danielle Her Many Horses, Deputy Executive Director, Indian Gaming Association
Case Study: From Bingo Halls to Gaming Powerhouse - The San Manuel Legacy
Leticia Prieto, Treasurer, San Manuel Band of Mission Indians
The State of Gambling in California: Current Trends and Future Prospects
Jason Giles, Executive Director, Indian Gaming Association (Moderator)
James Siva, Chairman, California Nations Indian Gaming Association
Beyond the Headline: Conference Proposals Get AI Boost
I stumbled across this LinkedIn post from Indian Gaming Association Conference Chair Victor Rocha, who was praising AI for cleaning up the hundreds of conference submissions he needs to pore over:
“I’ve read nearly 200 conference submissions this past week, and I have to thank AI for improving the quality. Submissions are better written - no grammatical errors, perfect grammar, and not a single 'delve.' It’s actually jarring when people don’t use it. I'm like, OMG, did they have a stroke?”
My biggest fear is that because of AI, the proposals will start to outshine the discussions/presentations. Also, it won’t be long before AI has its own “delve.,” and every proposal starts looking the same.
What will the presentation/panel discussion look like if someone can't write their own proposal?
Around the Watercooler
Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.
When Sheldon Adelson was waging his war against online gambling a decade ago, online slots were frequently called the crack cocaine of gambling — Adelson and his allies were less vitriolic, calling it a “Joe Camel moment.”
The main characters have changed (PokerStars has been replaced by DraftKings, and Fanduel and Adelson have given way to Cordish Companies and the VGT industry), but the arguments against online gambling have remained the same. They’ve merely been updated for the times, with fentanyl replacing crack cocaine.
Consider this line from the Chicago Sun-Times about the possibility of an online gambling push in 2025:
It’s not the first time gaming industry players have pushed to expand Illinois’ sprawling menu of gambling options. Nor is it the first time they’ve faced stiff pushback from business owners who rely on video gaming terminals to draw customers through their doors — or from opponents who warn of a surge in addiction to what some have branded “gambling fentanyl.”
The fentanyl comparison is becoming a familiar refrain (Cordish Companies general counsel Mark Stewart made the same analogy at a December hearing in Louisiana).
Needless to say, 2025 online casino discussions are going to be wild.
Stray Thoughts
It’s the time of year when resolutions start flying. While abrupt changes can happen, slow, gradual changes work better and are stickier.
Six months. I believe that with a little hard work and dedication, you can become decent at just about anything in six months. By decent, I mean not embarrassing yourself. Six months of guitar or boxing lessons won’t make you a world-beater, but you’ll be miles ahead of someone with no experience. You’ll look like you know what you’re doing.
It might seem like an eternity, but it’s not, that six months will fly by.
3-5 years. That’s how long, with true dedication and deliberate practice, it takes to become truly proficient at something. You’re unlikely to be world class in 3-5 years, but you’ll look like an expert to the average person. You’ll not only be able to execute, you’ll understand the why behind it.
And once you’ve been at it for six months, the three years will fly by, too.
I would add that it takes about six months to create a good habit. The key is consistent, deliberate practice over a long period of time.
Conversely, a bad habit is easy to create and difficult to break.