A Step In The Right Direction
Indiana's online casino passed its first test on Tuesday, with the House Public Policy Committee advancing it in a 9-2-2 vote. But many challenges remain.
The Bulletin Board
THE LEDE: Indiana online casino bill clears the first hurdle. Many more remain.
ROUNDUPS: MI sends MyBookie a C&D; Iowa casino moratorium moves ahead; NH bill to raise legal betting age is dead.
NEWS: Brazil’s newly regulated iGaming industry is working out the kinks.
VIEWS: A slew of mainstream media articles portray online gambling as, Mama Boucher would say, “The Devil!”
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: The Las Vegas Visitor Profile.
STRAY THOUGHTS: Shout, shout, let it all out.
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The Lede: Indiana iCasino Bill Advances; What Lies In Wait
After about an hour of debate and testimony, the Indiana House Public Policy Committee advanced Rep. Ethan Manning’s online casino bill (detail here) on Tuesday in a 9-2-2 vote — Manning chairs the committee.
The Sports Betting Alliance, which testified during the hearing, posted on X:
“Today's enthusiastic vote is a major step for *regulated* iGaming in Indiana.
“iGaming is already happening across the state - just on unregulated sites that dodge consumer protection laws & advertise to minors. With today's vote, IN can now follow the lead of states like MI and PA by creating a transparent, regulated marketplace with real, legally enforceable consumer protections — one that generates real revenue to help the state solve problems.”
While the hearing was largely positive on expansion, concerns were expressed.
The most notable voice of opposition was Churchill Downs, which expressed skepticism that legalization and regulation would reduce the black market. Churchill Downs and other online-skeptical land-based casino stakeholders present the most considerable obstacles to legalization.
The bill also underwent several changes during the committee hearing:
The electronic pull tabs component was separated from the online casino/lottery bill, leaving the issue to HB 1433, a standalone measure that passed the committee in a 13-0 vote.
A provision that more than doubles the current online sports betting tax rate (from 9.5% to 20%) was added via amendment (the retail rate will remain at 9.5%).
The iCasino bill was given a firm go-live date of September 1, 2025. STTP Thoughts: This indicates that the state is already working through the regulatory and licensing processes in the background.
So what’s next for the bill?
The next stop is the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeffrey Thompson. Thompson isn’t seen as anti-gambling, but his overall view of online expansion is unclear. He did vote in favor of the state’s 2019 sports betting bill.
If it makes it out of Ways and Means, there is growing hope House Speaker Todd Huston will bring it to the floor.
All that said, STTP believes the real battle will be in the Senate.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sen. Ryan Mischler is a longtime gambling critic, and Senate Pro Tempore Rodrick Bray is also a skeptic but rumored to be warming to online gambling.
Midweek Roundup: MI Sends MyBookie C&D; Iowa Casino Moratorium; NH Bill to Raise Betting Age Is Dead
Michigan sends a cease-and-desist letter to MyBookie: Considering how many C&D letters it sends out, I’d hate to see Michigan’s printer ink budget. As Robert Linnehan reports for Sports Betting Dime: The Michigan Gaming Control Board issued a cease-and-desist notice to MyBookie.ag parent company Duranbah Limited N.V., the operator of MyBookie.ag, based in Curaçao. “Our investigation into MyBookie.ag found that their operations were accessible to Michigan citizens, which violates state laws,” MGCB Executive Director Henry Williams said in a press release. “We are taking strong action to uphold the principles of fair and legal gaming.”
A new casino moratorium has been proposed in Iowa: Per Casino.org, “Iowa State Rep. Bobby Kaufmann has filed a bill that would prevent the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission (IRGC) from issuing new casino licenses.” The bill is being fast-tracked in the legislature. The state passed a two-year casino moratorium in 2022. Renewing the moratorium has been a key policy item since it expired in July. As Play USA previously reported, Iowa Gaming Association President Wes Ehrecke said, “The IGA’s focus next session will be on extending a moratorium on any new casino licenses, and all the gaming companies are unified to support this effort. If there is a successful outcome to extending the moratorium, then members can assess if and when there will ever be unified support to advance iGaming.”
New Hampshire bill to raise sports betting age is dead: A bill that sought to raise the legal age to wager on sports in New Hampshire failed to pass the House Ways and Means Committee this week. New Hampshire is one of six locales that allow sports wagering at 18, along with Washington DC, Wyoming, Montana, Rhode Island, and Kentucky. As iGaming Business reports, the committee “declined to move forward HB 83, which would have raised the legal betting age to 21. The committee voted, 11-7, that the bill was “inexpedient to legislate,” which means that it is dead.”
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News: Online Gambling Off to a Slow Start in Brazil
There was a lot of hype around Brazil’s regulated online gambling launch. With a population of 213 million, Vixio (a newsletter sponsor) estimated the largest country in South America would account for half (upwards of $6 billion) of the region’s $12.3 billion online gambling opportunity.
There were also many questions heading into the launch. The government has imposed strict regulations, which some believe will make shifting spending from unregulated to regulated operators tricky.
As Alun Bowden wrote in his The State of Online Gambling Substack prior to the launch:
“Everyone is very excited about Brazil… But the way regulation has been introduced does not give me high hopes it will bring a massive share of the existing grey market inside that regulated tent.
“Brazil is a very crypto-savvy market, and while a lot of licenses have been awarded, there will be a number of very effective black market operators happily sat outside taking advantage of all the things regulated operators are not allowed to do.”
Bowden’s concerns now seem prophetic. In the wake of the ICE Conference in Barcelona, the JMP Securities team wrote:
“Commentary from the first several weeks appeared mixed, with B2C operators experiencing most of the headwinds as elements of compliance, including KYC and the onboarding of players, are creating friction points.”
These growing pains are not atypical. New Jersey’s launch in 2013 was mired by low credit card acceptance rates, a lack of understanding of how geolocation technology functions, and consumer skepticism over KYC requirements.
“Additionally, one participant in the market suggested the government has not completely turned off black market operators,” the JMP team wrote. “Thus keeping players from migrating to the legal operators.”
As STTP previously noted, Brazilian regulators were already finding it challenging to eliminate black market operators in the leadup to launch:
“Anatel does not have a red button that takes websites offline,” Carlos Baigorri, the president of Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), said (h/t to iGaming Business).
“We notify all telecommunications companies. There are 20,000, roughly, because we are talking about the big ones, but [also] these little ones in the interior of Brazil.
“When you talk about 3,000 websites on 20,000 networks, that is 60 million checks. Today, we cannot guarantee that the blocking is being carried out.
“As things stand today, we are just mopping up ice, and the blockade we have in place is very ineffective,” Baigorri explained to Folha. “They put a hot potato in my lap and I’m telling you, this [limited ability to block sites] is going to be bad for the entire government.”
In other Brazil news, Minister of Tourism Celso Sabino reports that long-stalled legislation to legalize land-based casinos appears to be on track to pass in H1 2025.
“Senate president Rodrigo Pacheco said at the time the bill would be voted on in 2025, and Sabino expects this to happen within the next few months,” according to iGaming Business.
“The bill regulating casinos has already been approved in the chamber of deputies and is in the Senate,” Sabino told M&E. “We expect it to be approved and sanctioned by the president in the first half of 2025.”
Views: Industry Hit With a Slew of Negative Coverage
It’s been a while since the media indiscriminately bombed the gambling industry with negative coverage, so I wasn’t too surprised to come across a half-dozen stories this week that paint the industry as a blight on society.
The stories come from all over the country and always seem to come in bunches; it almost feels coordinated.
Sports betting in NC: off to a fast and destructive start (North Carolina)
News10NBC Investigates: Is mobile sports betting leading to more gambling addictions? (New York)
As legal gambling explosion puts ‘a casino in your pocket,’ CT grapples with how to protect bettors (Connecticut)
Sports gambling believed to contribute to helpline call increase in Kentucky (Kentucky)
Covering the Spread: Sports gambling and addiction in Virginia (Virginia)
Online gambling: the stakes for public health (Harvard University Forum discussion)
America Has Fallen in Love With Long-Shot Sports Bets (Wall Street Journal)
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Around the Watercooler
Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.
One of my favorite reports is the annual Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Association’s Visitor Profile, which always has some interesting data, including the tweet below that shows the gaming budget by generation is way down year-over-year, except for Millenials.
In 2015, I used the LVCVA Visitor Profile to argue that casinos didn’t have a Millennial problem. Instead, people age into gambling.
I revisited this in 2021 when I started hearing about the industry trying to court Gen Z.
Stray Thoughts
Before I really got into music in my teen years, one of my favorite bands was Tears for Fears (I was also a big Duran Duran guy). After listening to some of their hits recently, I think 8-year-old me was on to something.