Knock-On Effect
Gambling courses are becoming more common at colleges and universities, and in my opinion, that's a good thing.
The Bulletin Board
VIEWS: The legalization of sports betting has brought about new courses at colleges and universities, and no, it’s not a “gift” to the industry.
NEWS: States are increasing restrictions on their sports betting policies through regulatory and legislative changes.
NEWS: Rep. Paul Tonko is taking another crack at federal oversight of sports betting, and this time, it goes beyond advertising.
VIEWS: More commentary on online casino cannibalization, this time from Regulus.
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: Where does the number come from?
STRAY THOUGHTS: Always give yourself an out.
SPONSOR’S MESSAGE - Sporttrade was borne out of the belief that the golden age of sports betting has yet to come. Combining proprietary technology, thoughtful design, and capital markets expertise, our platform endeavors to modernize sports betting for a more equitable, responsible, and accessible future.
Learn more about what makes Sporttrade an unparalleled player experience here.
College Gambling Courses are a Good Thing
West Virginia recently passed a problem gambling research bill that also creates new courses and programs at West Virginia University.
The inclusion of the “industry development” portion has rankled some. Still, as National Council of Legislators from Gaming States President and West Virginia Minority Whip Shawn Fluharty said on LinkedIn, the bill will “elevate West Virginia University as an academic leader in the gaming space. Research is needed, as is preparation for students to enter the ever-growing gaming workforce.”
Critics call it a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but as I recently wrote when the bill was being debated, “States with gambling industries should offer these programs (Nevada and New Jersey do). Developing in-state industries and jobs around gambling seems better than exporting that work.”
Without making an exhaustive list, UNLV has the International Gaming Institute and a slew of gambling-related courses and programs.
The University of New Hampshire created a gaming law program following the repeal of PASPA.
I’ve also stumbled across recent stories about a new research center at East Carolina University and the first in-person graduates of the Integrated Casino Resorts Operations Certificate Program at the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism (LIGHT) at Stockton University.
Gambling is ubiquitous in the US, and as the American Gaming Association (AGA) rightly points out, it is one of the country’s biggest employers:
America’s gaming industry directly employs more than 700,000 people in the U.S. Put in context with the broader U.S. economy:
Gaming provides more direct jobs than the air transportation, postal service or motion picture and video sectors.
Direct casino employment accounts for 1 in 33 leisure and hospitality jobs.
These programs are not “gifts” to the gambling industry. They help fill vital roles in a still-growing sector, create the next generation of gaming lawyers and researchers, and prepare people for more modern jobs (online gambling).
States Pull Back on the Sports Betting Reins
Not too long ago, I titled one of my newsletters, Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop. That installment of the newsletter was regarding the recent interest (at the behest of the NCAA) in banning prop bets on individual college athletes.
In the newsletter, I said, “I expect more states to follow suit on player props… I’m also waiting for the (inevitable?) advertising crackdown.”
Well, shoes are starting to fall from the sky like rain.
College Prop Betting Bans
Prohibitions on prop bets involving college athletes are gaining traction, with three states recently imposing bans: Ohio, Maryland, and Vermont.
These prohibitions, backed by the NCAA, are one of the trendiest policy changes in the US, and it is starting from a place of strength, as nine states already prohibited college player props:
Arizona
Colorado
Massachusetts
Oregon
New York
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Virginia
West Virginia
Further, many other states have less severe restrictions on prop bets, ranging from no in-game prop betting to no prop bets on in-state teams.
Credit Card Bans
Another policy that is gaining momentum is banning credit cards.
Heading into 2024, five states already prohibited the use of credit cards for online gambling:
Iowa
Tennessee
Massachusetts
Maine
Vermont
Two more states are considering enacting the same policy: Pennsylvania and Louisiana. Maryland’s online gambling bill also includes a credit card ban.
Advertising Restrictions
Author’s Note: In the next header, I’ll examine a federal effort to curb sports betting advertising introduced yesterday.
Marketing restrictions started small, with prohibitions on certain terminology like “risk-free,” the addition of 21+ to marketing, and prohibiting events on college campuses, but they are metastasizing quickly.
Kansas is considering prohibiting advertisements over electronic media (SB 432), with the only exception being the sportsbook’s website. Per the summary, “… prohibiting advertising of sports wagering through internet websites and electronic device applications.”
Vermont is considering a blanket ban (H 857) on all gambling advertising. Per the summary, “… prohibit advertisements for the State Lottery, sports wagering, and any other State-run gambling operation.”
There are also recent changes north of the border in Ontario prohibiting the use of “cartoon figures, symbols, role models, social media influencers, celebrities, or entertainers who would likely be expected to appeal to minors.”
SPONSOR’S MESSAGE - Underdog: the most innovative company in sports gaming.
At Underdog we use our own tech stack to create the industry’s most popular games, designing products specifically for the American sports fan.
Join us as we build the future of sports gaming.
Visit: https://underdogfantasy.com/careers
Tonko Is Back, and He’s Better than Before
New York Congressman Paul Tonko has revamped his efforts to crack down on online sports betting with new legislation, the SAFE Bet Act. Tonko unveiled the bill during a virtual press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
The SAFE Bet Act replaces Tonko’s previous bill, the Betting on our Future Act, which was a comprehensive ban on sports betting advertising.
The revamped SAFE Bet Act takes its foot off the advertising pedal, but only slightly. It also targets several other areas, including affordability checks, credit cards, and AI.
The SAFE Bet Act:
Prohibits advertisements using bonuses or boosts.
Prohibits advertising during live sports events.
Prohibits using AI to track players’ gambling habits, create a customer-specific promotion, or create betting markets ( the last being a potentially game-changing demand).
Limits deposits from a single customer to no more than five in a 24-hour period.
Requires affordability checks if a wager exceeds a certain amount.
Prohibits deposits via credit cards.
Tonko’s bill comes a day after Sen. Richard Blumenthal took to X to call on sportsbooks to “stop targeting problem gamblers with promotions & pitches, spreading addiction & tragedy… I’ve written to the companies urging they cease exploiting their troves of real-time data & algorithms to hook vulnerable users.”
Blumenthal also trumpeted his GRIT Act, which would earmark half the federal sports betting excise tax for problem gambling funding.
Regulus Weighs in on the Cannibalization Debate
In a weekend blog post, Regulus Partners dipped its toe into the increasingly contentious cannibalization debate, which Regulus refers to as “channel shift.”
Read my recent feature column on cannibalization here.
“With nothing less than the future of US igaming legislation at stake, the debate about whether visible online gaming cannibalizes land-based gaming revenue has further intensified,” Regulus writes. “In a US context, we can only state one fact with certainty: nobody really knows the answer yet.”
The Regulus blog notes the uniqueness of the US gambling industry and the current dominance of land-based gambling - 77% of the market, with casinos representing 88% of that number.
“If material igaming displacement has to come from somewhere, this is where it is going to come from. Whereas other jurisdictions have a number of sectors that can all suffer a little for online gaming growth, the USA is very casino-driven.”
As Regulus put it, “If channel shift becomes cannibalization in the USA, it is casinos that will inevitably suffer.”
The blog ends with, “Digital channel shift is inevitable, and a degree of cannibalization will become a fact of life at least to some degree in the US wherever igaming gains traction… However, this only needs to be a cannibalization disaster for those land-based companies and venues who are already taking their customers for granted or who fail to adapt their management style to optimizing omnichannel opportunities.”
Around the Watercooler
Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.
A recent article made some claims (the eye-popping one can be seen in the tweet below) about college students’ betting behaviors, sparking an interesting thread on X.
Last month, in this same section, I wrote about not trusting data:
“The more significant issue is the dissemination of “research” and academic papers that are little more than loosely strung together bits of questionable evidence (packaged in a pretty wrapper) that fit a narrative.
“Everyone should be more skeptical of research, academic papers, and surveys.”
And this is from a Stray Thought entry on “experts”:
“The older I get, the more I come to realize that many people we classify as experts or great thinkers are simply silver-tongued. They’re articulate and persuasive. They’re practiced public speakers who are good at reading a room, telling a joke, and holding you in suspense.
“This isn’t to say they are charlatans or don’t know what they’re talking about. Still, it would be wise to set their reputation aside and consider what they’re saying rather than how well they are saying it.”
Stray Thoughts
Apropos of several conversations this week, you don’t always need to draw a line in the sand.
As Andrew Barber recently asked on X, “I wonder what would happen if there was a button that we could press that would tell us what percentage of things that we believe to be true were, in fact, actually false. We are all walking around believing a bunch of untrue things, and few seem to be bothered by this!”
I responded, “I think we’d all be surprised, yourself included.”
I am thinking all these essentially hit pieces on the sports betting industry for the last year plus were designed to slowly get the general non public to be against legal sports betting and in the case of blumenthal to get federal legislation involved from Tonko and blumenthal in addition to gobert and now Bickerstaff along with Haliburton not being let’s say in favor of legal sports betting saying their props like Halliburton or bickerstaff due to immaturity by people who threaten him because essentially they don’t want him to do his job and want to win their bets. I just wonder how the industry may come out of this as this boom they got will end in a horrible bust if they can’t do damage control.