Here’s today’s quick rundown in the world of US gambling.
Online sports betting is the Wild West!
You know you’re in trouble as an industry when you start getting compared to the Wild West. Somehow in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-four this trope is still getting trotted out to signify that things are out of control. (To be clear, things are not out of control, but the optics around the industry have been pretty poor of late.)
This time, it’s Rep. Paul Tonko trying to drum up support for a proposed federal bill that would put more restrictions on sports betting advertising, as well as some other regulations for the industry. Some media outlets are gladly repeating Tonko’s Wild West assertion. Tonko, like many others, is even trying to link the Ohtani interpreter gambling scandal to legal sports betting, even though the whole affair is entirely about ILLEGAL sports betting. But it makes for a nice quote.
I’ve long been dismissive that meaningful federal regulation would come for sports betting. But I am less dismissive in today’s climate, and arguably something needs to happen beyond self-regulation. It still seems unlikely this is going anywhere in a gridlocked Congress in a presidential election year, but stranger things have happened.
I dug deep into the recesses of my mind to remember the daily fantasy sports industry was sometimes compared to the Wild West, including by a congressperson. It of course survived it all, but the industry endured a lot of pain and suffering. And of course, the daily fantasy sports industry (operators other than DraftKings and FanDuel) is again under a microscope.
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ESPN Bet, ‘risk-free investment’
The gambling industry and beyond was having a field day on Twitter on Sunday when an ESPN personality did an ESPN Bet promo and said a bet was like a “risk-free investment.”’ The consensus was that this wasn’t great. I won’t go in-depth here, but I wrote something at Awful Announcing. Read that here. TL;DR: Even if you think the personality was joking, that joke likely still has consequences in the real world, from regulator scrutiny to ammunition for reining in advertising (see above).
Quick hitters
Los Angeles Dodgers star Shoehei Ohtani is scheduled to speak to the media today in the wake of the scandal involving gambling and his interpreter. Here are some questions I have as we continue to learn more about the story.
Why on Earth is an NHL team tweeting about how many goals until the game hits the over for scoring?
The Onion: Signs You Are Addicted To Sports Betting.
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The federal legislation proposed by tonko is not surprising to me as the industry which I agree has done a lot of stupid crap that they’ve repeated from the uk deceptive promos, limiting or banning of winners which is another discussion and the pieces that 60 minutes and others which some are yes hit pieces like the ohtani scandal which has nothing to do with the legal industry. They have done on the industry have begun to I think start to get them to think it’s a bad thing which is a shame but the industry does need to take responsibility for some of their dumb mistakes that have caused people like tonko to call for federal legislation.
Now I agree this probably doesn’t go anywhere being a election year plus you’ll see the aga lobby against it and I’m sure Dina Titus in my state of Nevada who slammed the grit act and is standing up for the industry here won’t go along with certain pieces in the legislation he proposed. The legal industry’s favor by the general public is I think slowly turning and they do need to somehow get it together as they continue to dig a hole that they might not get out of.