Proposed bill targets sports betting marketing tactics

Rep. Paul Tonko of New York said Tuesday he intends to introduce legislation that, if passed, would place strict limits on how U.S. online sports betting companies can enter the market and interact with customers. It was announced that.

Along with members of Northeastern University’s Institute for Public Health Advocacy, Tonko said the sports betting industry has been operating in a “Wild West, largely unregulated environment” since 2018. “We are in the midst of a massive and growing public health crisis. We are dealing with it,” he said. Associated with known addictive products. ”

Tonko’s SAFE Bet Act:

• Prohibiting sportsbook advertising during live sporting events.

• Banning language promoting “bonuses” or “hassle-free” betting in sportsbook advertisements.

• Prohibit sportsbooks from accepting credit cards from customers who wish to make deposits.

• Require sportsbooks to accept up to five deposits from a single customer within a 24-hour period.

• Prohibits gambling operators from using artificial intelligence to track players’ gambling habits or from using AI to create customer-specific prop bets.

In February 2023, Tonko introduced the Future of Gambling Act, a bill that focuses more narrowly on advertising by sports betting operators. Modeled after the Public Health Tobacco and Smoking Act, which banned tobacco advertising, previous legislation sought to ban all online and electronic advertising for sports gambling.

Tonko reiterated his position Tuesday that many of sportsbooks’ advertising tactics are “predatory” and aimed at “attracting and retaining a new generation of consumers.”

“Just as we did when the tobacco industry was determined to be causing a public health situation, we are now replacing Mr. Joe Camel with a celebrity spokesperson and, yes, offering free product. “We are doing that,” Tonko said.

In the nearly six years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law that had limited regulated sports betting primarily to Nevada, legal gambling markets have launched in 37 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. It was done. Since the ruling, American sportsbooks have received more than $337 million in wagers.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who has introduced legislation targeting the sports betting industry, echoed some of Tonko’s concerns on social media this week.

“I wrote a letter asking companies to stop exploiting their treasure trove of real-time data and algorithms to hook vulnerable users,” Blumenthal wrote to X.

A spokesperson for the American Gambling Association, the gambling industry’s lobbying arm, declined to comment on Tonko’s latest bill, saying he wanted to know the full details of the bill after it was formally introduced.