New bill to target sports betting marketing techniques

John Barr Close John Barr ESPN.com Joined ESPN in June 2003 Winner: 2013 Peabody Award; 2011 Edward R.

• Murrow Award/Video Investigative Reporting Covers breaking news, investigative pieces and human interest features David Purdum Close David

  Purdum

  ESPN Personnel Writer

  • Joined ESPN in 2014
  • Journalist covering gambling market because 2008

Mar 19, 2024, 05:19 PM ET

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) revealed Tuesday he means to introduce legislation that, if passed, would position extreme limitations on the way online sports wagering companies in the United States market to and communicate with their customers.Saying the sports wagering market has actually been running since 2018 in “a Wild West, mostly uncontrolled environment, “Tonko, who was joined by members of Northeastern University’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, said,”We are handling a huge and growing public health crisis involving a known, addicting product.” To name a few things, Tonko’s winner Act would:

– Restriction sportsbook marketing during live sporting events. – Restriction language from sportsbook advertisements promoting”perk”or

“no sweat”bets. – Restrict sportsbooks from accepting charge card from customers seeking to make deposits. – Require sportsbooks to accept no more than 5 deposits from a single consumer within a 24-hour

duration. – Forbid betting operators from utilizing expert system to track a player’s betting habits or to use AI to produce customer-specific prop bets.In February 2023, Tonko presented the Betting on Our Futures Act, a bill focused more narrowly on marketing by sports betting operators. Imitated the Public Health Smoking Act, which banned tobacco ads, that previous legislation looked for to prohibit all online and electronic advertising of sports gambling.On Tuesday, Tonko repeated his position that many sportsbook marketing methods are” predatory “and meant “to hook and retain a new generation of consumers.

“” Simply as in the tobacco industry when it was determined that industry was posing a public health scenario, we have now displaced Joe Camel with star spokespeople and,

yes, totally free item,”Tonko said.In the almost six years because the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the federal statute that had restricted controlled sports betting to primarily Nevada, legal betting markets have actually launched in 37 states, the District of

Columbia and Puerto Rico. Given that the judgment, American sportsbooks have actually taken more than $337 million in bets.Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who also has introduced legislation targeting the sports betting market, echoed a few of Tonko’s issues this week on social networks.”I have actually written to the companies prompting they cease exploiting their troves of actual time information & algorithms to hook vulnerable users,”Blumenthal wrote on X.A spokesperson for the American Gaming Association, which works as the lobbying arm of the betting industry, declined to discuss Tonko’s latest proposed legislation, pointing out a desire to see the information of the entire expense once it is officially presented.