If Brazil is accelerating the process of regulating sports betting as a result of the investigations of the Maximum Penalty Operation (promoted by the Public Ministry of Goiás), other countries are also moving to create mechanisms that inhibit scandals related to the sector.
In the United States, for example, several legislators are working together to increase enforcement of advertising, which can impact vulnerable people such as minors. This movement is happening in several other countries, including Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom, the authorities reviewed the legislation related to gambling and proposed new restrictions on sports betting. One of the novelties is the veto of the participation of personalities in the disclosure of companies in the sports betting sector.
Folha de São Paulo published an article – originally from The New York Times – detailing this situation in an international context. Check out the report below:
Countries limit advertising and create restrictions in the face of sports betting scandals
Legislators and regulatory authorities who started the uncontrolled expansion of legalized gambling in the United States are now moving, in several regions of the country, to strengthen the sector’s oversight. The main target is advertising, which can influence underage gamblers.
The crackdown measures extend to gamblers, as at least three American states, faced with the jump in the number of cases of abusive behavior, responded with measures to bar gamblers who threaten or harass athletes after losing bets.
This more aggressive approach to online gambling is evident in countries around the world, such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, where authorities have in recent months put in place or proposed new restrictions on online gambling – in some cases prohibiting the use of celebrities in advertising as well as almost all forms of advertising.
In the United States, 33 states and the District of Columbia (the capital region of Washington) offer legal sports betting. Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska and Florida are on track to legalize them. That means more than half of Americans live in places where sports betting is legal, five years after the Supreme Court struck down a law that barred most states from legalizing the practice.
Collectively, Americans’ legal wagers on sports have surpassed $220 billion since the 2018 lawsuit.
In the United States, adjustments to state regulations and laws began in the first quarter of this year in states such as New York, where mobile sports betting through cellphones reached a total of US$ 16.5 billion (R$ 81 billion), and An extraordinary US$909 million (R$4.4 billion) in tax collections and licensing fees were recorded in the first year the practice was legalized.
But the explosive growth of online sports betting has also sparked growing concerns that it could do harm. New York has responded by proposing new rules banning any advertising on college campuses. It also prevented advertising from being “aimed at people under the minimum age” –21 years old, in the state. Ohio has already intensified inspection actions.
“People are waking up to the need to intervene, not wait a decade and suffer the full brunt of the ill effects of this, especially on minors,” said Matt Schuler, executive director of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, which he said he was extremely disappointed with the content of advertising in his state when betting started this year. “The industry will certainly never be able to police itself.”
An estimated $1.8 billion (R$8.8 billion) was spent on advertising for online gambling last year in local US markets, according to BIA Advisory Services – the company that collects industry data. That represents a nearly 70% increase in just one year, which has contributed to the feeling among some state regulatory officials — and many sports viewers — that the airwaves are saturated with sports betting advertising.
In the last six months, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio and Connecticut have enacted or proposed new rules related to sports betting, some of which are already in effect or awaiting final approval. Measures differ from state to state, but most are aimed at preventing misleading marketing or sports betting promotions targeting minors.
Maine has proposed rules that would allow television sports betting commercials to be shown only during live game broadcasts, which would be the most restrictive rule in the United States. The state also banned ads offering bonuses for betting and banned the use of “cartoon characters, professional or Olympic athletes, celebrities or entertainers” in advertising.
Last month, Massachusetts formally banned marketing on college campuses and advertising directed at minors. This month, the state also joined New York in banning companies that market sports betting from taking a commission on bets placed by customers they refer to the platforms, based on concerns that such deals could fuel the problem of gambling. gambling addiction.
Brian O’Dwyer, chairman of the New York State Gambling Commission, said sports betting in his state was generating windfall tax revenue. But, he added, “we have to make sure we don’t get people addicted, we don’t promote problematic gambling and we certainly don’t promote underage gambling.”
Maryland and Connecticut are acting separately to prohibit betting companies from signing agreements with public universities under which they pay schools to help them market their sports betting platforms.
“In my opinion, it’s outrageous,” said Amy Morrin Bello, Democratic state representative from Connecticut’s Wethersfield borough, of the agreements that companies have signed with eight universities across the country. His bill banning such partnerships passed this month by 142 votes to 0.
Morrin Bello and O’Dwyer said their proposed regulatory measures were prompted by a report in The New York Times last year on the explosive growth of sports betting in the United States, which highlighted its commercialization on college campuses.
The Ohio Casino Control Commission has imposed more than $800,000 in fines on sports betting companies since January. Among the offenders was DraftKings, one of the most prominent betting platforms, which admitted to illegally claiming that punters could place “free” bets and mistakenly sent 2,582 advertisements to state residents under the age of 21, urging them to download their app and receive $200 in free bets.
Penn Entertainment, another major sports betting company that operates under the Barstool brand, was separately fined in February. Late last year, on the campus of the University of Toledo, Barstool hosted a college football event to promote the company’s sports betting app, despite a ban on advertising targeting those under 21.
Neither company declined to comment.
Schuler said enforcement of the law has resulted in greater compliance by advertisers. But he said he still had concerns, such as betting company logos affixed to the shirts of players on the Columbus-based professional football team, a practice he called “utterly offensive” as those players are heroes to many young people. “Their greed trumps the common sense they should employ to prevent harm to minors,” he said, adding that he currently lacks the authority to ban sponsoring betting services from emblazoning their branding on sports uniforms.
PUNTERS ATTACK ATHLETES
The growth of abusive behavior directed at college athletes and professional sportsmen has caught the attention of coaches and players themselves. Anthony Grant, coach of the University of Dayton men’s basketball team, condemned verbal and online attacks against his players by angry gamblers in January, just days after the state of Ohio legalized sports betting.
At a hearing last month in Illinois, Josh Whitman, athletic director at the state’s top university, urged lawmakers to uphold the ban on betting on collegiate sports in Illinois. He presented lawmakers with a letter, signed by representatives of many of the state’s universities, that included five pages of crude — and occasionally racist — comments directed at players and teams.
Chris Boucher, forward for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, described in a podcast in March one of the hateful messages he received from a gambler. “I picked the wrong slave today,” the person wrote to Boucher on social media after losing a bet.
While the wording of the measures varies, legislation or rule changes proposed or passed in Ohio, West Virginia and Massachusetts this year would allow state officials to bar gamblers who threaten or harass athletes.
The sports betting industry backed the proposals, saying it abhors this type of behavior towards athletes.
“There is absolutely no room for it,” said Casey Clark, senior vice president of the American Gaming Association, whose members include most major casino operators, as well as FanDuel and DraftKings. “And anyone who takes their reaction to losing a bet to that extreme, I think, has a gambling addiction problem and needs to get help.”
The gambling industry and professional sports leagues have announced efforts to confront harmful practices – and avoid mandatory tightening of the rules.
These include revisions to the American Gaming Association’s “code of responsible marketing”, endorsing the ban on the use of the term “risk free gambling” and prohibiting marketing partnerships with universities. Professional sports leagues and some television networks have banded together to create what they call the Coalition for Responsible Sports Betting Advertising, and have issued statements such as “Sports betting should be marketed only to adults of legal betting age.”
Clark said the industry has taken steps to address issues that are being escalated to regulatory authorities, reflecting a commitment to “providing the right kind of consumer protections that will enable a sustainable legal sports betting market”.
Brianne Doura-Schawohl, a lobbyist representing a national council that discusses gambling issues, said the steps taken to tighten the rules were a response to the sloppy job state officials did in enacting laws that legalized sports betting from 2018 onwards.
“These are discussions that should have happened before legalization,” she said.
The actions of regulatory authorities in other countries, added Doura-Schawohl, reflect what could come next if the US sports betting industry does not act quickly to avoid problems that have emerged in countries where, in some cases, sports betting is legal. many years ago.
LIMITS IN OTHER COUNTRIES
Australia is preparing to ban the use of credit cards to place bets online, which already account for around 20% of bets taken in the country. Belgium and the Netherlands, starting in the middle of the year, will ban advertising of gambling on television, radio, newspapers and public spaces.
“If you have non-targeted ads – billboards and TV commercials – you can’t control who sees them, including young people and people with gambling problems,” said Frerick Althof, spokesman for the Netherlands’ minister of legal protection.
Canada’s largest province, Ontario, last month proposed a ban on the use of athletes and celebrities in gambling advertising, concluding that “the potential harmful impact on the most vulnerable population, minors, remains high”.
And in the UK, the government agency overseeing online gambling last month released a long-awaited study that concluded “change is needed now” as “gambling poses the risk of becoming a clinical addiction”.
The document proposed “financial risk checks” for gamblers who lose more than $160 a month, as well as endorsing a movement to remove gambling logos from the front of players’ shirts.
Clark, of the industry association of betting companies, said the gaming industry would oppose it if any of these changes were proposed in the United States, as he objected to the proposed wagering cap in Maine, which the association considers to be too strict.
“We’ve always wanted to learn from more mature markets,” he said. But, he added, “we don’t support restricting when we can trade legal and regulated businesses.”
