ESPN Bet’s Massachusetts launch in jeopardy
Penn’s MA woes, New York iCasino tryout, GAN in Nevada, Italy’s black market +More
Good morning. On today’s agenda:
Penn isn’t out of the woods when it comes to the Massachusetts regulators.
Addabbo says he’s giving iCasino legislation in New York another go.
GAN’s Nevada conditional licensing comes with ex-CEO disclosures.
Italy needs to rethink its gambling ban, says EGBA.
Penn’s ESPN Bet fears
If Penn thought Massachusetts regulators would warm up after its ditching of Barstool Sports for the more acceptable ESPN, it thought wrong.
Feet to the fire: The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has been tough on all sports-betting operators, but few have been scrutinized as harshly as Penn Entertainment, whose former partner Barstool Sports was persona non grata among the Commission.
“I will hold ESPN to the same standards that I held Barstool during the application process,” MGC commissioner Jordan Maynard said at a meeting last week.
“Just because ESPN is big and a behemoth doesn’t mean that I won’t hold them to the same standard that I did Barstool.”
Communication breakdown: At the meeting, MGC chair Cathy Judd-Stein made it clear that the two entities are not on the same page. “I’m waiting for the ask [from Penn] unless there is this notion that there doesn’t have to be an ask,” Judd-Stein said. “I’m wondering why we haven’t received a request, and I am wondering where the disconnect is.”
What was needed of Penn was overlooked during an October 2 meeting, when the MGC was focused on the continued use of the Barstool brand after Penn divested itself of the company.
During that meeting, Penn’s vice-president and chief compliance officer Chris Soriano suggested the MGC take up Penn’s durable finding of suitability for a license (it has been issued a temporary one), which likely would have answered, or presented an opportunity to answer, any questions the MGC has on the switch to ESPN.
Judd-Stein asked legal counsel if Penn needed to initiate the process for a finding of durability or if the MGC did. In typical MGC fashion no one seemed to know, and the conversation more or less trailed off.
It’s unclear if the conversation was revisited during the closed-doors executive session.
Even though Soriano requested it at the meeting, Judd-Stein implied the MGC can’t take up the process until they figure out who is supposed to initiate it, or what event triggers the MGC to take up the matter.
We’ll be in touch: Moving back to the October 19 meeting, Heather Hall, the MGC’s chief enforcement counsel of the Investigations & Enforcement Bureau, indicated she’d been communicating with Soriano, who reiterated that the company would answer any questions the MGC has.
Among the questions MGC commissioners had for Penn was the relationship between ESPN Bet and ESPN’s personalities and shows, specifically College GameDay.
The MGC has made it clear that it’s not a fan of live shows on college campuses, as it required Barstool Sports to have strict age-gating policies in place.
“The ESPN college football show is an issue,” commissioner Eileen O’Brien said. “How are they going to draw the line between people who work for the entity suggesting specific bets?”
And as Sports Handle’s Jill Dorson reported, the 21+ logo issue that has bogged down previous meetings is likely to come up during the College GameDay discussions.
Meeting expectations: The “disconnect”, as Judd-Stein called it, and the MGC’s meticulous nature could jeopardize ESPN Bet’s launch plans in Massachusetts.
With a launch about a month away, every day is critical, and these delays could see the licensing process in Massachusetts drag beyond the expected launch of ESPN Bet in late-November.
On the plus side, the MGC has a meeting scheduled for November 2 and agreed to add another meeting on November 7.
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US notebook
If at first you don’t succeed: Sen. Joe Addabbo is determined to make another run at getting an iCasino legalization bill included in the upcoming legislative session, according to a report in Sports Betting Dime.
Addabbo is set to introduce draft legislation before January, the site quotes the senator as saying.
“We know we need revenue in New York,” he added.
“Here we are, we’re on the cusp of an iGaming and iLottery bill, and all I need is the governor in her budget to merely say seven words or so, ‘We’ll look and explore the possibilities of iGaming and iLottery’.”
As Compliance+More reported in June, Addabbo was planning iCasino legislation but, as we noted at the time, the case against legislation is formidable given the current concentration on the ongoing process for establishing three new downstate casino resorts.
Addabbo’s previous legislative attempt ran into the buffers earlier this year.
You pick’em
Also in New York, where the rules that ban daily fantasy sports pick’em contests became official last week, the fantasy operator Sleeper has added the state to its list of exclusions. However, Underdog Fantasy and PrizePicks continue to offer the games in the state.
UF told Saturday Down South that the commission has not ordered it to shut down its pick’em games.
A spokesperson told the site it will “continue to offer them in New York as it works with the gaming commission to ensure it operates under the finalized rules”.
Florida extension
An extension request from the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis to give it time to respond to the Florida Supreme Court case involving the lawsuit from West Flagler and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp. over the state’s proposed compact with the Seminole has been granted.
It has been reported that the governor’s office must now file a response to the suit by December 1.
West Flagler and Bonita-Fort Myers are also appealing to the US Supreme Court.
GAN’s Nevada license
At a cost: GAN has been granted a two-year conditional license by the Nevada Gaming Commission – but in its meeting with the NGC, the company’s chief legal officer Sylvia Tiscareño admitted former CEO Dermot Smurfit was dismissed due to an investigation of allegations of non-disclosure of assets and sexual harassment.
The conditional license is also dependent on interim CEO Seamus McGill stepping down as chair of GAN’s board and assuming the CEO duties on a permanent basis.
The approval means GAN will be able to move ahead with its long-planned agreement to provide its sports-betting tech backend to Red Rock Resorts. GAN said it expects GLI to submit its final approval for the product by November 3.
“We are very pleased and humbled to have received regulatory approval from the State of Nevada to hold a gaming license,” McGill said in a statement.
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Italy’s €25bn gambling problem
After reports of eye-watering sums pocketed by illegal operators in Italy, the secretary-general of the European Gaming and Betting Association (EBGA) says the country should rethink its advertising ban.
Mama mia! Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport said the Italian black market is worth a staggering €25bn per year (yes, billion), with 75% spent with unlicensed online operators. The estimated GGR loss is equivalent to the combined GGR of eight other EU countries, including Malta, Estonia and Cyprus, the EGBA said.
EBGA secretary-general Maarten Haijer placed the blame for the soaring black market activity squarely on the country’s advertising ban.
He said it gives Italians “no real way” to “tell the difference” between licensed and unlicensed operators.
“It is evident that enforcement action against black market operators is not sufficient and that the government needs to revise its advertising rules for gambling to ensure Italian citizens can be well informed about the licensed websites in the country,” Haijer added.
Numbers up: Italy’s Customs and Monopolies Agency has blocked over 9,800 unlicensed operators this year - 400 more than last year’s total - prompting the EGBA to note the numbers highlight the “increasing scale of the problem”.
Italy banned gambling advertising in July 2018.
Other European countries have followed suit over the last year, with varying levels of crackdowns rolled out across Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands.
European notebook
Been around the block: After two years of talks, Norway has approved plans to block unlicensed gambling websites. The latest attempt to cling on to the state monopoly involves forcing internet providers to blacklist black market websites using the domain name system (DNS).
Amendments to the Gambling Act were proposed by the Ministry of Culture and Equality and approved the same day by the government.
“If the foreign gambling companies had followed Norwegian law, this would not have been imposed on the internet providers,” said culture and equality minister Lubna Jaffery. “Therefore, we have to regulate this by targeting actors over whom we have jurisdiction.”
Separately, PokerStars has stated it will cease its online operations in Norway on October 26. It said the decision was for commercial reasons.
The Netherlands Gaming Authority, the KSA, is seeking a new head after René Jansen announced he would not be seeking a new term. Jansen has been in charge since the online sports-betting and iCasino market was regulated in late 2021. His tenure will formally come to an end on July 1, 2024.
"In recent years I have committed myself to the KSA's mission of safe play with great energy and pleasure," said Jansen.
“This management position is challenging, requires creativity, innovation and decisiveness, but above all has great social value.”
Telegram Sam: Also in the Netherlands, the authorities are targeting influencers who promote fake sports results, as part of an online anti-fraud campaign. Franc Weerwind, the Dutch minister for legal protection, responded to parliamentary questions about the problem linked to sports betting and said the government would be intervening.
“The so-called manipulated results are purchased from the fraudsters on Telegram and paid for using cryptocurrency,” he said.
“The Dutch government will launch a multi-year campaign program this autumn to enhance the digital resilience of Dutch citizens, including awareness of social engineering, and reduce victimization of cybercrime and online fraud.”
GambleAware has launched its English Gambling Education Hub portal to enhance services providing early intervention and prevention for gambling harm among young people.
Regtech notebook
Socure: The Nevada-based digital identification verification and fraud solutions company has launched its fraud solution Sigma First-Party Fraud with its First-Party Fraud Consortium. The consortium’s founding members include SoFi, Green Dot, Varo, Ingo, Dave and Public.
Calendar
Oct 31: SBC Summit Latinoamérica
Nov 13: Sigma, Malta
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