Author: Casino Connection Staff

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill legalizing in-person, online and mobile betting on professional, collegiate and international sporting events. Sports betting could begin as soon as this summer, though it’s more likely to start just ahead of football season, said Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission Administrator Brian Ohorilko.

The measure also allows fantasy sports contests and internet fantasy sports betting; however, it puts off wagering based on college sporting event statistics until May 2020. The new law also bans betting on minor leagues and in-state college team players and in-game prop bets.

The state will collect a 6.75 percent tax on the casinos’ sports-betting hold. Bettors must be at least age 21 and register in-person at a casino sportsbook. The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, which regulates the state’s 19 casinos, will have regulatory authority over sports betting. Ohorilko recently said most of the state’s casinos will create sportsbooks.

American Gaming Association Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Sara Slane said, “The state of Iowa has set its legal sports betting market up for success with a reasonable tax rate, mobile wagering, strong consumer protections and provisions that put responsible gaming at the forefront. Iowa’s legalization of sports betting brings the total number of legal markets in the United States to 15, none of which include statutory provisions for integrity fees.”

The sports betting bill passed the state House in a 67-31 vote, and 31-18 in the Senate. Iowa is the third state to legalize sports betting this year, following Indiana and Montana. A bill also has been passed in Tennessee where Governor Bill Lee said he opposes legal sports betting but will allow the bill to become law without his signature.

Officials at Prairie Meadows in Altoona said it will be the first casino in Iowa to offer sports betting once the rules are in place. It already signed a partnership with sportsbook operator William Hill and completed a sportsbook area.

In Burlington, Catfish Bend Casino formed a partnership with the Australian sports betting company PointsBet and is renovating a 5,000 square foot area into a sportsbook. Chief Executive Officer Gary Hoyer said he expects it to open in August once the rules are drafted. “I am hearing interest probably like nothing else since the opening of riverboat gambling in Iowa back in 1991. Wherever I go, whether it’s the grocery store or out for dinner, it’s the topic that everyone stops and wants to talk about,” he said.

Last year, the Michigan House and Senate both passed state Rep. Brandt Iden’s online gambling legislation, only to see the bill vetoed by outgoing Governor Scott Walker. This year, Iden is trying to pass a similar bill but the same issues keep coming up.

Iden’s measure passed the House Ways and Means Committee but Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s office indicated she would veto it in its current form. A budget office official said, “As the bill is written—given the tax rate, the distribution of the additional new online gaming revenue to the state, as well as the potential impact to the state lottery—even under an optimistic scenario, Treasury estimates that there would be a potential reduction in overall state revenue.”

Chief Deputy Treasurer Jeff Guilfoyle stated online gaming’s cannibalization of the three Detroit casinos and the online lottery could cost the state up to $35.5 million or more. But Iden pointed out the Michigan lottery uses its online presence to attract players to the land-based casinos, and online gambling could bring even more people to casinos, which would help increase overall gambling revenue for the state.

Iden said he recently reached a consensus with industry stakeholders on language for a bill. “I’ve been working with stakeholders behind the scenes to make sure we get the language right. My plan is to introduce that bill and hopefully have it catch up to the rest of the package. I’m going to keep driving at getting it done before summer break.”

Iden added Whitmer has a team working on the option and hopefully everyone can reach what he calls “a landing spot.” He said his plans to increase the tax rate for online gambling from 8 percent to 9.25 percent may help move the legislation forward. The additional 1.25 percent would go to Detroit casinos and 5 percent would go to the state’s School Aid Fund may help move the legislation forward.

Although Iden didn’t introduce a sports betting bill this session, his online gambling bill includes a clause allowing the Division of Internet Gaming to authorize licensed operators to accept internet wagers on sports.

The legislative session will end June 27.

PartyPoker says it has seized $144,000 and €34,000 form 94 fraudulent ‘bot’ accounts across its global and shared liquidity doteu licenses.

A total of 39 dotcom accounts were closed last month and $143,908.10 seized in player balances were seized, the company said in a press release.

PartyPoker said the seizures are part of its ongoing attempts to make the site a safer, fairer place to play. PartyPoker is currently processing refunds from the entire pool of seized funds, which will be redistributed to all affected players, the release said.

The company said 15 of the seizures were due to reports submitted by PartyPoker players, and the site encourages players to continue reporting all suspicious activity at its tables.

The site also closed 55 rogue accounts throughout April belonging to its ring-fenced doteu license that serves players from France and Spain. Those 55 account closures led to the seizure of €34,546.17 in associated funds, with five of the closures coming as a direct result of player reports, the release said.

States with online lotteries could lose $220 million annually under a new opinion on the federal wire act issued by the Department of Justice which called into question the legality of online gambling.

The DOJ—due to a federal case challenging the opinion brought by New Hampshire—was expected to clarify its opinion on whether the wire act applies to lotteries. However, the DOJ simply filed a brief in the case saying that New Hampshire has failed to prove its lottery is immune from the law and repeated a promise to not prosecute lotteries until it reviews the issue.

Now resigned Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had said in a memo that the DOJ would not apply the opinion to lotteries while it conducts the review. The federal judge in the case has already ruled that the promise was not enough to derail New Hampshire’s challenge.

The new opinion—which reversed a 2011 DOJ opinion that the wire act applied only to sports betting—said the wire act applied to all forms of online gambling and gambling where information is transmitted across state lines. Interstate lotteries such as Powerball and Mega Millions could also be affected.

Seven states now sell lottery tickets online and others offer residents internet-based lottery subscription services, according to the AP.

Lotteries, as well as online gaming sites, could see information transmitted across state lines and games that are played in multiple states, like Powerball and Mega Millions, transmit data to a central database out of state, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries.

“It’s like trying to run a business and not knowing the rules about it,” said David Gale, the association’s executive director told the wire service. “That clarity is the important thing to us now as far as the DOJ issue goes.”

New Hampshire has been supported by several states with online lotteries in their case and several other states with online gaming—including New Jersey and Pennsylvania—have said they too will challenge the opinion in court.

Data gathered by the AP, show states stand to lose over $220 million in net profits annually if the Justice Department targets single tickets sold online or more than $23 billion if the agency takes a broad interpretation that would prohibit all lottery-related activities that use the internet.

Six of the seven states that sell lottery tickets online, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, expect to provide a combined $224 million to a variety of programs during the fiscal year that ends June 30. In Michigan, money goes to public education while Pennsylvania dedicates all proceeds to programs that benefit older residents.

Figures for Georgia’s online lottery sales were not provided to the AP and not included in the analysis.

Questions about information crossing state lines also affects online gaming—now legal in Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania—as well as states considering or offering online sports betting.

Delaware’s lottery director, Vernon Kirk, told the wire service he’s worried about how the department’s legal opinion is interpreted because of the potential loss of revenue. He said exactly how much revenue is in jeopardy depends on how it’s enforced.

“I can’t bring myself to believe they’d stop Powerball and Mega Millions,” he said. “It’s beyond my comprehension they’d allow that to happen but that’s what the law is saying, any betting data that crosses state lines is not allowed. And those are some of the larger revenue sources for Delaware, especially when the jackpots are high.”

The Texas House has given preliminary approval to a bill that would legalize daily fantasy sports in the state by classifying it as a game of skill rather than a game of chance.

The bill passed 116 to 27 and is expected to gain final approval and be sent to the state Senate.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a nonbinding opinion in 2016 that said daily fantasy contests could be in violation of state gambling laws, which don’t allow betting on the performance of athletes. Paxton said DFS contests were games of chance in which success hinges on how well an athlete performs on game day.

At the time, FanDuel stopped accepting Texas customers while rival DraftKings challenge the opinion. FanDuel began accepting Texas customers again In August.

The bill’s sponsors acknowledged that many Texans play and participate in DFS contests.

“The law itself in the penal code isn’t clear whether you can grab up the conduct of close to 4 million Texans and have it criminalized,” state Representative Joe Moody, who authored the bill, told the American-Statesman.

The Tennessee legislature recently approved a bill allow online and mobile sports betting. Governor Bill Lee said he’ll let it become law without his signature. The measure has a July 1 effective date. Lee’s spokeswoman Laine Arnold said, “The governor has said he does not believe that the expansion of gambling is best, but he recognizes that many in the legislature found this to be an issue they want to explore further. He plans to let this become law without signature.” The Senate voted 19-12 for the bill and the House voted 51-40.

The measure makes Tennessee the first state to approve online-only sports betting. The state has no casinos, and there will be no retail kiosks or physical sportsbooks. Sports betting receipts will be taxed at 20 percent. The bill will use state-of-the-art technology to ensure players are age 21 or older and are located within the state’s borders. Also, the measure bans bets from those who would have conflicts or access to confidential information about athletes, and it prohibits wagers on prop bets in college sports, including betting on an individual collegiate athlete’s performance.

DraftKings tweeted its thanks to state Senator Steve Dickerson, the bill’s sponsor. DraftKings had seven registered lobbyists in Tennessee and FanDuel had nine, according to state records. DraftKings also organized an online campaign, “Let Tennessee Bet.” Dickerson said sports betting “is happening anyway. What this bill does is, however, is brings it up in the light and has provisions in it for troubled gamblers.”

State analysis showed sports betting would generate more than $50 million annually, including $40.7 million for the lottery’s education, $7.6 million for local governments and $2.5 million for problem gambling and other mental health services.

A feature popular in modern mobile video games could lead to risky gambling behavior, concludes a study performed by the University of British Columbia.

The new research, published April 16 in the journal Addictive Behaviors, found that “loot boxes”—randomly generated prizes that can be attained or purchased within a game—results in behaviors very similar to those displayed by problem gamblers.

“Our study is among the first to investigate the links between loot boxes and gambling,” Gabriel Brooks, a Ph.D student from UBC’s Centre for Gambling Research and lead author of the study, told the magazine. “Our findings are consistent with voiced concerns that loot boxes overlap with gambling, and support the need for regulators to consider gambling-like mechanisms within video games.”

Loot boxes began appearing in video games in the mid-2000s and have grown in popularity since. In some cases, players earn them as rewards for game play, but players are often encouraged to buy them using real or virtual currency. For the study, researchers developed five questions designed to measure excessive or risky use of loot boxes. The participating gamers, all North Americans of at least university age, assessed themselves based on statements such as “I frequently play games longer than I intend to, so I can earn loot boxes” or “I have bought more loot boxes after failing to receive valuable items.”

Participants also completed surveys that are commonly used in gambling research to assess gambling behavior, beliefs about gambling, and risk-taking behavior, as well as a newer survey designed to identify problem video gaming.