The federal government would ban in-game advertising and betting on college athletes under a bill to regulate sports betting introduced by two Northeastern lawmakers.
Rep. Paul Tonko of New York and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut introduced the bill on Thursday, which they say is designed to address the harmful effects of the rapid expansion of legal sports betting in the U.S. since 2018.
The bill would also ban the use of credit cards to deposit funds into online gambling accounts.
Democratic lawmakers argue that sports betting, now legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia, increases gambling addiction and other problems. Tonko said every moment of every game is an opportunity to gamble.
“The result has been a frightening increase in gambling disorder which has taken a terrible toll on individuals, many of whom have lost their homes, jobs, marriages and lives,” Tonko said.
Blumenthal said the measure is a public health issue.
“This is about stopping addiction, saving lives and making sure that people, especially young people, are protected from exploitation,” Blumenthal said.
The bill has already faced strong opposition from the gambling industry, which has long argued that sports betting advertising should be self-regulated to avoid the imposition of federal standards.
The American Gaming Association, the gambling industry’s national trade group, said sportsbooks already operate under government oversight, pay billions of dollars in state taxes and offer consumer protections that don’t exist at illegal gambling operations.
“Six years after sports betting was legalized, the introduction of a heavy-handed federal ban is an affront to state legislatures and gambling regulators who have dedicated significant time and resources to developing thoughtful frameworks specific to their jurisdiction,” the statement said.
The industry has adopted sports betting practices that impose some restrictions on advertising, but critics say they don’t go far enough.
Harry Levant, gambling policy director at the Institute for Public Health Advocacy at Northeastern University School of Law, compared gambling to drugs and alcohol in terms of their addictive potential.
“With every other addictive product or substance, governments regulate the advertising, promotion, distribution and consumption of the product,” he said. “Unfortunately, with gambling, the exact opposite is happening.”
The National Council on Problem Gambling says that “as sports betting explodes” across the United States, there is a potential for an increase in problem gambling.
The bill would prohibit bank operators from accepting more than five deposits from a customer within 24 hours and would check whether a customer has the capacity to deposit more than $1,000 within 24 hours or more than $10,000 in a month.
The bill would also ban “prop” bets on the performance of college or amateur athletes, such as how many passing yards a quarterback will get in a game.
It would also ban the use of artificial intelligence to track customers’ gambling habits or the creation of gambling products that include very specific “micro-bets” based on narrow scenarios, such as the speed of the next pitch in a baseball game.
