News In Brief: December 9-December 13, 2024

An ad for Betfair broadcast during the Chris Moyles show on Radio X was not a risk to children, despite being broadcast at 8am, the UK’s advertising watchdog has ruled.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rejected a complaint that the morning ad for Flutter-owned Betfair could have been aimed at children.

The Chris Moyles show and Radio X in general has a large proportion of listeners over the age of 25, Flutter told the ASA.

The advertising regulator independently verified the audience statistics using official Radio Joint Audience Research figures and said it was satisfied that the radio ad was not targeted at an underage audience.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing to discuss the U.S. sports-betting market next week.

The committee set a hearing date of Tuesday, December 17, for a hearing titled “America’s High-Stakes Bet on Legalized Sports Gambling.”

The hearing would be the first congressional hearing specifically on sports betting since a House Judiciary subcommittee heard testimony on the issue in September 2018, and continues a trend of federal lawmakers showing increased interest in sports betting.

The SAFE Bet Act, which would include significant new restrictions on advertising and affordability requirements, among other provisions, was filed in both chambers of the U.S. Congress earlier this year.

In addition, two senators, Republican Mike Lee of Utah and Democrat Peter Welch, sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission last week asking the regulator to investigate FanDuel and DraftKings for antitrust violations.

Action on the SAFE Bet Act, or any other congressional action on sports betting, is extremely unlikely with a new Congress set to be seated on January 3 following November’s elections. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee will also have a new chair as of that point, with Democratic Senator Dick Durbin relinquishing that title to Republican Chuck Grassley with Republicans holding the majority in the Senate.

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) gaming regulator, the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA), has issued a consumer advisory notice warning residents of playing with unlicensed lottery and commercial gaming operators.

In July, the GCGRA granted the UAE’s sole lottery licence to The Game LLC to operate as the UAE Lottery. Two pre-existing airport lotteries, Big Ticket and Dubai Duty Free, that have been operating for almost three decades will continue operating under the supervision of the GCGRA. 

In accordance with the law, all other pre-existing lotteries will not be considered for continued operations, and the GCGRA has ordered them to shut down.

“The GCGRA is committed to ensuring a safe and legal gaming environment in the UAE,”  Kevin Mullally, CEO of the GCGRA, said in a statement on Monday (December 9). 

Mullally warned that advertisers, payment processors and other service providers that support these businesses risk sanctions and potential consequences affecting their ability to operate in the UAE.

The GCGRA was established in September 2023 with former MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren as chairman. Since its inception, the agency has authorised Aristocrat, Smartplay International and PayBy Technology Projects to supply gaming operators.

Wynn Resorts received the first Commercial Gaming Facility Operator licence in October for its Wynn Al Marjan Island project on Ras Al Khaimah.

New Zealand’s racing minister Winston Peters has confirmed the government plans to introduce legislation next year to end greyhound racing.

“Despite significant progress made by the greyhound racing industry in recent years, the percentage of dogs being injured remains persistently high and the time has come to make a call in the best interest of the animals,” Peters said in a statement announcing the decision.

Peters said the goal was to wind down greyhound racing over a 20-month period “to enable the rehoming of racing dogs and to provide a transition period for people involved in the industry”.

Peters announced Tuesday (December 10) the introduction of the Racing Industry (Unlawful Destruction of Specified Greyhounds) Amendment Bill, which will prohibit the unnecessary killing of racing dogs. 

“Further legislation to enable the end to greyhound racing is required,” the minister said. “A bill to make the necessary changes to the Racing Industry Act 2020 will be introduced to Parliament in 2025.”

Brazil will make a fresh attempt at passing a land-based gambling bill in the new year, according to CNN. After delaying a vote that was due to take place last week, Bill 2234/2022 was withdrawn from the agenda by its rapporteur Senator Irajá on December 4.

The fact that it was on the agenda at all was a surprise to some lawyers and operators, given the serious backlash that online gambling has faced in both the media and now in the government itself, as they investigate implementing strict measures to prevent gambling addiction. 

According to the CNN report, the word from Congress is that the bill will be considered again in the first half of 2025. There are no guarantees that there will not be further delays, as the online gambling law faces further scrutiny in the form of legal injunctions.

The Brazilian federal government’s ministries of finance, health, sport and societal communications have formed a working group to develop strategies to prevent and mitigate problem gambling related to the country’s forthcoming regulated market for online betting.

The working group was announced on Monday (December 9) via a formal interministerial ordinance and through a statement published on the website of Brazil’s gambling regulator, the Secretariat for Prizes and Bets (SPA), which falls under the Ministry of Finance.

Its formation comes amid heightened scrutiny of online betting among Brazilian policymakers, including a newly formed special investigatory commission in the Brazil’s Senate.

The interministerial group will hold bi-weekly meetings and have a total period of 60 days to “discuss and propose coordinated actions between the ministries”.

“The group will be able to re-examine administrative actions and public policies and make suggestions for regulatory actions or any other measures to reduce damage and tackle the problem, observing the relevant competencies of each ministry,” according to the government’s statement.

Mexico’s government has not yet drafted a new gambling law to be introduced in the National Congress, but has begun a dialogue with the industry over corruption risks in the sector, according to President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Sheinbaum, who took office on October 1, told reporters on Friday (December 6) that a key congressional ally’s recent statement on the matter had been misrepresented.

Mexico’s primary gambling law has been in place since 1947, although presidential decrees from 2004 and later years have fostered a large but volatile market for land-based gaming halls and online betting.

Sheinbaum said that her government does not have new legislation drafted “at this time”.

“It’s clear that [the law] dates back a very long time, but we do not have a proposal yet,” she said.

Videoslots has seen its fine in Sweden reduced from SEK9m to SEK4m (€350,000) after an appeal.

The operator was fined in November 2023 after the Swedish Gambling Authority (SGA) requested information on high spending customers. The regulator considered that Videoslots had not conducted sufficiently strong anti-money laundering (AML) checks on these players.

Sweden's Administrative Court ruled that the SGA did have grounds to launch its enforcement action, but did not present enough evidence to the court to prove that the operator had a systemic issue with AML controls.

However, the court backed the regulator's view that Videoslots "has committed serious violations of the money laundering regulations through insufficient customer awareness measures and deficiencies in the preservation of documents and information", according to a statement by the SGA.

Two U.S. senators want the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate DraftKings and FanDuel over concerns they are coordinating against competitors.

In a letter dated December 5 and posted on X, Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee and Vermont Democrat Peter Welch asked for an investigation into the companies for possible violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act that prohibits coordination to obstruct or impair competition.

In 2016, FanDuel and DraftKings attempted to merge. The FTC, California and the District of Columbia successfully blocked the merger after finding it would have given the combined company a 90 percent market share of the U.S. fantasy sports market.

“Shortly after their failed merger, FanDuel and DraftKings expanded their dominance by leveraging their positions in fantasy sports to become online sports betting giants,” the senators wrote in their letter. “FanDuel and DraftKings maybe compounding these harms through anticompetitive conduct.”

Lee and Welch expressed concern that FanDuel and DraftKings have worked in concert to exert pressure on smaller rivals to stymie market access. This allegedly includes “interfering with their rivals’ relationships with major sports leagues, marketing partners, payment processing companies and critical vendors”.

Representatives for FanDuel and DraftKings could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday (December 8). 

Two prefiled bills would increase the tax rates in Michigan on internet gaming and sports betting, as similar measures in other states have faced mixed results.

Senate Bill 1193, filed by state Senators Sam Singh and Jeremy Moss, both Democrats, would increase the tax rate on sports betting from 8.4 percent to 8.5 percent on a commercial operator’s adjusted gross sports-betting revenue.

Singh and Moss also authored Senate Bill 1194 that seeks to increase iGaming tax rates in Michigan. For adjusted gross revenue of less than $4m, the tax would increase to 21 percent from 20 percent.

For adjusted gross revenue of more than $4m and less than $8m, the tax would increase by 1 percent to 23 percent, while those companies that earn between $8m and $10m would pay 25 percent, up from 24 percent, and revenue between $10m and $12m would pay 27 percent, up from 26 percent.

For adjusted gross receipts of $12m or more the tax jumps from 28 percent to 29 percent. 

Both bills have been referred to the Senate Committee on Government Operations. Moss was unavailable for comment on Friday (December 6).

The effort to raise gaming taxes comes as lawmakers in Ohio consider cutting the rate on online sports betting from 20 percent to 10 percent, and the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States are recommending tax rates between 15 percent and 25 percent for states considering legalizing iGaming in 2025.