This Week in Gambling: US sports betting restrictions underway
1 Feb 2023
New York sports betting restrictions:
Bettors in The Big Apple are already facing some new restrictions and we’re barely a year into regulation. First up, one lawmaker in the state is calling on gambling regulators to put an end to what they call predatory sportsbook bonuses. Specifically, the bill seeks to put rules in place to deal with deposit and match bonuses. It would also place restrictions on (or eliminate) risk-free betting, free money offers, free bets, and other offers they feel go too far.
A second and more recent proposed bill for New York sports betting has to do with advertising. That legislation would apply to all forms of gambling advertisements, requiring them to include warnings on the potential of gambling addiction.
US sports betting operator Betr to ban credit cards:
The sports betting site Betr recently became the first American operator to ban credit cards for making gambling deposits. The use of credit cards for any form of gambling has been a point of contention between gamblers and industry opponents for years in the United Kingdom, and now Betr looks to be getting ahead of the curve here in the United States.
As gambling on sporting events continues to spread, and operators continue to advertise, the odds of problem gambling increase. This scenario should concern bettors, as it could easily create a large push-back against our industry and the barrage of advertisements being run in the media. Just such a push-back came to the U.K. a few years ago, resulting in massive changes. One of those changes was to ban credit cards for the purposes of making deposits to gambling sites.