This week we have online gambling news from Massachusetts, where mobile sports betting violations abound! Plus, more online betting news from Ohio, where the fines are flying. And then sports betting news from New York, where the operators are starting to push back!
Hello my friends! And thank you for streaming another edition of This Week in Gambling, as online betting continues to sweep across the country. But with more money comes more problems… I think they even wrote a song about that! First up, we told you back in January about the new gambling records, and now the numbers are officially in! Over $60 billion! Just in 2022! And you can thank the expansion of sports betting and online gambling for that.
Yes, while land-based casino gaming still accounts for a vast majority of the revenue totals in this country, online gambling now accounts for about 20% of that total and growing, with most of that being attributed to mobile sports betting, of course. But with all of this growth, there are bound to be some growing pains. Last week I told you about all the trouble that William Hill has recently run into in the state of Nevada. This week, I’m telling you about Plainridge Park Casino, Wynn Bet, and Barstool Sports gambling troubles in the state of Massachusetts! It seems that these operators allowed state residents to place bets on in-state college games, and that is a big No-No… even though the state Gaming Commission has not issued any fines, yet.
Then just last month, I told you about Caesar’s, DraftKings, and Barstool Sports facing possible fines in the state of Ohio for violations related to problem and underage gambling. So, it looks like Barstool has yet to get their shit together. Those operators have now been ordered to collectively pay about $900 000 in fines related to those violations. However, sometimes it’s not the operator getting in trouble from the regulator.
When New York state passed sports betting legislation last year, I told you all that they’re 51% tax rate was exorbitant, to put it politely. Of course, politicians in New York state don’t listen to me because they don’t give two craps what old Jay Todd has to say… but maybe they should have listened. The market there is barely a year old, and yet already here comes DraftKings and FanDuel, saying that this tax rate is “unsustainable” and that they’d like to see it lowered to something a bit more realistic, or the state could risk them and other operators leaving the market.
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