Bet On Sports Anytime, Anywhere With Sportsbet – Sports betting ads are everywhere. Gambling will pay a heavy price, some fear Sports betting has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the US. But critics warn that the flood of ads – and limited regulation – could create risks for the game and for young people.

Sports betting is exploding in the US, but the way companies advertise remains largely unregulated. Kyle Ellingson for closed captioning

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A new era of legalized betting is taking hold in the US, one that is profoundly reshaping what it means to watch professional and college sports.

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For many fans, the days of the once-a-year Super Bowl office pool are a distant memory. Betting on sports from many countries is now as easy as tapping an app on your phone.

Sportsbooks such as DraftKings and FanDuel – companies that set the odds and take bets – have turned on the advertising fire in order to reach as many customers as possible. If you’ve driven past a billboard, turned on the TV, or used the Internet, chances are you’ve seen a sports betting ad.

States regulate how sportsbooks can operate, but give companies wide latitude in what they can say in their ads – a break from restrictions in other addiction-risk industries, such as tobacco. And there are no specific advertising regulations for the sports betting industry at the federal level. The limited oversight has worried some, including advocates who worry about the potential risks to problem gamblers and those who are too young to gamble.

Spectators bet tens of thousands of dollars each year on games they once watched for little financial interest. The sports betting boom has seen an increase in inquiries to the National Problem Gambling Helpline, which received 270,000 calls, texts and chats last year, a 45% jump on the previous year.

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Vin Bickler knows those statistics well. Bickler, who said he is recovering from a gambling problem, answers the New Jersey Compulsive Gambling Council’s help line.

He said he gets calls from young men in their 20s to elderly widows struggling to stop compulsive gambling — both in sports and online casinos — amid the many ads.

“Advertising is like the old beer commercials and cigarette commercials that have been on TV for years. It’s the same situation,” Bickler said. “People are being lured into thinking it’s glamorous, into thinking they’re going to win, and they’re not winning. In the end, they’re going to lose everything.”

That changed in 2018 when the US Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Fan Sports Protection Act and allowed states to decide whether they wanted to legalize sports betting.

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Thirty-five states and Washington, D.C., have legalized sports betting since the decision, and more may be on the way, according to the American Gaming Association, an industry trade group.

The court ruling was not the only major development in the world of sports betting. The country’s four major sports leagues – the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB – and the NCAA, which once legalized betting on games, came out flat and pushed the Supreme Court to uphold the ban.

But since 2018, the leagues have not only accepted sports betting, but have come to promote it. All four professional leagues have partnered with major sportsbook operators, and television broadcasts during games often fluctuate.

Last year, the sports betting industry exploded, registering $57.2 billion in management – the internal term for the amount of money wagered – as reported by the AGA. Four years ago it was $4.29 billion in revenue for an industry that was banned almost everywhere in the US.

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Meanwhile, the jackpot has hit several states. Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which legalized sports betting in 2018, take in more than $225 million in taxes, according to data compiled by Sports Handle.

Companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on extensive advertising campaigns to try to attract new customers. Caesars Entertainment, for example, at one point committed to spending $1 billion to market its sports betting app.

Few regulations were followed. At a minimum, most states require sportsbook advertisements to state the legal age for gambling and include information about where problem gamblers can seek help, such as a gambling addiction hotline.

Actor-comedian JB Smoove, who represents Caesars Entertainment, talks about the Arizona Diamondbacks partnership with Caesars Entertainment at Chase Field, home of the Diamondbacks baseball team, during a news conference in Phoenix last summer. Caption Ross D. Franklin/AP

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But in the absence of more detailed regulation from states and the federal government, sportsbooks have little say in how many ads they run and what they say.

“In most states that legalize and regulate sports gambling, they say they’re regulating and taxing, but it’s really more about taxation than regulation,” said Marc Edelman, a professor at the Zicklin Baruch College School of Business.

One loophole in the regulations, Edelman believes, is that sports ads aren’t prohibited at times when there may be large numbers of people who are too young to play. The playing age is 21 in most states, but only 18 in some states.

“If gaming is not legal for under-21s, it probably wouldn’t make sense to direct advertising to a reasonable proportion of under-21s,” he said.

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In addition, those who are too young and have gambling problems will not be able to watch a sporting event on television without seeing a sports betting advertisement or hearing the announcers discuss the game. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Research in other countries with legal sports betting has found a link between sports book advertising and risky gambling behavior. Edelman suggested the league offer a “clean” alternate broadcast with no game content.

One of the most controversial aspects of the marketing boom is the promotions used to attract new bettors.

Popular promotions include sportsbooks that offer a “risk-free” bet, such as $100. This usually means that bettors who bet $100 of their own money and lose the same amount will credit their account to bet again, but sportsbooks may not refund real money bettors their bet in the first place.

Some sites offer, say, a $50 bet to sign up for the service. Players can bet $50 without spending their own money, but if they win $150 on a 3-1 odds bet, they can only get $100 while the company keeps the original “bonus” bet.

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Colorado, for example, has several rules regarding sportsbook advertisements that offer promotions. The state accepts offers, but requires companies to include clear and specific terms and conditions, and prohibits them from describing anything as “risk-free” when customers could lose their money.

“We have rules and regulations around advertising, and it’s primarily about consumer protection,” said Dan Hartman, director of the Colorado Division of Gaming. “They can’t advertise anything that’s false.”

Others have a less extreme view of these promotions. Earlier this year, New York Attorney General Letitia James warned consumers ahead of the Super Bowl to avoid “swindlers” when betting. He warned bettors to be wary of offers such as “risk-free” bets and bonuses, common tactics used by large sportsbook operators.

Italy completely banned gaming advertising in 2018. The UK recently banned the use of celebrities and sports stars in sports betting adverts. Nations from Belgium to Australia to Chile are considering advertising restrictions for the sector.

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Here in the United States, advertisers must be truthful and not misleading in their messages to consumers, but that is largely the extent of federal oversight of the sports betting industry. In 2018, Sen. Chuck Schumer, N.Y., and then Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced a bill that would have standardized rules for online sports betting ads, but the measure ultimately stalled.

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“We have the Federal Trade Commission, which is responsible for investigating advertising, and they can certainly take action if they see something that’s fraudulent or misleading,” said John Holden, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University and an expert on sports betting and gaming regulation. . . “But at the moment it is not clear that they have placed it in the advertisements of the games.”

“I don’t think the federal government has a role in regulating this,” said Casey Clark, senior vice president of the American Gaming Association. “I think it would be a challenge on many levels.”

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Clarke suggested that the gambling industry has the ability to regulate itself, noting that the association has published a set of voluntary standards that sportsbooks and other sports betting businesses can follow when advertising. They are among the standards