Consistent with its previous deliberations regarding the rollout of Massachusetts sports betting, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) is considering imposing a total ban on sportsbook ads and marketing campaigns geared towards people under 21.
In addition, findings from a study funded by the MGC recommended that the Commission outlaw in-play betting and place restrictions on celebrity endorsements of sportsbooks.
This was the outcome of Tuesday's MGC virtual roundtable discussion devoted to responsible sports wagering, which saw the commissioners hear from a select group of experts warning of the harmful impact of sports betting advertising on young people and problem bettors in general.
Sportsbook ads often promote inflated prospects of winning
One of the principal participants in the meeting was Dr. Michael Wohl, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Gambling Laboratory at Carleton University in Ottawa, which has conducted pioneering research into gambling addiction and ways of promoting responsible gaming (RG).
"It is widely recognized that wagering ads tend to emphasize the positive aspects of the gambling experience and skew outcome expectancies towards inflated prospects of winning," said Dr. Wohl. "There’s only a small body of literature but this tends to show that marketing material tends to increase the desire to gamble among problem gamblers and moderate-to-low-risk gamblers and [the Commission] should take that into consideration."
Keith Whyte, Executive Director, National Council on Problem Gambling, summed up the consensus view of most of the witnesses who appeared before the MGC: "We have concerns that most advertising is not age-gated."
This perspective is helping fuel the expected discussion over one regulation by the Commission in the coming weeks: whether to oblige sportsbooks to provide evidence using "reliable and current" data that 85% of the intended audience of all sports betting ads are 21 and over.
This provision would certainly place a risky burden on sportsbooks to come up with this data — and possibly expose them to civil lawsuits in the worst-case scenario or heavy fines and operation license suspensions at best.
Defending sportsbook self-governance
Another participant at the MGC meeting was Cait DeBaun, Vice President, Strategic Communications & Responsibility for the American Gaming Association (AGA), who cautioned the commissioners against the need for such a draconian measure.
DeBaun argued that bans on advertising and similar restrictions would allow illegal markets to maintain (or even grow) market share.
"In just the first two months of 2022, internet searches for illegal offshore sportsbooks increased 22% year-over-year and 60% percent of all sportsbook searches were for illegal sites," said DeBaun. "So there is an uphill battle to get consumers into the protections of the legal market."
DeBaun, who is also the head of the AGA’s Have A Game Plan PSA campaign, also felt compelled to inform the commissioners that legal sports betting operators have long followed AGA guidelines with respect to avoiding ads that target those under 21.
"The AGA marketing code requires that ads are placed in [broadcast media] where at least 73.6% of the audience is reasonably expected to be of the legal gambling age, [according to] Nielsen and census data," added DeBaun.
Many commissioners were also interested in the possible integration of the MGC's PlayMyWay wagering budgeting app, which allows bettors to impose guardrails on themselves with respect to how much, and how long, they spend on wagering.
This self-limiting tool was cited by several participants and commissioners as a possible means of mitigating problem gaming.
"PlayMyWay is a very pro-consumer, pro-social responsibility tool that can be applied to online betting," said Whyte. "This has tremendous saliency for general players."
PlayMyWay a safeguard against dangers of in-play betting
Dr. Wohl made a strong case for PlayMyWay as a possible add-on measure that could, in theory, be offered in tandem with online sports betting apps to reduce the dangers of blanket ad campaigns, arguing that a focus needs to put on in-play sports betting.
His concern is that it transforms sports betting into excessive online wagering sessions — comparing it to a 'continuous form of betting not unlike slot machines,' in the sense that you can continually bet.
"[Sports betting marketing] is ubiquitous and it may be challenging to control sports betting involvement, but this presents an important opportunity for RG education and an expansion of PlayMyWay," Wohl said. "My particular concern is the availability of in-play betting…but it is evident from data that this is where PlayMyWay can come into play.
One possibility Wohl raised was to ask players to set a limit on how much they want to spend on in-play wagers over the course of a specific game.
Sportsbooks may be obliged to spend on PSAs
As if the commissioners were not already intent on holding the sportsbooks responsible for many bad outcomes, Prof. Rachel A. Volberg of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst — and lead of the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) — also weighed in against the operators.
She first presented her findings at last week's MGC meeting, which concluded that sportsbooks seeking license approval in the state should be required to spend a portion of their marketing budgets on prevention and education as well as ongoing RG research.
"We know that Massachusetts is quite a sports-crazy state already," said Volberg. "People in Massachusetts have been bombarded by that advertising even though sports betting is not legal here."
Volberg added that the key to 'maximizing benefits and minimizing harm' starts with strong responsible gaming resources, followed by having those resources implemented.
"Now [that] we are going to have presumably additional operators, new to the market, we don’t know how these new operators will implement safeguards," added Volberg.
Another expert, Brianne Doura-Schawohl, who formerly sat on the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling, suggested that regulations be adopted which compel some form of RG spending by the sportsbooks.
"Operators need to be incentivized more to adopt RG messaging and to use their celebrity power to highlight all of these great features and functionalities that they offer consumers to keep their gaming safe."
