A new bill put forward by Assemblyman Robert Carroll in New York seeks to introduce new guardrails meant to protect consumers in the Empire State, and specifically those who engage in the state’s regulated betting industry.
A new bill in NY wants to place more safeguards on people’s gambling
A07962 outlines several important changes to the current regulated landscape and first seeks to introduce a maximum betting amount per day across sports betting accounts. The current limit is set at $5,000, as well as introducing the maximum account deposits that a sports bettor can make over a 24-hour period.
The bill also seeks to strengthen gambling advertising laws and rules, which will essentially remove any ads that include mentions of odds boosts but also target bonuses and promotions in general.
"(M) prohibition on certain advertisement practices including odds boosts or similar offers, including advertising that contains the phrases "bonus", "no sweat", "bonus bet", or any other similar term."
The bill similarly wants to achieve two other things that are drawing on Europe’s experience. A07962 wants to ensure that minors are not targeted by gambling advertising, and that gambling ads are not visible during live sports events, nor in the period between 8 AM and 10 PM
This change is in line with previous criticism that using terms such as "no-risk bets" to refer to certain types of sports betting promotions was grossly misleading as people would still have to risk their money first to get to the bonus – and there were no guarantees that even when the bonus triggered, they would get the better of the exchange. These bonuses have been largely dropped across the United States.
The bill goes a step further to propose a $2,500 deposit threshold. Once the threshold has been reached in a single account, the player would need to undergo what appears to be the equivalent of "affordability checks" in a sense.
A person who has reached and exceeded the $2,500 threshold would need to "acknowledge" that they have reached that limit and then be invited to establish a limit based on responsible gambling or, failing that, opt to close their account.
The new bill draws on Europe’s best gambling industry’s lessons
Another notable point of the new proposal is to have credit cards barred from gambling use. The use of credit cards for the purposes of gambling has long been tied to a higher level of indebtedness because of the activity, as well as tending to be more likely to spend excessively or more than they meant to originally.
While it is unclear whether Assemblyman Carroll has mustered any support for his bill, this is a step in the right direction so far as responsible gambling in New York is concerned. Whether other lawmakers, including Sen. Joseph Addabbo, would show interest in the bill in its current form is another matter altogether.
