AGA chief takes aim at Financial Times over “dark side” of sports betting article

American Gaming Association (AGA) president and CEO Bill Miller has reacted angrily to an article in the Financial Times (FT) attacking the US sports betting market as fueling an increasing number of problem gamblers.

In the article, published on August 11 as part of the FT’s The Big Read section and entitled ‘The dark side of the US sports betting boom’,journalist Oliver Barnes examines the growth of the sector since the repeal of PASPA in May 2018.

Utilizing a number of contributors and sources including regulators, academics, and consultants both in the US and the UK, as well as operators, Barnes questions whether enough is being done by the industry and authorities in the US to quell rising at-risk player numbers.

“The US online betting industry is not currently subject to federal oversight but instead to a complicated patchwork of regulations overseen by individual states. Consumer protections are typically low, and sometimes non-existent,” Barnes wrote.

The journalist highlighted the 20 jurisdictions in the US which still have no restrictions on credit card betting, as well as three US jurisdictions which do not require licensed operators to provide responsible gambling tools for players.

“Despite the harm they could be unleashing, state authorities are often conflicted because of the tax revenues generated from sports betting, which have contributed more than $3.4bn cumulatively to often-stretched budgets since 2018,” he added.

Responding to the article in his own letter to the FT, Miller claimed Barnes failed to provide a “realistic or complete” picture of the legal gambling market in the US.

“The article glosses over the vast illegal marketplace that existed before the US Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act,” Miller wrote.

The AGA CEO and president lauded the growth of the legal market as bringing consumers into a more protected environment where the “real and serious condition” of problem gambling can be more easily identified and dealt with.

“Perhaps more egregious is the article’s suggestion that legal operators have loose oversight and offer few consumer protections. Gaming is one of the most closely regulated industries in the US, with more than 5,000 state and Native American tribal regulators that oversee our industry,” Miller wrote.

“Importantly, we always expected the market to evolve, and that’s what we’re seeing with the regulatory environment five years post-PASPA.

“Every day, legal operators gain better insight into how customers engage with our product, build responsible gaming practices based on that data, and work collaboratively with regulators to raise the bar.”

He continued: “Finally, the article misses the quintessential difference between the US and UK markets.

“Unlike our predecessors, our top priority has always been to get sports betting right, building on our industry’s decades-long commitment to responsible gaming. To make comparisons otherwise is pure fiction.

“If you want to know the ‘dark side’ of the US sports betting boom, it’s that a predatory, offshore market persists,” Miller concluded.