New bill would ban sports betting ads during games, bets on college athletes

With the NFL football season underway, a new bill aimed at creating consumer protections and standards for mobile sports gambling in the United States has been introduced by two legislators.

The Supporting Affordability and Fairness with Every Bet (SAFE Bet) Act, was unveiled Thursday, by Congressman Paul D. Tonko of New York and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. The bill would, for the first time, address what they say are public health implications that would result from widespread legalization of sports betting.

According to Tonko, the legislation would require states offering sports betting to meet minimum federal standards in the categories of advertising, affordability and artificial intelligence to “create a safer, less addictive product.”

This means, if passed, the bill would ban in-game advertising and would forbid the use of credit cards to fund online gambling accounts.

The bill also would ban “prop” bets on the performance of college or amateur athletes, such as how many passing yards a quarterback will rack up during a game.

It would also prohibit the use of artificial intelligence to track a customer’s gambling habits or to create gambling products including highly specific “micro-bets,” which are based on scenarios as narrow as the speed of the next pitch in a baseball game.

In addition, the bill would prohibit operators from accepting more than five deposits from a customer over a 24-hour period, and check on a customer’s ability to afford depositing more than $1,000 in 24 hours or $10,000 in a month.

“We have a duty to protect people and their families from suffering the tremendous harm related to gambling addiction. Our SAFE Bet Act gets the job done and gives sports back to the American people,” Tonko said in a statement, emphasizing the urgency of the legislation.

The Democratic legislators said sports betting, now legal in 38 states plus the District of Columbia, has increased gambling addiction and other problems.

Blumenthal added, “This bill is a matter of public health. It is a matter of stopping addiction, saving lives, and making sure that young people particularly are protected against exploitation.”

The SAFE Bet Act is set to face significant scrutiny and debate from the gambling industry, which has said for years that it should self-regulate sports betting advertising to avoid the federal government imposing standards on it.

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The American Gaming Association, the gambling industry’s national trade association, said sports books already operate under government supervision, contribute billions of dollars in state taxes, and offer consumers protections that don’t exist with illegal gambling operations.

“Six years into legal sports betting, introducing heavy-handed federal prohibitions is a slap in the face to state legislatures and gaming regulators who have dedicated countless time and resources to developing thoughtful frameworks unique to their jurisdictions,” it said in a statement to The Associated Press.

But the National Council on Problem Gambling said “gambling problems may increase as sports gambling grows explosively” across America.