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If there's one transferable life skill that being a Sunderland supporter has taught me, it's the hope I can't stand. Indeed, it's the hope that kills, and that's the feeling now that it once again seems incredibly unlikely that online casino legislation will be passed in the US this year. You might be thinking that's a fairly obvious statement to make. It certainly wasn't on anyone's bingo card at the start of the year, but Virginia was actually quite close to making inroads. Alas, they failed. On today's episode of iGaming Daily, we look at why that failed and we'll also take a look at what else is going on across state houses in the US when it comes to gambling bills. Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner and today I'm joined by SBC America's reporter, Tom Nightingale. Tom. How's things? Yeah, pretty good. Thank you. got we got plenty to talk about really, haven't we? I know, you know, obviously Maine's governor signed the online casino bill in January. That bill was one that passed last year. It feels like every year we see these efforts and increasingly now I think we're seeing states maybe consider it a bit more seriously in terms of making up budget shortfalls and that sort of stuff. yeah, I mean, we've had a momentum stalling in a couple of places this week. Never a quiet week in US news, is it? But we did have high hopes for online casino legislation in Virginia this year, almost out of nowhere. But those hopes have now crashed, burned, died. What happened? Yeah. mean, how long have you got? This was quite a roller coaster, really, in Virginia this year. Because I mean, you look at it at face value and you're like, well, a bill to legalize online casino gaming passed both chambers of the general assembly. So that should be that shouldn't it goes to the governor's desk. There we go. Um, no, not quite that way in Virginia. Uh, it went on a really, really rocky road. mean, a lot of faced a lot of opposition, which we'll get into a bit. Well, a lot of opposition during committee sessions. Um, and I mean, we had what the Senate bill and the house bill both being passed. pretty overwhelmingly, although by no means kind of without, you know, pushback in their original chambers. Then the opposite chamber tried to pretty drastically change each bill when it crossed over, you know, the Senate tried to change the House bill, the House tried to change the Senate bill. Passed again then. I will say both bills also needed a revote to pass. So again, to the point, it's not like these sailed through the legislature, right? Um, in both chambers, then it needed a revote to get through. And then once the bills went back to their original chambers, a lot of the changes that had been made were undone and they restored the bills to their original form. Surprise, surprise. It ends up having to go to what they call comp, you know, it goes for concurrence. Um, and then if the chambers can't, don't sign off on the other chambers changes, it then has to go to conference where they. appoint, I think, three legislators from each conference and try and hash out the details. And ultimately, they just couldn't get it done. And the Virginia session ended, I think, I think it was Saturday, March 14th. And they just couldn't get it done. I mean, weeks and weeks, couple of months of debates and lot of hard work, maybe not quite for nothing. Because as we've heard a couple of iGaming advocates say, like, you know, had so much more serious discussion this year than it's had in previous years. But the end of the day, you know, we're not going to have to do it all over again next year if they want to legalise online casino for well now for 2028, you know, they'll have to come back in 2027 and basically start from scratch. of those things in politics and we see it quite often where there's a general consensus. People want thing X to happen in this case, it's online casino legislation. But there's so much differing opinion and bickering that you can't just compromise and make it work. the betterment of whatever the goal is. So both the House and the Senate were in favour of iGaming, but yet they didn't manage to pass it. maybe it would be a good idea just to outline what the differences were in these bills and identify where the sticking point really was. mean, this as well is interesting because originally there were some pretty major differences in the bills, including, perhaps most prominently, the enactment date. you know, when the market would actually be able to launch. I cannot remember which way round it was with the Senate bill in the House bill, but one of them had a measure um that pushed that the bill would have had, you know, the bill would have passed this year, but then the Virginia lottery would have had quite a long period to come up with the regulations and, you know, post those for comment and, know, all that sort of stuff. So even if the bill had passed this year, regulations wouldn't have been published until 2027, so the market probably wouldn't have launched till 2028. The other version of the bill in the other chamber had a pretty unique thing that, mean, certainly I, maybe I'm bit green saying this, I hadn't seen this before, but what's called a reenactment clause, where even if the chamber and the full legislature had passed the bill this year, they would have had to pass it again in the 2027 session before it could be signed by the governor and before it could be enacted. So different routes, but all roads kind of led to even if the bill passed this year, online casino wouldn't have launched in Virginia on January 1st, 2027. It probably would have been a 2028 start date anyway. That difference actually got kind of reconciled. And by the time that uh we were in the conference committee and it was looking you know they had they were pushing up against the deadline to do it both bills i believe had the reenactment clause so both bills adopted the situation where it would have had to pass again in 2027 um they also reconciled off reconciled a few more differences and as far as i'm concerned you know i'm no politician by any stretch but the differences seemed kind of maybe not minor but it was all it was mostly to do in the end with where the tax revenue went how they divided that up, which state services the tax revenue went to, which obviously I'm calling that minor. For lawmakers, it's not minor, right? We hear that one of the biggest arguments for legalizing or expanding online gambling is the revenue it will bring in, not only for the state, but how that will support education or wherever you decide to allocate it. And they just could not come to an agreement on that, it seems. Those were the main differences, as far as I could tell by the end. devil's in the details and sometimes you think you've leapt over every hurdle and then you fall flat on your face right at end. that is a shame. yeah, if we take a step back from our iGaming lens, yeah, probably is quite important that you work out whether you're going to support local hospitals, local schools, just the men to come and pick up your bins at the end of the week. Who's going to get that cash? Also, I like the idea of this reenactment clause, I'd imagine there's a lot of politicians out there who get really excited about a certain piece of legislation and then a year later think, oh, wish I didn't do that. is interesting, isn't it? I think it's quite easy to get swept up. Particularly at the moment, we're seeing it in legislation. Last year, and to an extent this year, Indiana just banned them. But last year, was sweepstakes casinos, wasn't it? Where that was kind of the in vogue, trendy thing to do was try and, you know, implement a sweepstakes ban this year, obviously prediction markets. It's another, another bill filed in Congress today or yesterday. Yeah. So many of them trying to do broadly similar things, but I think it's just very trendy, isn't it? But then we also hear a lot, particularly in states like Massachusetts and New York, where they're trying to clamp that. Yeah. They're trying to implement more safeguards in sports betting. hear a lot of like second thought, you know, Yeah. I've given it second thought. where we did we jump into eagerly, not necessarily. Where we wrong to legalize this, but should we have had more safeguards in from the start? So the reenactment clause is a particularly interesting approach, I think. And I wonder, I'll be keeping an eye out to see if we see that kind of thing creep into legislation in other States. Really? We were doing so well. Prediction markets. We went eight and a half minutes and we haven't mentioned prediction markets in, in, a US edition of our gaming daily, but we'll put that genie back in the bottle and we'll come back to that another time. We're going to try and keep clear of prediction markets today. Let's stick with Virginia though, because there was some gambling legislation that has been passed this year. What's happening? think, I believe it's on DFS and land-based casinos, right? What's the story here? So let me start by saying there are lots of gambling bills in Virginia this year. One of them, think another potential sticking point for the iCasino legislation was that there are a couple of bills that wanted to overhaul how Virginia was going to regulate gambling and create a new gambling regulator. And I actually think I might be right in saying that at least one of the pair of online casino bills was kind of dependent on that gambling commission that gambling regulatory bill passing. So that might've been another sticking point because that gambling regulatory bill did not pass. That was another one that didn't make it through. So for now, status quo in Virginia. But yes, to your point, there are a few things that did pass. Most prominently, three of them actually, one on daily fantasy sports, which are generally allowed, but this bill would explicitly state that it's peer to peer. daily fantasy sports rather than against the house. As we know, like against the house daily fantasy sports is the one that's largely drawn scrutiny for its resemblance to kind of like prop betting and you know, um, so it would explicitly kind of limit it to peer to peer and it would also tax, uh, daily fantasy sports. So sort of basically tightening regulation on it, tax it at 10%, uh, which I can't imagine. Well, I know for a fact actually that operators like prize prize picks don't really have a problem with that. Cause if you're, if you're being taxed lightly. PricePix already only offer peer to peer now. They switched last summer and it kind of validates you, doesn't it? Rather than operating in that gray market, I guess it kind of gives you validation and allows you to sort of proceed full steam ahead. um That one they could agree in conference, I think I'm right in saying. think there were again, there were two separate bills. They had to come to an agreement. I'm pretty sure they did. That's gone to the governor's desk. SOTU has a bill to um authorize or reauthorize, think, skill gaming machines, I believe, in the state, again, under tighter regulation, clearing up these gray areas. And then a prominent land-based gaming one, Fairfax County, Virginia, which is right next to Washington, DC, has been given leave to open a new brick and mortar casino. um There is still some pushback against that, I will say. I believe there is. a group, I can't remember who it is, but I there's sort of group, I don't know if it's like an official coalition or entity, but there is a group pushing back and trying to sort of block that from happening. But that looks like that's going to the governor's desk as well. That looks like that's probably going to happen. So the land-based casino operators in Virginia, a lot of whom were against the iCasino bill, may now have another opportunity. I can't remember exactly how the bill works. in terms of the licenses, but it looks like we will get some kind of expansion of LAN-based gaming in Virginia in the coming years. Interesting. very good. least the lawmakers in Virginia can agree on some gaming Some things. Well, yeah. All right, well, Tom, we'll go for a quick break and we'll come back and we'll have a little whistle stop tour around some of the other states. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Another surprising state, Tom, that was looking at online casino. legislation this year is Massachusetts. A state that you might not have assumed, again, that Online Casino would be terribly popular, particularly among the gaming commission, the regulator there. Those plans have been pushed back until 2027, it must be said. Or any plans to legislate for it have been pushed back until 2027. What's the detail here? Yeah, I mean, is, it is interesting Massachusetts. I always find a particularly fascinating case study, right? Cause their gaming commission are one of the more prominent regulators who like to hold their licenses to account to say the least, think just week, just this week, actually they doled out about $80,000 in fines to various online sports betting operators for various things. Um, yeah, I mean, the Massachusetts online casino bill. Another reason it's interesting is I should say at the outset, like. Expanded online gambling is coming to Massachusetts pretty imminently because they legalized online lottery. And I believe that is set to launch this year. It's been delayed. Uh, but they've selected aristocrat interactive to run it. And that's a big move for Massachusetts because that's something they've been talking about for ages and ages, um, given a great deal of consideration, uh, online lottery, of course, as well as like online draw games and stuff. You can do these E what's called E instant games. kind of resemble online slots, if we're being honest, in a lot of ways, I'm probably, you know, I would probably be chastised for saying that by some people, but they, can certainly see the similarities, you should put it that way. So it's not like there's no online gambling expansion coming. I think the online casino bill, um we talked earlier about the reenactment clause giving states the opportunity for second thought. think Massachusetts had second thoughts within a matter of weeks, really. I mean, this bill was introduced in 2025. And then you could kind of see the writing on the wall that it probably wasn't going to pass because it was pushed by the reporting date for it to come out of committee was pushed. I think about last September was pushed until March. So clearly, that's already a sign that they want to give it a great deal of thought. And then yeah, they essentially the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies basically unanimously decided that this bill Let's change it from immediate or imminent legalization to a study bill. So they are going to go away, give it a great deal more thought. The sponsor who introduced it has pretty much confirmed he's going to bring it back for the 2027-28 session, Massachusetts sessions, two years. um I think they're just happy to be discussing it, really. Um, but you know, like you said, like, like you alluded to, like Massachusetts is a state that gives a great deal of thought to pretty much everything it does when it comes to gambling. Is it going to, you know, if it comes back next year, is it going to pass? I would not put money on it. If you'll excuse the poor, uh, the poor pun, because I think that what they're probably going to want to do is they're probably going to want to see how the eye lottery rollout goes. Assess the impact of that. before they say, yeah, let's do slots and table games and all that sort of stuff. know, especially when you hear all these concerns about in quotation marks, a casino in every pocket, which is what a lot of lawmakers have taken to describing mobile gaming. I think this study period might last quite a long time if I had to, if I had to, you know, uh, had to declare a stance at this point. oh studious bunch up there in Massachusetts. It's strange. are. then let's not forget as well that there's a big bill in Massachusetts at the moment that would completely overhaul the sports betting market as well. Well, quite. In fact, let's talk about that because I promised that we would last time we spoke, Tom, on the podcast. Let's just revisit what's happening in Massachusetts when it comes to the online sports betting sector, because I think this could be quite interesting if anything was to happen with this one. Yeah. I mean, not quite. This is a bit flippant, if you imagine a change that you could make to a legal online sports betting market. And this Massachusetts bill wants to make it pretty much they are. It wants to do a lot. I think a lot of it is, is, is, is very good to be honest. Like a lot of it is safeguards. I can't remember the, you know, A lot of advertising, want to ban gambling ads during broadcasts of sports games. They want more transparent data reporting, I think, and information sharing and that sort of stuff. then limits on how much players can deposit in certain amount of times, that sort of stuff. But then there's also big drastic measures in the same bill. An explicit ban on all prop bets, an explicit ban on all in-play wagering. and a tax hike from 20 % to 51%, which for the maths, the maths whiz is listening, I think is about 150 % increase. It's a lot of things to try to do in one bill, you know? It's a complete overhaul, a complete re-regulation of a market that only went live maybe two and a half years ago. Come on, correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, I think about then. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a big, you know, we've heard before, this is another bill I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying that came in last year in the first year of the two year session and then was kind of pushed um to 2026. And it was, can't remember when it was last week, I think that it took its first step. The same committee actually, we've just been talking about who relegated iCasino to a study bill, uh unanimously passed this bill by five. five zero vote. Um, and I think the main reason for that is the, the safeguards we've talked about rather than necessarily, I don't know if it's necessarily a sort of full throated endorsement of hiking the tax rates of 51%. I think it's more, okay, we've had sports betting for a while now. Uh, we've consulted with the regulators who, as we've already talked about, like to hold, like to hold operators to account. I think it's a bit of a second thought kind of bill where it's like, well, sports betting has exploded beyond what we could possibly have imagined at the time that we legalized it. What can we do now to pull it back a little bit and protect residents? Whether a blanket ban on prop betting or a blanket ban on in-game wagering. A is feasible or B like would even help that. You know, I'm in two minds about this. I can see the logic to a certain extent, but you know, if you're a Massachusetts resident and you want to bet in play on like a Boston Celtics game or a Boston Red Sox game, like you're going to find a way to do it on you. Let's be honest. There's no shortage of ways to do that. Um, is blocking all licensed sports books from offering those wages really the right way to go about it when you're just going to. possibly lose revenue, lose consumer oversight. But then just the idea that you're pushing people into the black market doesn't necessarily mean that licensed sports books should be able to kind of do whatever they want or should have free rein on kind of what they offer. You know, it's a, it's a more nuanced argument. Um, I cannot see one bill trying to do so many drastic things in all in one go. really making it through in final form. think if this keeps progressing, we're going to see probably some significant amendments. Like I would fully expect, you know, the tax rate to come down, you know, the proposed tax rate to come down. think jumping from 20 to 51 is pretty bold. I could see maybe jumping from 20 to 35, 40, something like that. Um, but I mean, I think there's a, this to say, I think there's a long, long way to go yet on this. Um, but it just shows, I think again, how states um reconsider legalization bills that they've approved in the past. would be very surprised if this went through, um maybe even at all. um I do think it's indicative of some of the, not opposition, but some of the criticisms that the legal sector faces, not just in the US, but globally. um We are seeing this this sort of trend of re-regulation of jumping in and making things a little bit more stringent, high cup attach rate here or there. And, oh, it's fine. The operators are making loads of money anyway. They'll be able to, they'll be fine. But, I think it's, then obviously, you know, you have the shadow. I'm not going to say it again, but it rhymes with prediction schmuckets. You have this kind of hanging over everything at the moment, right? Like while... until that is sorted in the probably the Supreme Court. You know, I referenced earlier, like if a Massachusetts resident wants to bet in play on a Red Sox game and it's banned at state level, you just can't, you know, who knows where, you know, Koushi and those kinds of platforms are going in terms of the depth of the sports offering. There's now a huge federal alternative out there. So you have to think that way is on the minds of state legislators as well, given how m that has exploded and you get absolutely no tax revenue benefit or anything as a state from that stuff. It's crazy how much the environment has changed, I think, in the last 12 months, really. It's a completely different industry, essentially, to what we dealing with 12 months ago. But Tom, we said we wouldn't talk about that too much today. So what's going on in Kentucky and Wisconsin, just to round off our Whistlestock tour of gambling legislation, because there's been a little bit of movement on some bills in those two states. oh very briefly, before we wrap up, what's going on in both of those states? well, let me start with Wisconsin, because that was the biggest kind of firm update this week. uh A bill to legalise sports betting under tribal control is now going to the governor's desk. Both chambers of the legislature have passed it. um would essentially allow statewide online sports betting and tie it directly to the federally recognized tribes in Wisconsin through the kind hub and spoke model like Florida, know, sort of similar to Florida and the Seminole tribe, except it wouldn't be a monopoly. Leading sports book's not that keen, I would say. I mean, it received direct opposition last year in a hearing, because again, this has rolled over from 2025 to 2026. um A representative for the Sports Betting Alliance actually came straight out and said that this model where I think the majority, think it's about the Sports Betting Alliance reckons they'd have to hand over about 60 % of revenue to the tribes, something like that. The SBA came straight out and said, this is probably not going to work for Fanjul or DraftKings. ah Why would we want to do this, essentially? um But Wisconsin. wants the revenue and wants to protect the tribes and everything like that. you know, I understand it from the state's point of view. That'll go to the governor's desk. I'm the governor suggested last year he'd be open to signing it. I very much expect that the current form of the bill, he will sign it. um So that's obviously a pretty big development in Wisconsin, which I think would make it the 33rd state to legalize online sports betting, something like that. Um, and then Kentucky, there's a very interesting case. I mean, this is a bill that does a lot of things very quickly. The, the, the, the, provision that stands out to me is a prediction markets provision. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Charlie. Um, but basically what they want to do is they want to get in Kentucky, right? It's the racetracks who get the sports betting licenses, and then they partner with your fan jewels and your draft Kings and people like that to offer it. Fandual fanatics draft Kings are all live in Kentucky already, but the bill. would suggest that racetracks cannot partner with prediction market platforms, I think, which obviously, you know, got the attention of the sports books who do that already, you know, like Fanjul, DraftKings and Fanatics, three of the biggest, certainly the two biggest sports books in Kentucky, uh three of the biggest, all directly offer prediction markets through their own platforms under their own brand. um So I mean, in testimony filed in the legislature, those three operators um basically warned the state that this could, believe the, I believe the language they used is as currently drafted, this would gut the regulated sports betting market and force the exit of most, if not all existing regulated operators. So they're basically saying, you're going to push us out the door completely. If you do this, there is a proposed amendment that I don't think has been formally filed yet. would narrow the scope of that to racetracks can't partner with prediction market with, with, with companies that facilitate prediction markets offered in Kentucky. Whereas at the moment it's just in general. So I think probably the rationale behind that is that if fanatics, Fandl and DraftKings don't and their partners, I mean, I don't know, you know, there's a lot of nuance here, but if they don't offer prediction markets and sports contracts in Kentucky, they'd be all right. um That's just proposed. I don't think that's been formally filed yet. But yeah, I mean, again, like the intersection of sports betting and prediction markets is everyone is grappling with this in real time. States are trying to work out what to do about it. Obviously, when you've got three of the biggest sports books who offer prediction markets in other areas of the States, it's, I would say it's kind of horribly complicated, Yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of intertwined interests here, I would say. And I think this is an example of one state trying to untangle those and, well, just getting tangled up in amongst it as well. So we'll see how that one fares and we'll of course keep monitoring what happens with prediction markets and... Gambling Bills? Traditional forms of gambling bills? think we'll roll with that terminology, Tom. But for now, thanks ever so much for joining me, Tom. Really appreciate your time, as always. And thank you to our audience for tuning in to today's episode of iGaming Daily, and join us tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news.