Draft Of Virginia Sports Betting Rules Have Sportsbooks Firing Back

• The Virginia Lottery has released its draft of sports betting rules and regulations and sportsbooks are displeased.
• Once the launch of the sports wagering industry takes place, the Commonwealth expects to see $55 million in annual revenue from the market.

RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia sports betting was made legal by the General Assembly earlier this year but the draft of regulations put out by the Virginia Lottery has sportsbooks speaking out.

Top names in the sports wagering industry such as FanDuel and DraftKings are disenchanted by the consumer safety rules the Commonwealth is proposing.

Such regulation requests haven’t been seen anywhere else in the United States. However, operators are in luck as these rules are still in draft and have not yet been finalized.

What Virginia Wants From Sportsbooks

The official launch of gambling on sporting events in the Old Dominion will first use mobile and internet applications before venturing into retail-based sportsbooks.

The Commonwealth has allowed the Virginia Lottery, who was named as the regulating body for the industry, to give out anywhere from four to 12 licenses to various sports betting operators. In doing so, they expect to see an estimated $55 million in revenue annually from the industry.

The drafted rules and regulations drawn up by the Virginia Lottery are being called the “Sports Bettors’ Bill Of Rights.” While it’s comprised of many rules that will make up the landscape for the sports betting market in Virginia, one rule, in particular, is what has the sportsbooks talking.

The lottery wants sports betting operators to offer a number of explanations to sports bettors to protect and inform them of the wagers they intend to place. This information includes explaining about handle and payouts as well as the odds of a bet actually winning and how the odds posted were actually calculated by the sportsbook.

These types of requests have never occurred before and would require an enormous amount of work for the operator to provide this data on each wager listed for every event.

“Sports betting apps are simply not built to provide and display this type of information,” wrote FanDuel in its formal comments on Virginia’s draft regulations. “As such, this requirement would force a re-engineering of the products, to create a demonstrably worse user experience, and all to provide information which is immaterial to the calculation of the odds and/or payout a bettor will receive.”

In The End

The sheer amount of work that sports betting platforms would need to put into each bet when there could be multiple bets on any one event alone is too much to handle. It wouldn’t just create more work but the technology and power needed to allow this could cause major problems within the logistics of how mobile platforms operate.

While Virginia is simply looking to assure the safety of their residents that choose to engage in the gambling of sporting events, sportsbooks are arguing that it’s still gambling at the end of the day and this information will not make any bet a sure thing as it’s all a “gamble.”

This could stand to cripple operators if they chose to abide by these draft rules or steer them from opening up a business in the Virginia sports betting industry completely.

At the moment, the Virginia Lottery has much to consider by sportsbooks speaking on the issue and can do with that what they choose before any finalization occurs. Unfortunately, the launch of sports betting in the Old Dominion didn’t open in time for the start of the NFL season but a draft of rules means the ball is rolling for the market to launch in the near future.

News tags: DraftKings | FanDuel | NFL | Sports Bettors’ Bill Of Rights | Virginia | Virginia Lottery