The abortive SAFE Bet Act, a proposed draconian crackdown on U.S. sports betting, is back from the dead.
Following its failure last year, its chief proponents, Democrat disruptors Congressman Paul Tonko and Senator Richard Blumenthal, have now re-submitted the bill, which seeks to protect vulnerable gamblers and impose swingeing responsible gambling protocols.
The proposed legislation–full title Supporting Affordability & Fairness with Every Bet Act–would effectively turn back the clock and make much of online sports betting untenable, charge critics.
Tonko (New York) and Blumenthal (Connecticut) counter that some seven million adults in the U.S.,–around 2.7 percent of the nation’s adult population–have a gambling problem – and that they need protection.
There has been a veritable explosion of digital sportsbooks and iGaming in The States, since the 2018 repeal of PASPA, The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), a 1992 federal law, which restricted all but a handful of states states from legalizing sports gambling.
Today, 38 of the USA’s 50 states, along with Washington D.C. and the U.S. territory of Costa Rica, have legalised online sports betting. Wider 360 iGaming has been slower off the mark but it continues a seemingly inexorable march across this vast country.
Congressman Tonko describes himself as a “champion of addiction issues”.
March Madness
At the start of so-called March Madness he and his fellow Democrat, Senator Blumenthal, have now relaunched their bid to pass the SAFE Bet Act into federal law.
“We’re introducing this bill for a simple reason: To make sports betting safer.,” affirmed Tonko.
“Last year saw tens of millions of Americans wager and lose almost $14 billion betting on sports”, he continued. “That’s a 25 percent increase on 2023’s record of $11 billion.
“The industry labels that as revenue, [as if] it’s a number to be celebrated and revered.
“But the reality is that $14 billion in revenue for the gambling industry is $14 billion extracted from the pockets of everyday Americans.
“The even greater concern is that most of that revenue is made off the suffering of a disproportionately low number of gamblers.
“We’re not here today because we want to stop the gambling industry from breaking new records. We’re here today because it’s important to balance public health with competing economic interests”, Tonko stressed.
“But when every single solitary moment, of every sports event across the globe has become a betting opportunity in the palm of your hand, the government must put its duty to protect citizens from harm first.”
The SAFE Bet Act was first introduced last September. But it quickly proved unpopular, failed to gain momentum, and died at the end of the 2024 Congressional session.
Draconian
It aims to implement minimal federal controls over sports betting.
These controls would apply to the 38 states with legal sports wagering and fall into three groups: marketing, affordability and artificial intelligence.
The proposed act has previously been labelled “outdated” and “unwarranted” by Representative Dina Titus (D. Nevada), “unconstitutional” and “draconian·” by Sara Dalsheim, the influential podcaster of Ifrah Law, and “arrogant” by former New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (NJDGE) Head, David Rebuck. While it seeks to protect vulnerable players, it has also been attacked as “going beyond” plain responsible gambling measures.
The legal proposal includes stringent advertising controls, such as a ban on advertisements between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. and during live sports events.
Additionally, there are new rules concerning the language used to describe bonuses and free bets.
The SAFE Bet Act also proposes a nationwide self-exclusion scheme and bans on popular in-play or live betting, reload bonuses, VIP schemes, and college prop bets.
And most controversially, it would “prohibit the use of AI to track a bettor’s gambling habits and prevent the use of AI by gambling companies to create so-called ‘microbets,’ tailor-made for individual customers”.
It also seeks to implement UK-style financial checks when players exceed certain spending thresholds, namely: US$1,000 (£772) during a 24-hour period or US$10,000 (£7,723) during a 30-day period. The player’s bet amount, furthermore, must not exceed 30 percent of their paycheck. And no player can make more than five deposits in a day.
Opposition
The proposed bill also argues that all states work with the federal government to curtail illegal gaming sites.
The act faces substantial opposition.
In addition to lobbying from the sports betting industry, which has called it a “slap in the face to state legislatures and gaming regulators,” many U.S. lawmakers and key figures are resistant to federal intervention, believing that sports betting is a “states’ rights issue” – and not to be set by the federal government.
According to Sara Dalsheim, writing in the Ifrah Law blog, the SAFE Bet Act can be considered “unconstitutional” because it contradicts the 2018 Murphy ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In Murphy, the Supreme Court ruled that PASPA was unconstitutional because it violated the anti-commandeering doctrine embedded in the U.S. Constitution. This doctrine prohibits the federal government from forcing states to enact or enforce federal regulatory programs.
In doing so, the court created a new federal principle, which Dalsheim states “does not lend itself to being overturned by congressional action”.
Speaking at last year’s U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on sports betting, David Rebuck, a former Director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, also argued that sports betting must remain a state’s rights issue, adding that federal intervention was unwarranted as many states have only recently legalised betting and haven’t had their chance to “get regulation right”.
Unconstitutional
Shawn Fluharty, President of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States and a key political proponent of West Virginia’s iGaming legislation, highlighted the restraints of a federal approach in an exclusive interview with iGF.
“The more deliberative process on gaming legislation is taking place in the states, and it should stay in the states,” he told us.
“If you saw last year’s U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee discussion on sports betting and the SAFE Bet Act, it was a circus.
“At the state level, away from this grandstanding, we are having serious conversations, discussing policies and the right way forward.
“As with any new industry, there are growing pains. But the idea that the federal government is suddenly going to get involved and save the day is wishful thinking.”
With significant obstacles ahead and many arguing that the SAFE Bet Act is “unnecessary” and arguably unconstitutional, the SAFE Bet Act’s passage through Congress is mooted to be difficult – if not impossible.
