Mr. Kevin Hall
Executive Director
Virginia Lottery
600 E. Main St.
Richmond, VA 23219
Dear Mr. Hall,
On behalf of PointsBet USA, below please find our comments regarding the Draft Sports Betting Regulations. We are submitting comments in anticipation of PointsBet prospectively being able to operate sports wagering in the state of Virginia via the upcoming application process. In the event of an award to operate, PointsBet looks forward to bringing the people of Virginia the fastest and most exciting sports betting experience in the Commonwealth.
We look forward to the successful future of sports betting in Virginia under the purview of the Lottery.
D. A request for self-exclusion shall be in a form prescribed by the Department, which shall include:
2. The length of self-exclusion requested by the individual:
i. Two years;
ii. Five years; or
iii. Lifetime;
Comment: We suggest shorter time-out thresholds, such as those that apply within the current Lottery minimum standards, in addition to the listed thresholds.
A. The Department shall maintain the official self-exclusion list and shall transmit notification of any addition to or deletion from the list to:
(i) each holder of a permit to operate a sports betting platform;
(ii) the Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs; and
(iii) the Virginia Racing Commission.
Comment: We suggest should be submitted daily, via an automated SFTP to ensure all operators have the most up to date information.
11VAC5-70-10. Definitions.
“Multi-source authentication” means a strong procedure that requires more than one method to verify a player’s identity through a combination of two or more independent credentials, including:
Comment: We suggest adding, after the word “including,” “or other methodologies that may be approved by the Board,” to not strictly limit approved options.
11VAC5-70-10. Definitions.
“Prohibited individual” means any individual: (1) who is prohibited from wagering pursuant to the sports betting law; (2) whose name is on any self-exclusion list or Virginia Lottery exclusion list;
(3) whose participation may undermine the integrity of the wagering or the sporting event; (4) who is excluded from wagering for any other good cause; or (5) who makes or attempts to make a wager as an agent or proxy on behalf of another for compensation (i.e., messenger betting).
Comment: We note that provisions (3) and (4) may be considered subjective and difficult for operators to properly enforce without explicit guidance, or an explicit list of prohibited users provided by the Commonwealth.
11VAC5-70-10. Definitions.
“Sports event” or “sporting event” means professional sports, college sports, and any athletic event, motor race event, electronic sports event, or competitive video game event.
Comment: We suggest including fixed-odds horse racing, entertainment betting, and event wagering like political betting. These types of bets are available in the black market. Prohibition of wagers functions to funnel activity to black market operators that are able to offer these wagers in absence of enforcement and prevents the Commonwealth from recapturing the prolific black market that legal sports betting is intended to curb.
J. The Director may award a sports betting permit after consideration of the application and based on:
2. The extent to which the applicant has demonstrated past experience, financial viability, compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and success with sports betting in other states
Comment: We suggest replacing “states” with “jurisdictions”.
H. A permit holder’s integrity monitoring system shall be accessible to the Director via remote access and shall produce, at a minimum:
Comment: Industry practice is such that the integrity monitoring system will be a third party, and operators will not be able to directly provide remote access, as the operator does not enjoy control over the third-party integrity monitoring system.
11VAC5-70-220. Integrity Monitoring.
H.3 An accredited sports governing body as required by the Director pursuant to the sports betting law.
Comment: We suggest removal or tightening of language to ensure that the sports governing body may not exploit this information commercially in any way. To the extent an operator wishes to share proprietary data and/or information with a sport governing body, it is a commercial decision between private entities that should not be mandated in public policy. The only information shared should be directly and unambiguously related to verifiable integrity requests coming from the Board.