Colorado sports betting regulation represents progress for the industry. Specifically, their data-sharing mandate is particularly important because:

-       It allows regulators to handle customer disputes more rapidly and efficiently by significantly decreasing turnaround times for resolution. This is a key catalyst in migrating bettors from the illegal to the regulated market.
-       By alleviating the burden of elongated, inefficient investigations, it allows regulators to allocate more time and resources to new market/sport and promotional/contest approvals, while freeing up operators to focus on licensing, launching, customer acquisition and retention.
-       It allows regulators to both initiate and investigate Suspicious Activity Reports (SARS) effectively, making it easier to identify bad actors who may be attempting to influence the outcome of an event.
-       It is non-intrusive. The process for an operator to share data with a regulator is identical to that by which many currently share data for commercial purposes with a variety of different market participants.
-       Renders outdated, ineffective and rarely used self-reporting “forums” obsolete
-       Gives states control AND keeps the federal government out of Virginia’s business.
-       Follows commercial best practices from other industries who have prospered from accepting and promoting technology, collaboration and data sharing.

The mission MUST be to transition bettors AWAY from the illegal market and into the legal market. Data and technology solutions help accomplish this.