The Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency released public comments on its proposed sports betting regulations last week, and many stakeholders had issues of aspects of the new rules.
One key issue is the proposed rules’ required use of “official league data” in determining wager results in Tier 1 bets—a requirement not in the state’s sports betting law and a restriction not to be found anywhere else in the U.S.
“Five other states have included in statute a similar mandate to the commission’s proposal. However, these mandates were contemplated and negotiated with all stakeholders via the legislative process,” Sportradar’s Brandt Iden, one of the architects of Michigan’s sports betting law, told the SportsHandle.com website. “In Maryland, we believe the legislative intent of specifically not addressing this mandate in statute intentionally recognizes that decisions regarding data are best for private commercial agreements between operators.”
Iden was joined by representatives from every major stakeholder in asking for a modification or elimination of the data requirement.
“While the use of official league data was not contemplated in the statute passed by the legislature, DraftKings wishes to simply maintain consistency across jurisdictions as to when official league data is required to settle certain wagers,” said Government Relations Counsel John Mohrman, according to SportsHandle.
“The standard language found in other US jurisdictions, including the states cited by the leagues in their own testimony, exempts wagers on the final score or outcome of a sporting event, which are placed prior to the start of the event, from inclusion in the ‘official league data’ requirement,” said FanDuel spokesman Cory Fox. “This is achieved through the limitation of the ‘official league data’ provision to so-called ‘tier two’ wagers or ‘live betting.’
“To address this concern we suggest the commission adopt the standard definitions of “tier one” and “tier two” sports wagers and limit the applicability of the “official league data” provision to “tier two” sports wagers.”
Not surprisingly, the professional leagues, including Major League Baseball, the NBA, the PGA Tour, and the NFL, all wrote in favor of the mandate—and then some. In states with a data mandate, that data is supposed to be offered to sportsbooks at a “commercially reasonable” rate. While a figure for that has not been publicly agreed upon, the NFL appears to be asking Maryland regulators to allow it to be less than transparent about how much it will charge for data.
“We would ask that the proposed regulations stipulate that information provided to the agency to demonstrate that official league data is being offered on commercially reasonable terms, and which may be competitively sensitive in nature (e.g., details regarding how it is collected or compiled, or the official league data license terms), be maintained by the agency in confidence, to the maximum extent permitted by law,” wrote Jonathan D. Nabavi, NFL vice president of public policy and government affairs.
According to SportsHandle, more than 50 stakeholders submitted 351 pages of comments, and nearly every section of the proposed rules was touched.
