As legal sports wagering continues to spread across the United States, lawmakers and sports and gambling business insiders met up at the U.S. Sports Betting Policy Summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Up for discussion were the use of and access to data, licensing and integrity fees, and how in-arena betting may blur the lines between stadiums and casinos.
“This is the data industry,” said Ted Leonsis, the majority owner of the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the NBA’s Washington Wizards. “This is not about gaming.”
“We give that info away to inform our fans,” Leonsis said, before adding that the leagues “have an opportunity to make our fan experience more interactive.”
Clarence Nesbitt, General Counsel for the National Basketball Player Association, argued that the data, though, is not necessarily a team’s or the league’s to share. Athlete data, for example, that could include biometric and health metrics captured using wearable devices is inherently personal. “We would see that as our data. [It’s] not yet a settled matter between us and the league,” Nesbitt said.
Athlete data is likely to be incredibly valuable, both to team operators, who could us it to make personnel decisions, and to bettors, who could use it to predict each player’s performance and how that might affect game results. So far, any regulations on the use of wearable devices have been pursued through collective bargaining agreements between leagues and players unions. Now that sports betting is spreading, though, Nesbit argued that the government may need to step in.
“I don’t think it should be collectively bargained,” Nesbit said. “[I would] much rather see it [regulated] at the federal level.”
Ohio state senator Bill Coley argued that the government should also step in to assist leagues when they might need to investigate integrity issues to protect the fairness of outcomes, but that the leagues themselves shouldn’t expect to collect integrity fees for use of their data in sports betting.
“I don’t give the stock market money at the end of the day,” Coley said. “Why would we give [the leagues] money?”
Leonsis disagreed, noting that the leagues otherwise might have no incentive to support the growing gambling industry. “We should get a fair piece of the action,” he said, “because we will never touch the money.”
And, Leonsis explained, the leagues are a key part of enforcing rules and protecting the fairness of game, and gaming, results. “Our players know, our referees know: every single thing they do is monitored,” he said. “We can activate and popularize gaming to take it out of the shadows.”
That is likely to include stadium upgrades that might assist the collection and transmission of sports data, and the addition of sports betting locations in those venues. “For those of us who own buildings, we will make big investments in technology,” Leonsis said. “It’s about reimagining what our business is in the building.”
Art Manteris, VP of Race & Sports Operations at Station Casinos, urged caution about exactly where sports betting in the U.S. might be headed. “It remains to be seen how in-play betting will come in,” he said. “U.S. sports are not quite as conducive to in-play wagering as international sports.”
Leonsis also warned about getting caught up in too much speculation over how detrimental legalized betting could be for the U.S. sports industry. “All of us need to be very careful that we look at this from a fact-based, data-based perspective,” he said. “As cooler heads prevail, we’ll say this industry will be no different than Wall Street.”
Dan Kaufman contributed to this article.