SAFE Act sidetracked
If the first congressional hearing on US sports betting is anything to go by, the SAFE Bet Act faces being overshadowed by non-betting agendas.
a scathing attack on NCAA head Charlie Baker
The biggest curveball in Tuesday’s hearing at Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC was a scathing attack on NCAA head Charlie Baker by Senators John Kennedy and Josh Hawley.
Louisiana Republican Kennedy used a Q&A session to attack Baker on the subject of transgender men athletes, questioning why the NCAA allows them to compete with biological women.
In response, Baker said there was no federal mandate on transgender participation in games, and he highlighted five legal rulings that would permit such participation.
Kennedy responded with: “Why don’t you stand up and take a leadership position?”
Worse was yet to come.
Personal agendas pushed
While the exact agenda of the congressional meeting was unknown, the meeting was supposed to focus on the SAFE Bet Act. This is legislation calling for restrictions on gambling ads and the introduction of deposit limits as part of an overall proposal to address public health concerns over the betting industry.
Instead, Missouri Republican Hawley and Kennedy took the opportunity to hawk agendas that had nothing to do with sports betting. The latter continued his attack on Baker by asking why he doesn’t “stand up in front of god and country and say, ‘Federal law is wrong’ and ban biological males from playing in women’s games?”
He then ended with a playground insult that Baker should:
go to Amazon and buy a spine online.”
West Virginia State Delegate Shawn Fluharty was present at the hearing and witnessed the hijacking of the sports betting agenda. Fluharty, who is also President of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, took to X in disgust to slam the “political tantrums” over trans athletes as “embarrassing”:
Hawley’s own diatribe on transgender athletes was delivered in a raised voice, talking over Baker with comments such as: “This is your federal policy that you will not defend because it is indefensible!”
Unclear and non-inclusive
In actual sports betting business, five witnesses testified at Tuesday’s hearing with only two, ex-New Jersey regulator Dave Rebuck and Harry Levant, a former gambling addict who helped write the SAFE Bet Act, taking clear positions. Rebuck is anti SAFE Bet and believes “states are best equipped and not the federal government” to regulate wagering.
Levant, meanwhile, wants federal intervention, stating “AI-generated online gambling business” is “defectively designed” and offers “inherently dangerous gambling” on every device.
The American Gaming Association (AGA) also had a beef with the hearing, namely over the fact it didn’t get an invite. AGA SVP of Strategic Communications Joe Maloney stated on Tuesday the snub leaves the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the “overall proceeding bereft of testimony on how legal gaming protects consumers from the predatory illegal market.”
Committee Chair, Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin meanwhile ended the hearing stating it was “only the beginning” of the congressional sports betting debate.