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Earlier Monday, Connecticut’s senior U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D) held a press conference to address his recent proposal of the SAFE Bet Act, a bill he co-sponsored with the U.S. Representative Paul Tonko (D-Albany, NY) which aims to place restrictions on online sports betting in an attempt to curb gambling addiction at the federal level.
“The gambling sports betting industry in Connecticut and around the country is exploding,” said Blumenthal. “This industry is growing astronomically, and so is the problem of addictive gambling.”
The bill would also prohibit advertising during live games.
“We used to say, prior to the legalization of online gambling, if you lived within forty miles of a casino, the odds doubled that you would become a problem gambler,” said Diana Goode, Executive Director of the CTCPG. Goode said that online gambling has essentially made it so that “everybody has a casino in their house,” and that this ease of access makes the potential for addiction exponentially greater than it was before. “The industry is targeting you,” said Goode.
The bill would also prevent advertising during certain hours when children can be exposed and allow for self-banning.
“The blunt simple truth is, this industry targets losers,” said Blumenthal. “That’s the way the industry wins; the industry targets the losing gamblers because it makes the industry a winner.”
Blumenthal said that he hopes stringent standards are imposed federally because current state standards for gambling are “half-baked and fainthearted, including in Connecticut.”
The bill, if passed, would also prevent the use of credit cards to fund betting accounts.
The bill also would ban "prop" bets on the performance of college or amateur athletes. Connecticut already restricts some forms of betting on college sports, specifically on in-state teams like the Huskies. There is one exception there in that Connecticut does permit betting on the Huskies in tournament play.
The measure would also prohibit the use of artificial intelligence to track a customer's gambling habits or to create gambling products including highly specific "micro-bets," .
There will be restrictions on deposit amounts during a 24 hour period.
"We have a duty to protect people and their families from suffering the tremendous harm related to gambling addiction. Our SAFE Bet Act gets the job done and gives sports back to the American people," Tonko said in a statement, emphasizing the urgency of the legislation.
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