What Are Indiana Sportsbooks Doing To Protect Gamblers From Addiction?

Odds boards at a race and sports book in Las Vegas.Courtesy of Baishampayan Ghose, Wikimedia Commons

In June, the former Colts punter-turned-button-pushing-broadcaster Pat McAfee signed a multi-year sponsorship with the sports wagering and fantasy sports giant FanDuel. The specific terms remain undisclosed, but judging from how McAfee went about announcing the deal, it must have been lucrative—FanDuel tweeted a video showcasing him gleefully handing out tens of thousands of dollars from the deal to “the boys” on his production crew. According to the viral clip, McAfee’s largesse was to the tune of $500,000.

The partnership might have been a big deal for McAfee and his crew, but such alliances are increasingly par for the course. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that any state that chooses to can legalize online sports betting, most of the major sportsbooks have sought to get their names out there in front of as many new customers as possible, by any means necessary. ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC and countless others have agreed to partnerships with various sportsbooks.

It’s clearly a smart business move: In Indiana alone, which began regulating sports gambling in September 2019, Hoosiers have already made $1.64 billion worth of wagers on sports, which has generated more than $100 million in revenue and $10 million in taxes for the state and its municipalities. What that means for the fan is that sports gambling will now be an unavoidable aspect of the fan and viewer experience, with sign-up bonuses and on-air betting advice from hall-of-famers like Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw.

But the spending bonanza around gambling’s legalization carries with it a nagging question: how do you hype a product like it’s the greatest thing since Hoosiers were finally allowed to buy booze on Sundays while also acknowledging its inherent risks? More often than not, sportsbooks have chosen to punt on the question (no pun intended). Indiana requires mobile sportsbooks to feature responsible gambling resources and tools on their platforms, but these tools aren’t always promoted or presented in the most conspicuous manner.

Chris Gray, the executive director of the Indiana Council on Problem Gambling, has publicly urged Hoosiers not to ignore the reality that problem gambling stems from an addiction that, if left unchecked, can consume both one’s own life and those of the people they love.

“Not only is it hard on the person with the problem, but it’s also stressful for the family,” Gray said. “I have a close person in my family that has an issue, so I know how it is to deal with it. It’s tough.”

At a minimum, every sportsbook encourages customers to call the Indiana Gambling Hotline at 1-800-9-WITH-IT if they or someone they know has a gambling problem, but there are several other resources available at both the national and state level. But if you’re not actively looking, they may be hard to find in some instances—posing a significant barrier to access for those in the throes of addiction.

The National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) operates a confidential, 24-hour confidential help line, which bettors can communicate with by both phone and text or by visiting NCPGambling.org/chat.

The NCPG’s Indiana affiliate also offers an Indiana Problem Gambling Help Line number that can be reached by texting INGAMB to 53342. Research suggests that younger gamblers feel much more comfortable texting an anonymous number than they do speaking with a stranger over the phone, making it all the more impactful for sportsbooks to make such measures as accessible as possible.

All sportsbooks reference at least some of these resources, and some of those contacted for this story said they plan to feature them more prominently in the future. And in addition to live help, regulations implemented by the Indiana Gaming Commission mandate that every mobile sportsbooks operator offer “self-limiting” tools that allow bettors to give up control of how much money they gamble with on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

They can also limit how much time they spend on a mobile sportsbook, which advocates for responsible gambling say might actually improve the overall sports betting experience.

“The research from abroad, where these tools have been in place for years, shows that they tend to moderate what a player spends and, at the same time, improve customer satisfaction with the site and reduce players who leave the site,” said Keith Whyte, the executive director of the National Council on Gambling. “You get happier customers who play longer.”

Additionally, mobile sportsbooks must offer the ability to voluntarily enter into a “timeout” or a “cool off” period. This allows a bettor in need of a break to temporarily disable their account for anywhere from three days to a year. In more extreme cases, they can also self-exclude from a particular sportsbook for up to five years.

There’s a catch, however: for both timeouts and self-exclusion, sportsbooks won’t necessarily communicate this information with one another. If a customer signs up to self-exclude from one platform, they’ll likely still be able to access Indiana’s nine other mobile sportsbooks.

The Indiana Gaming Commission offers two unique programs that can simplify the self-exclusion process. Gamblers can sign up for the Internet Self-Restriction Program if they want to be self-excluded from all mobile sportsbooks in the state for a desired period of time. The other option is the Voluntary Exclusion Program, which applies to both online and in-person wagering in the state.

Another area where mobile sportsbooks frequently come up short is in allowing customers to reverse, or “cancel,” a request to withdraw funds. On most sportsbooks, it will take anywhere from 24 hours to several days for the those funds to arrive in a customer’s bank account. During that time a bettor can exceed their self-imposed gambling limits, and then cancel that withdrawal to put more money back in their account with which to gamble.

Currently this issue is not addressed in the NCPG’s Internet Responsible Gaming Standards, a compilation of best practices from jurisdictions around the world. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, often considered the standard for online gambling in the United States, incorporated a majority of those standards into its own mobile gambling regulations in 2012. Whyte said banning the use of withdrawal reversals will be included in future versions of the document. (Some of Indiana’s mobile sportsbooks have pushed back against the notion that allowing customers to cancel withdrawals is a responsible gaming concern at all.)

Finally, some sportsbooks are regularly criticized for encouraging poor betting behavior on social media. For example, by promoting this winning 12-team parlay through its official Twitter account, DraftKings is enticing bettors to believe they can bet a small amount to win big (or even bet big amounts to win huge). That is, technically, possible. But the odds of hitting on such a wager are roughly 1307 to 1, giving DraftKings an astronomical edge.

“They could bet 100 of these each week of the NFL season and only hit once a year,” said Captain Jack Andrews (not his real name), a professional sports gambler based in New Jersey. “Sports betting doesn’t have to rival the lottery, but operators would sure appreciate it if you took that approach.” 

Below is an overview of each of the ten mobile sportsbooks in Indiana, featuring the differences in responsible gambling tools and resources offered by each.

BetAmerica

Cons:

• Allows withdrawal reversals.

• Customers can only self-impose betting limits in predetermined increments. For instance, a customer may choose to limit weekly spend at $200 or $1,000, but there are no options in between.

BetMGM

 Pros:

• Allows bettors to cancel impulsive requests to increase their self-imposed limits.

Cons:

• Allows withdrawal reversals.
• Responsible gambling resources are difficult to find in the app’s main menu.

BetRiver

Pros:

• Prompts bettors to explore its responsible gambling resources immediately after sign-up.
• Doesn’t feature a random parlay generator, a tool that can promote riskier behavior.

Cons:

• Allows withdrawal reversals.

Caesars

Cons:  

• Allows withdrawal reversals.

DraftKings

Pros:

• Enables customers to permanently self-exclude from the platform by email.

Cons:

• Allows withdrawal reversals.

FanDuel

Pros:

• Does not allow withdrawal reversals.
• Implements a waiting period of three days for a single-day limit increase (as opposed to one day, like most other sportsbooks).
• Contains a “reality check” feature where an alert can be set to go off every 15 or 30 minutes letting bettors know how much time and money they’ve recently spent.

Cons: 

• Prompts you to “cancel” previously set limits when visiting the various limit pages.

PointsBet

Pros:

• Frequently promotes responsible gambling on social media.

Cons:

• Allows withdrawal reversals.
• For those who have set self-imposed limits, PointsBet will prompt bettors to remove those limits when visiting their “Responsible Gaming” page.
• Forces customers to re-enter their password when requesting to withdraw funds but not when making a deposit.

theScore

Pros:

• Prompts bettors to review its responsible gambling tools and consider setting self-imposed limits.
• Does not allow withdrawal reversals.

William Hill

Pros:

• A spokesperson for William Hill said they plan to address many of the concerns in this article.

Cons:

• Allows withdrawal reversals.
• Customers can only self-impose deposit and wager limits in increments of $100 or $1,000. When setting daily time limits, only increments of an hour are available. A spokesperson said William Hill intends to add more variable dollar amount options for limits in the near future.

Unibet

Pro:

• Allows withdrawal reversals but the Unibet also enables bettors to “lock” in a withdrawal after it has been made, a function many other platforms that offer withdrawal reversals lack.

Cons:

• Forces customers to use Unibet’s website, not the app, to self-impose deposit limits. Customers are then prompted to download the app GeoGuard on their mobile device in order to validate that they’re in-state. A spokesperson from Unibet says their technical teams are working to address this issue in its next release.