U.S. Indian operators study future business opportunities
News on 7 Oct 2017
News on 7 Oct 2017
Online gambling and daily fantasy sports are among the future business opportunities a new US study group will be considering following the unofficial formation of the Indian Sports Betting Working Group (ISBWG) last week.
The group is tasked by the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) to explore how the $31.2 billion tribal gambling industry can leverage legalised sports betting and other new forms of federal and state-sanctioned gambling.
The working group will explore how tribal governments operating under a diversity of federal and state legal and regulatory structures can adapt to sports betting, internet gambling, daily fantasy sports and other new gambling genres.
Sports betting possibilities in particular could be very positively impacted if the current New Jersey appeal to the US Supreme Court for the overturning of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act is successful (see previous reports).
Ernie Stevens, chairman of NIGA, says that the formation of the group and its planned activities will be on the agenda for the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) meeting on October 15 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and that his plans include the official formation of the working group by December this year in order to ensure that it starts its work with the advent of the new year.
NIGA recently joined the business coalition put together by the American Gaming Association, which has been campaigning for the wider liberalisation of US sports betting beyond the restrictions imposed by PASPA.
Top NIGA official Debbie Thundercloud has been nominated to chair ISBWG and said that the coalition with AGA is advantageous for the tribes, because the Association can help in overcoming restrictions impacting tribal gambling.
The AGA’s drive to create a nationwide legislative strategy has the potential to flush out certain issues affecting tribal operations, she opined.
“It will be the responsibility of the working group to continue to gather information, to do research and provide analysis,” Thundercloud said. “The working group will listen to tribal concerns and issues. The working group will provide pros and cons for sports consideration.
“Tribes need to get busy and do their research, their analysis, feasibility studies… determining what impacts there are to their compacts. They need to begin developing potential business models” she added..
