During his tenure at the American Gaming Association, Joe Maloney was gently chided for warning about illegal gaming markets and their effect on existing legal jurisdictions. He was more or less ignored about the presence of illegal markets in states where sports betting and igaming is illegal.
But that chiding has stopped.
“I’m no longer mocked on that because of the bold nature of the illegal market actors in my market,” says Maloney, who in December was named President of the Sport Betting Alliance.
The Sports Betting Alliance has emerged as an important advocacy group representing the interests of leading online and retail sports betting operators. In this gaming industry climate, it represents the interests of groups that face competition from operators who aren’t legally licensed and increasingly emboldened.
In Washington, D.C., where Maloney lives, he will often hear ads on sports talk radio for such groups.
“These are popular sports broadcasts for major professional teams … I’m playing back recorded radio ads for legislators when they have questions about who is the illegal market. That is when they look to me to help contextualize this,” Maloney says.
Maloney is uniquely qualified to address the complexities of the gaming industry. In addition to the AGA, he also has worked for the Washington Commanders; the Locust Street Group, a public affairs firm; and the Dewey Group, which offers marketing, grassroots and digital communications to corporate and non-profit organizations.
Maloney anticipates more “robust” discussions on prediction market providers “because they’re increasingly being funded at higher and higher valuations.
“They’re going to feel increasing pressures from their investors to continue to grow, and you’re going to begin to see advertising. You’re going to begin to see marketing, and so the sort of cultural, zeitgeist that they’re occupying, with respect to markets that aren’t necessarily sports event contracts, there’s just a broader and broader awareness, because there’s a bigger and bigger discussion around these platforms.”
“And while the SBA doesn’t have a position on those platforms,” Maloney adds, “and members are deploying prediction market products and others have chosen not to, it’s certainly going to impact the discussion around on continued legalization and the expansion of the map when it comes to online sports wagering and igaming. It is also going to impact and be a central focus of discussions when jurisdictions seek to restrict markets.”
While prediction markets and sweepstakes gaming have caused the gaming industry to scramble to mount cogent responses, Maloney notes that there have long been various interlopers who disrupt gaming. But the nature of the industry is to patiently address those who seek to undermine the status quo.
“The disruption that is taking place is not just from the growth and innovation that consumers want to continue to see and consumers are demanding. Competitive forces respond to those consumer demands,” Maloney says. “This is everything from DFS (daily fantasy sports) to social casino models to sweeps to online wagering. Then you add in the element of prediction market platforms that is, I think, in a lot of ways, like dislodging the traditional policy considerations and delivering an entirely new dynamic to the policy and the regulatory discussion. It’s certainly chaotic, is one word.”
“I think the overall approaches and the overall consultants that the gaming industry has continued to be marked by, will stay the same,” Maloney adds. “At the end of the day, it comes down to a multi-stakeholder dialog and multi-stakeholder engagement.”
