Connecticut May Establish Maximum Wager Sizes For Online Sports Betting

A bill sponsored by the Connecticut House General Law Committee could seek to place a maximum amount on wagers for online sports betting.

SB01464 was referred to the Senate’s Joint Committee on General Law on Thursday. While the primary goal of the bill is to empower Connecticut to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA) for online poker, farther down is a clause that reads: “The maximum sports wagers established for online sports wagering in regulations adopted pursuant to section 12-865, as amended by this act.”

In the “Statement of Purpose” at the bottom of the bill, the last two points read:

(C) disclose the maximum sports wagers established for
online sports wagering; and (3) require the Commissioner of Consumer Protection to adopt regulations establishing maximum sports wagers
for online sports wagering.

There is no mention in the bill of a potential maximum amount.

Connecticut has three online sportsbooks: FanDuel, DraftKings, and Fanatics. FanDuel and DraftKings are tethered to tribal gaming operators while Fanatics operates through the Connecticut Lottery.

The Nutmeg State has generated more than $6 billion handle since launch in October 2021, with more than 95% of that amount wagered via online sports betting. Handle is trending upward, the with the state’s top five all-time monthly handles each occurring from last September through this January.

Scoping the entire bill

SB01464 includes new text crafted for online poker as part of a “peer-to-peer casino game” that is defined as a “card game, contest or tournament, including, but not limited to, a poker game, contest or tournament.” It allows patrons to “compete against one another and do not compete against the licensee operating such game,” and the licensee operating those games “assesses any fee associated with such game.”

The bill allows the governor to enter into agreements with states or territories to “authorize online gaming operators to conduct multijurisdictional Internet gaming for peer-to-peer casino games” provided they are consistent with state and federal laws and conducted exclusively within the U.S. Six states are currently part of MSIGA: Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, and West Virginia.

The bill also calls for the establishment of a toll-free telephone number to help bettors “receive assistance from the licensee to resolve any problem the person is experiencing” with both the electronic wagering platform and any account tied to it.

Another new section within SB01464 directs licensees who discover “any error in the odds offered” to stop taking action on the event in question until it has been corrected and to “provide a full refund to each patron who placed any such wagers … prior to such discovery.”