Leave The Props, Take The Testimony: Senate Judiciary Committee Takes Aim At Sports Betting

The vast majority of my knowledge of how Senate committees operate stems from the testimony of Michael Corleone and Frank Pentangeli in The Godfather II.

Of course, that committee ended in chaos when Pentangeli recanted his testimony against Corleone, and Pentangeli ended himself when he slit his wrists in a bathtub.

Let’s hope things don’t come to that next Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET when the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary is holding a full hearing on “America’s High-Stakes Bet on Legalized Sports Betting.”

But it might. At least metaphorically.

Listen: It’s not uncommon but never a good thing when a U.S. Senate committee wants to chat, but this committee doesn’t appear to be especially friendly to this — ahem — thing of ours.

Stacked deck?

For starters, it would appear at least six senators on the committee are coming into this with some not-great feelings about the current state of sports betting in America.

Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, is the Senate sponsor of the SAFE Bet Act, which would, among other things, ban prop bets on college sports and demand affordability checks of anyone looking to bet over $1,000.

Then there’s Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT and Peter Welch, D-VT. These two reached across the aisle together and sent a letter last week to the Federal Trade Commission asking for an investigation into FanDuel and DraftKings for alleged antitrust violations.

Let’s not forget Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, who recently sent a letter to the Department of Justice concerning match-fixing at the amateur level and how it ties into sports betting.

Then there’s Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) (and Blumenthal again) who were part of a letter sent to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission asking them to ban betting on elections. 

And Tom Cotton (R-AR) has introduced bills in the past to ban banks from processing online gambling transactions, so he’s probably not a big fan of the industry.

On the “good” side? Cory Booker (D-NJ) has long been a proponent of legalized sports betting, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) originally opposed PASPA, and Blumenthal is also the sponsor of the GRIT Act, which has the support of Underdog and is the baby of the National Council on Problem Gambling, which is a group agnostic on the subject of gambling … and that was about that when it came to my Google research.

Also, somewhat incredibly and unluckily, despite sports betting’s legality in one form or another in 38 states, only 12 of the 21 senators on the committee hail from sports betting-legal states. 

A lot of bad math heading into this, it would seem.

Math does not equal action

But, as with most things in D.C., this hearing will probably be just a lot of posturing with nothing actually happening.

“The thing about Congressional hearings are that they’re exactly what we see in our mind’s eye — lawmakers showboating and asking lots of ‘gotcha’ questions,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “But there’s a competitiveness to the bloviating — everyone wants to make the best point and ask the most illuminating question, so often, a hearing can get to the heart of the matter, almost in spite of itself.” 

Joe Brennan Jr., the executive chairman of Prime Sports, saw plenty of the “bloviating” during the run-up to PASPA being tossed. As one of the founders in 2007 of iMEGA (Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association), he sat through many committee hearings on the subject of gambling.  

“This is meant to be a public fact finding, but not a lot of that will go on,” Brennan predicts. “Their staffs have them well-prepped. All the background is done before they even get there. A lot of it Tuesday will be staking out positions and getting the people who appear before them to stake out their official positions as well.”

And while no witness list has been released as of yet, Brennan expects it will feature people from the pro sports leagues, someone from the American Gaming Association, “a lot of problem gaming folks” and — if Lee and Welch are “really serious about this antitrust probe,” he wouldn’t be surprised to see the CEOs of FanDuel and DraftKings called in to testify.

And then?

“The question is whether there’s enough consensus to come out of it with anything actionable,” Rasmussen said.

Brennan doubts it. 

“At the time of the year that they’re doing it, with the next Congress coming in, you have to wonder if this is anything more than a performance right now,” he said. “We have a long history, at least in the online gaming and sports industry, of congressional hearings where questions get asked, position statements are issued, and the industry takes a couple of harsh words from members of the committee. But when the committee adjourns, there will probably be no substantive advance on anything.”

Promises made, not kept

As to that “history,” just take a peak at the last time the industry was brought in to face a committee, back in 2018 after the Supreme Court overturned PASPA. Safe to say not much happened as a result back then, even though there appeared to be motion in that direction.

To wit: This is how that hearing ended, with Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s words: “For Congress to do nothing is the worst possible alternative. So this means we have some work to do … because I am afraid if we don’t, there are going to be some people that get hurt and hurt very badly.”

Well, fast-forward six years or so, and … Congress has done nothing.

And while I’m not exactly on the side of Congress rushing to my sports betting rescue, it would probably not be the worst thing in the world for some kind of federal standards in the space, especially when it comes to advertising.

But don’t expect that Tuesday.

So in the end, we’re left with one big question, really: How much of an appetite do lawmakers have to push through the SAFE Act, or the GRIT Act, or any act — or action — whatsoever? While we’re not going to find out on Tuesday, we certainly can stick our finger in the air and get a sense of which way the wind is blowing. We’ll certainly be watching.

In the meantime, let’s hope this hearing goes smoother than Michael Corleone’s testimony. Though given the committee’s potential hostility, it’s probably worth finding out if any potential witnesses against the industry have brothers in Sicily.