Tag: Legislation

RBI Bans Regulated Entities from Dealing in Cryptocurrencies

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Even though it is currently exploring the creation of its own cryptocurrency, India’s central bank on April 5 escalated a crackdown on existing digital currencies like bitcoin. In an official statement released by the Reserve Bank of India, it was directed that all regulated entities, including banks, should stop providing services to individuals or even businesses that are users, holders and traders of cryptocurrencies.

Meanwhile, the central bank has set up a panel that will be tasked with studying the feasibility and the desirability of introducing a fiat digital currency. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) confirmed in a statement on Thursday that the panel will be expected to submit a report by the end of June this year.

“It has been decided that, with immediate effect, entities regulated by RBI shall not deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities dealing with or settling virtual currencies,” the RBI said. “Regulated entities which already provide such services shall exit the relationship within a specified time. A circular in this regard is being issued separately.”

As far as the specified time frame is concerned, the RBI gave the regulated entities three months to unwind their positions with the crypto-related entities. This move comes after over three warnings that were issued to the public in regards to the risks of dealing with decentralized digital currencies. It also follows in the footsteps of several other governments around the world that have been strengthening scrutiny of the virtual currencies. In fact, by its own admission, the RBI affirmed that this move is geared towards protecting the regulated entities form the risks associated with digital currencies.

“Virtual Currencies (VCs), also variously referred to as cryptocurrencies and crypto assets, raise concerns of consumer protection, market integrity and money laundering, among others… In view of the associated risks, it has been decided that, with immediate effect, entities regulated by RBI shall not deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities dealing with or settling VCs,” the RBI said in an April 5 statement.

Possible Introduction of a Fiat Digital Currency

The new RBI regulations certainly have rather significant implications for the crypto market in India. However, the central bank is taking steps that will maintain or draw from certain aspects of the crypto-ecosystem. The underlying blockchain technology, for instance, is quite promising and the RBI acknowledges this fact – the bank will be investigating ways of exploiting the blockchain technology in order to achieve financial inclusion and enhance the efficiency of the country’s financial system.

Also, as mentioned earlier, the RBI is exploring the concept of a fiat digital currency that will be issued by the bank and thus will be considered to be its liability. The new currency will in circulation alongside the tradition paper currency – if it succeeds it also holds the promise if reducing the costs of printing the paper currencies.

Online Poker Excluded from New York State Budget Again

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Internet gambling has once again been excluded from the New York state budget despite having passed the Senate vote in January for the third straight year. Therefore,   and they will have to continue driving off-state to get in on some poker fun.

While the New York Senate has from time to time shown some love for the poker community in recent years, it is no secret why all the online poker bills never seem to get far in New York. The bill has been passed by the Senate a number of times but it cannot become a law until the Assembly and the governor give their approvals. The Assembly, for one, has shown very little support for online gambling and even refuses to vote on it.

Land-based casinos in New York have been struggling financially for a while now and it was anticipated that they would borrow a leaf from the neighbouring Atlantic City where online gambling has helped to the revenues of their struggling casinos. Apparently, the state is not interested in boosting land-based casino revenues.

New York hosts four non-tribal casinos all of which are in dire need of financial aid. The $440 million Seneca County-based Del Lago Resort Casino, for instance, has been asking the state to bail it out of its huge debts. The casino expected revenues of up to $263 million during its first year of operation – it, however, fell short of the revenue projections by a staggering $100 million.

“This casino developer pushed to have a New York casino for years, including on the Syracuse state fairgrounds,” state Sen. John DeFrancisco said. “So he knew exactly what he was getting into. If he’s losing money, that’s his problem to fix, not the taxpayers.”

This certainly proves that the state’s struggling brick and mortar casinos are not going to benefit from revenue boost from online gaming anytime soon.

Banking on Sports Betting?

 

Should the United States Supreme Court abolish the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA), each state will be able to license sportsbooks within its borders. New York, like many other states, is considering supporting wagering on professional sports in case the Supreme Court rules in favour of sports bettors.

New York Introduces Sports Betting Bill to Protect Casinos

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A recent legislation proposed by New York Senator John Bonacic seeks to regulate the state’s sports-betting industry in order to protect its casinos. The Republican senator has been a significant figure as far as New York’s gaming industry is concerned – he has earned a reputation for having a rather hardline stance on gaming regulations. This proposed legislation now puts him in somewhat of an advantageous position to push for demands pertaining to the sports betting industry in general.

However, New York is not the first state to introduce such a bill. A number of states have already put forward similar legislative bills and are now waiting for their implementation once the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) is overturned.

If, or when, PASPA is overturned, Bonacic’s bill will come into immediate effect and this will mean that there will be tremendous changes to the way casinos dispense their profits. According to the senator, if each and every casino was to be legally authorized to offer sports betting, then the proposed bill will impose a lawful obligation on the casinos requiring them to hand over a percentage of their profits to the state. The proposed figure currently stands at about 8.5 percent of the casino’s total gross revenue.

In addition to this, suppose the bill is passed and PASPA is abolished, New York will be looking at a new revenue stream with figures ranging from $10 million to $30 million. These figures are huge enough to convince the New York state legislators to vote in favor of such a legislation.

Bringing New York Up to Speed

Bonacic and some other state finance committee members have raised concerns regarding the static nature of the New York’s bid to get other states to buy into the idea of imposing stricter sports betting legislation. It is not news that the state of New York has often lagged behind when it comes to keeping up with essential matters in the gaming world. This is usually due to lack of action and Bonacic and his counterparts find this to be very frustrating.

He believes that if such a legislation is to be pursued by New York’s legislature, the state will be able to adequately keep up with all the other states that are pursuing similar sports betting regulations with renewed vigour.

Kansas Sports Betting Bill Calls for Integrity Fee

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Professional sports leagues might just get what they want after all with the introduction of a sports betting bill in the state of Kansas that called for the inclusion of an integrity fee. The bill which was brought forward by the Committee on Federal and State Affairs of Kansas is the third sports betting-related bill to be introduced in the state.

Introduced on March 22, the bill will allow the Kansas Lottery to sports betting to players over the age of 21. This will be limited to the lottery’s facilities and will be through contracted lottery retailers, its web platform and mobile platforms as well as through an interactive and dedicated sports betting platform. This still depends on how the United States Supreme Court will rule on the petition regarding the federal ban on betting.

S.B. 455, the bill, gives the Gaming Commission the final say on the types of wagers and game restrictions. Kansas lawmakers, however, will be expecting no less than a 6.75 percent cut from the sports betting operators. They went further to take note of sports betting legislative developments in New York and have thus decided to include the pro sports leagues’ integrity fee as one of the requirements of the bill. The sports betting right and integrity fee was set at 0.25 percent of the handle but the lawmakers capped it at 5 percent of the sports betting revenue.

“All revenues from sports wagering conducted by the Kansas lottery shall be remitted to the state treasurer and deposited in the lottery operating fund in according with K.S.A 7408711, and amendments thereto,” one of the S.B. 455 provisions read.

While many gambling operators are eagerly waiting for the Supreme Court ruling, a number of stakeholders and interested parties are anticipating that the federal ban on sports betting will be lifted. The professional sports leagues are by far the most vocal – the Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) have been lobbying for the inclusion of an integrity fee in state sports betting regulations. According to the leagues, this fee will serve as an insurance to the “risks”  that sports betting will bring to their brands.

March Madness Elevates Focus on Sports Betting in the U.S

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The 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, commonly referred to as “March Madness”, kicked off last week with 68 teams going against each other in a single-elimination tournament that is stretched over three weeks and will culminate in the crowning of 2018’s NCAA champion. As usual, this means brackets, office pools and, of course, lots of betting – both legal and illegal. In fact, according to the American Gaming Association, $10 billion will be wagered during the three-week tournament with most of it being illegal since sports betting is not yet legal in most of the United States.

March Madness has also been one of the annual events that attract extra attention towards the need for the legalization of sports betting in the United States – the numbers are so good that states want a piece of the pool so that they can tax it. Experts consider illegal gambling to be untapped revenue that the states are missing out on.

Fortunately, this year the context of the efforts to legalize sports betting has shifted thanks to a petition filed by the state of New Jersey seeking for the legalization of nation-wide sports betting. The final ruling is to be delivered by the United States Supreme Court and this could be as soon as April.

Over a dozen states, West Virginia and New York included, have proposed laws to legalize sports betting and the only obstacle to the new development is the 1992 law that confines sports betting mostly to Nevada. Keeping this in mind, the American Gaming Association issued its annual estimate regarding March Madness betting where it arrived at the $10 billion estimate. Of this entire amount, only $300 million or thereabouts is expected to come from legal sports betting in Nevada sports books. Evidently, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling will play a pivotal role in creating a revolutionized gambling atmosphere for all the interested parties. Luckily for everyone, the wait is almost over.

Pro Sports Leagues Prepare For Legal Betting Ahead of Ruling

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Across the states of Arizona and Florida, professional baseball teams are getting ready for the inevitable surprises of a 162-game season. Players and coaches often use spring training so as to limit unknown variables and this year Major League Baseball is following suit.

By mid-season, baseball fans in some states might finally be able to place legal bets on baseball games and as such, Major League Baseball (MLB) officials are well aware that they cannot afford to wait till then to get things planned out. The league’s preparations have already begun with players from each and every team being given “enhanced education” this spring on sports betting. The same goes for both coaches and umpires.

The United States Supreme Court is expected to deliver a ruling that will certainly have a huge impact on sports gambling in the country. The most anticipated culmination would be the abolishment of the 25-year old federal law that outlawed sports betting in all but one state, Nevada. The other states have always had the liberty of allowing or prohibiting fans from wagering on sports but – not many have legalized sports betting and this is what makes the prospects of legalized sports betting so exciting to fans.

“We’re realistic that sports betting in all likelihood is going to expand in the United States,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said on a conference call with reporters a week ago.

All the four major United States sport professional sports leagues have been buckling up in preparation for the ruling. In fact, some are even eager about what the new world could bring after the court’s decision. Furthermore, they have all been, to varying extents, offering their players some education that includes analytics that monitors betting data. In addition to this, the league have been working tirelessly towards researching the best possible partnerships and business opportunities that will definitely open up new revenue streams.

Dafabet Closes UK-Facing Online Casino amid Regulatory Heat

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Renowned online gambling operator Dafabet has recently announced that it will be exiting the United Kingdom’s online gambling market, a move that is speculated to have been triggered by the ongoing regulatory pressure within that particular field.

Dafabet’s United Kingdom-facing online casino stopped accepting deposits from its customers last week on March 8. The players now have up to Tuesday, March 20, to withdraw their funds from the online betting site. Fortunately for the operator’s customers, their player balances will be automatically returned through the deposit methods they used to register if the will not have made withdrawals by the specified withdrawal deadline. Also, sports betting fans have nothing to worry about as Dafabet also assure their users that the sports betting operations will not be affected by the closure of their casino business.

As it stands, Dafabet is the most popular and the biggest brand of Philippine-based AsianBGE, its parent company. Its operation in the United Kingdom is backed by a license from the UK Gambling Commission but this is not the only place it excels at – the operator also sponsors Premier League’s Burnley F.C. Dafabet signed a £2.5-million sponsorship deal with the football club for the 2017-2018 football season which represents a £0.5 million increase from the previous soccer season.

UK’s Prevailing Storm Regulatory Atmosphere

The UK Gambling Commission recently discovered multiple violations by a number of its licensees and now, in conjunction with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), it has begun a regulatory crackdown that targets the erring operators as well as their affiliate partners.

The nature of the violations that the UK Gambling Commission range from breaches of advertising codes to inadequate anti-money laundering controls among a few others. The CMA has taken action with the most recent being in the form of a written warning that was addressed to a number of online gambling operators. The writing specifically pointed out the terms and practices that the operators have put in place to obstruct their customers from accessing their funds. These included the unreasonably low withdrawal limits, the short deadlines for players to verify their identities in order to be allowed to withdraw their funds as well as the so-called “dormancy” terms that allow the operators to confiscate customer funds after a given period of time when the customer accounts have had no activity.

The UK Gambling Commission will be working with other regulators in changing the rules and ensuring that both new and existing operators are probed more stringently to ascertain that they truly are capable of fully complying with all the laid out regulatory laws, terms and conditions.

India Can’t Regulate Bitcoin, Says Former Indian Bureaucrat

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India has been struggling with regulating cryptocurrencies for quite some time now mostly because of the strong aversion the governments has towards digital currencies but they are yet to ban any. Now, a former Indian top finance ministry official insists that bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies, should be completely banned in the country.

Shaktikanta Das, who is a former secretary of economic affairs, believes that regulating bitcoin is going to be quite tough and thus the only feasible alternative would be to outlaw their use. Das headed the Indian government’s first panel that was set up in April 2017 in a bid to understand and recommend necessary regulations pertaining to cryptocurrencies. Currently, Das is a member of the 15th finance commission which has been tasked with reviewing the financial situation of the present government.

“Let us accept that it would not be possible to regulate it effectively. Because they will do transactions from their houses. You cannot enter every home to check what transactions are going on. So, I think this is a serious challenge, and this should not be allowed at all,” Das said.

The Indian government’s aversion to cryptocurrencies can be traced back to 2013 when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) warned its customers against the potential security threats that were associated with digital currencies. Despite this, and multiple other warnings from the country’s ministry of finance and the RBI that followed since then, cryptocurrencies have grown in popularity even among people who were considered to be “conservative” Indian investors.

Why Das’ Opinion Matters

Shaktikanta Das has held a number of key positions in India’s ministry of finance including being the head of the departments of economic affairs and revenue. He has also served as a board member of the Indian market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Reserve Bank of India – both institutions play a monumental role in the drafting of cryptocurrency regulations in India.

Das argues that since the Reserve Bank of India is the only institution allowed to issue currency in India, cryptocurrencies are essentially illegal. He further pointed out that cryptocurrencies are paralleling present financial frameworks without any backing from legal provisions.

“There is the danger of cryptocurrencies leading to money laundering, terror financing, and unaccounted transactions. It will pose a serious threat to the financial stability not only of India, and in fact more, in the case of the developed world,” he added. “It’s a serious challenge and threat to global financial stability.”

New Bill Proposes Legalization of Sports Betting in New York

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On Wednesday, a new bill aimed at legalizing sports betting in New York was introduced thus adding New York to the growing number of states that have been pushing for similar legislation ahead of the landmark decision from the United States Supreme Court regarding the lifting of the nationwide ban of sports betting. So far, this bill appears to be the most serious attempt yet to legalize single-gaming wagering at gambling joints in New York.

The bill, that was introduced by State Senator John Bonacic, who also happens to be the Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee chairman, seeks to have professional and college sports betting permitted. The bill further proposes that the state will be taking 8.5 percent from the casinos’ gross revenue – this could bring in an estimated $10 million to $30 million to state coffers every year.

However, the legislation remains dependent on how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the New Jersey bid to overturn a federal ban on sports betting that is still in effect in all but four states. Bonacic confirmed that New York will be backing New Jersey and the other states since they believe that sports betting in the United States will eventually be legalized.

“New York State has historically been behind the curve in dealing with developments in the gaming world, and it has been to our detriment,” Bonacic said in a statement. “If allowed, sports betting will be a revenue enhancer for education in New York. We have the chance to ensure our sports betting statute is fully developed and addresses the needs of the state and all stakeholders so we can hit the ground running if and when we can authorize and regulate sports betting.”

According to Sen. Bonacic, sports betting could be a great financial boon for the state, especially for education. Bettors in the United States make as much as $200 billion in illegal bets every year according to various statistics.

Leagues Push for a Cut of Sportsbetting Revenue May Deter It

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While sports betting in all other parts of the United States outside the state of Nevada is on the verge of being legalized, there are a couple of new developments that are likely to affect the process in a rather negative way.

According to Twitter’s vice president of Analytics, Jeff Ma, even as the major sports leagues like the National Football League and the National Basketball Association become aware of the multibillion-dollar opportunity that sports betting offers, their approach towards getting a piece of the will end up impeding the ability to lead gamblers away from illegal betting and offshore operators. Ma also said that the NBA, in particular, has proven to be “short-sighted” by requesting a 1 percent cut on all the bets placed on its games.

If you are unfamiliar with Jeff Ma you might be wondering what a Twitter VP has to do with online sports betting. Well, Ma was once one of the leaders of the infamous MIT blackjack team which inspired the movie 21 and a book titled Bringing Down the House. He is a renowned expert in the gambling industry and has an incredible understanding of how the professional sports leagues work or operate – he even once served as a consultant for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers and the NFL’s Francisco 49ers.

“Traditionally, a lot of the leagues are run by lawyers so they think about how do we protect our assets, they don’t think about how do we monetize our assets,” Ma said in an interview with CNBC during the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. “In this case, they are thinking protect and charge people money instead of focusing on the bigger opportunity down the road.”

In Ma’s opinion, a partnership between the professional sports leagues and the sports betting operators will definitely be a better alternative especially at the earlier stages of the industry’s growth after the ban on sports betting is lifted. He also pointed out that while the flat fee off the top that the leagues are advocating for could certainly be feasible in the long run, the market will need to grow significantly before that.