ROCHESTER, N.Y. – As the NFL season kicks off, mobile sports betting is also ramping up. But consumer advocates are raising concerns about the advertising practices associated with these apps, specifically push notifications.
The National Consumers League (NCL) says there’s a problem with the largely unregulated nature of these notifications, which are often advertisements rather than information related to a user’s specific bets.
“We’ve seen up to a 10% increase in partner violence associated with certain sports betting habits,” said Eden Iscil, Sr. Public Policy Manager at the National Consumers League.
A UCLA study shows that in states with legalized sports betting, domestic violence increases after a home team loss and bankruptcies have risen by 28%. The NCL argues that unregulated push notifications are partly to blame, exacerbating the addictive nature of having betting tools readily available on smartphones.
“Text messages and emails have decent consumer protections when it comes to advertising practices. For example, in emails there has to be an unsubscribe link in every message,” Iscil explained.
However, push notifications are completely unregulated. The NCL studied the three most popular sports betting apps and found that 93% of their notifications are advertisements, often urging users to bet more.
“Actually with all three of the apps there’s no way to directly turn off advertising notifications,” Iscil said when asked about the argument that people have the choice to opt out.
Democrats in Congress have proposed H.R. 9590, the SAFE BET Act, which would regulate advertising in sports betting. New York legislators are also considering the Regulating Addictive Notifications Act, which would “prohibit mobile sports wagering operators and platforms from sending push notifications or text messages.”
“And that is a proposal we support. And so we think there’s really room for improvement here,” Iscil said.
The New York State Gaming Commission declined to comment, saying the commission doesn’t take a position on pending legislation.
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Consumer Alert: Consumer Group Works to Ban Ads from Sports Betting Apps WHEC.com.
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