The Sports Betting and Gaming Law, Compliance and Integrity Program is unlike any other gaming conference.
That’s because the event scheduled for Sept. 19-22 at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, New Jersey, isn’t a conference, according to William J. Pascrell III, an international gambling regulatory expert and partner at Princeton Public Affairs Group.
“This is the most substantive gaming experience you’ll get other than if you did a deep dive on your own and read through myriad journals,” says Pascrell III who will speak at the event known as the Seton Hall Bootcamp.
“We’re also trying to educate lawyers, and accountants and marketing people and salespeople to get them involved and engaged,” Pascrell adds.
Funded by the Entain Foundation, the bootcamp will feature national and global experts versed in legal, regulatory, compliance and business aspects of sports betting. The core objective of is to promote legal compliance and integrity in the gaming industry by providing high quality and robust legal, compliance, and ethics education.
William J. Pascrell III (2nd from left) and Martin Lycka (far right) at the 2020 event in early March.
The Entain Foundation is the non-profit arm of Entain, who operates in the U.S. through BetMGM, a joint venture with MGM Resorts International.
The bootcamp will address issues connected to the explosion of sports betting in the three years since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was repealed, granting states the right to legalize sports betting. Currently, sports betting is legal in 32 states and the District of Columbia. The American Gaming Association estimates that by the end of 2021, approximately 63% of American adults will have access to sports betting.
“It’s a huge, previously unheard-of opportunity to enter into a ginormous with an affinity for all kinds of sports,” says Entain Senior Vice President for U.S. Regulatory Affairs and Responsible Gambling Martin Lycka. “The fact is you read about new partnerships and new regulations every day and every week.”
Courtesy photo, from the 2020 event in early March
As gaming operators vie for new markets, they must navigate a patchwork quilt of regulations and provisions established by individual states. Lycka notes that Entain is licensed in 27 jurisdictions around the world, and in 13 U.S. states through it’s joint venture with MGM Resorts. He thinks addressing unique regulations is not a new problem for many gaming operators.
But it is nevertheless frustrating because every locale is essentially regulating the same things.
“A lot of them have a strong tendency to reflect any applicable local idiosyncrasies that they believe need to be reflected,” Lycka says. “I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but taking the United States as an example, you’ve got to go state-by-state piggybacking off things that have been done in other states where there are a lot of similarities. It can be a strain on human resources.”
Pascrell emphasizes that the Seton Hall Bootcamp also is set up as an opportunity for networking between executive sand those seeking career opportunities young professionals. He notes that his son attended the first boot camp in March 2020 (just before COVID-19 started to shutdown large gatherings in the US) and was offered a job.
“If you’re interested and you can’t afford to go we will find a way get you in,” Pascrell says. “Nobody will be denied access or entry if they are economically challenged.”
Registration information: https://law.shu.edu/Compliance/bootcamp/index.cfm
