Booming US gambling industry a 'highway without speed limits', top regulator warns

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Sun 8 Jun 2025 06.00 EDT
Last modified on Sun 8 Jun 2025 06.01 EDT


The US gambling industry has become a “highway without speed limits”, according to a top state regulator, as the nationwide gambling boom continues at pace. Jordan Maynard, chair of the Massachusetts gaming commission, urged lawmakers in Washington to consider nationwide rules on advertising by betting firms. Operators have spent years lobbying against a federal crackdown.

Nationwide exclusion lists, blocking gamblers who encounter problems like addiction from placing a bet anywhere in the country, are also “ripe for a federal conversation”, Maynard said in an interview with the Guardian. Like most gambling policies, such lists are currently state-focused, and often easily circumventable by crossing state lines.

Maynard joined Massachusetts’s gambling commission in August 2022, the same month sports betting was legalized in the state, and became the regulator’s interim chair last spring. A permanent appointment followed in the fall. His relationship with operators has, at times, been strained. “When I think about the industry right now, I see a highway without speed limits, cars without seatbelt dingers,” he said. “Regulators are who put the seatbelt dingers in. I don’t think the car manufacturers just woke up one day and decided to annoy whoever’s driving the car until they put their seatbelt on.

“And so I think that’s the perfect place for a regulator to be: to come in and say, you know, we’re not going to prevent every crash that could happen, right? But what we’re going to do is make sure that people are educated in what they’re doing; that they’re trained up to a certain standard before they ever do it; make sure that those who seek to benefit economically from this industry are held to high standards.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/08/gambling-industry-us-regulator