RICHARD BLUMENTHAL CONNECTICUT COMMITTEES: AGING ARMED SERVICES HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 1 JUDICIARY VETERANS’ AFFAIRS United States Senate Dear Academic Administrator: WASHINGTON, DC 20510 March 27, 2023 706 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON, DC 20510 (202) 224-2823 FAX: (202) 224-9673 90 STATE HOUSE SQUARE, TENTH FLOOR HARTFORD, CT 06103 (860) 258-6940 FAX: (860) 258-6958 As the country’s passion peaks within the 2023 NCAA March Madness tournaments, I write relating to sports activities making a bet corporations ‘efforts to spouse with universities to advertise sports activities wagering on faculty campuses. According to media stories, primary universities have entered into profitable contracts with casinos and sportsbooks to inspire scholars to gamble on sports activities – elevating well-founded fears about an job this is identified to be addictive. 915 LAFAYETTE BOULEVARD, SUITE 304 BRIDGEPORT, CT 06604 (203) 330-0598 FAX: (203) 330-0608 http://blumenthal.senate.gov Since the Supreme Court dominated in want of permitting states to legalize sports activities making a bet, we’ve observed huge expansion within the approval for on-line playing. According to knowledge from US Integrity, a sports activities wagering integrity provider, making a bet on primary faculty convention sports activities has turn into an $11 billion-dollar trade with closing 12 months’s College Football Playoff drawing $500 million in bets on my own.¹ This 12 months, 68 million Americans deliberate to guess $15.5 billion at the 2023 NCAA March Madness tournaments. The alternative for profitable offers has brought about some casinos and sportsbooks to focus on universities, regardless of the very actual hurt playing poses to scholars, many underneath the age to legally gamble. Universities, and their athletic departments, have an obligation firstly to offer protection to pupil well being. Certain components – equivalent to their age, rigidity, and previous substance abuse or melancholy histories – make scholars particularly at risk of playing dependancy. Experts have stated that it may be tricky for younger other people to acknowledge their incapability to gamble responsibly, so it’s deeply relating to that universities are keen to spouse with sports activities making a bet corporations.³ 1 Amanda Christovich, “Learfield, US Integrity Form College Sports Betting Watchdog ,” Front Office Sports (New York, NY), January 11, 2022, https://frontofficesports.com/learfield-us-integrity-form-college-sports-bettingwatchdog/. 2 “Wager on March Madness,” American Gaming Association, last modified March 12, 2023, https://www.americangaming.org/new/68-million-americans-to-wager-on-march-madness/. ³ Anna Betts et al., “How Colleges and Sports -Betting Companies ‘Caesarized’ Campus Life,” The New York Times (New York, NY), November 21, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/industry/caesars-sports-bettinguniversities- faculties.html.