West Virginia confirms rejection of integrity fees

The Lottery Commission approved the new rules for sports betting and dismissed the inclusion of sports integrity fees.

US.- Sports integrity fees won’t be a concern for state operators as the West Virginia Lottery Commission approved the final rules for sports betting on Wednesday and rejected their inclusion. Regulation had to be updated as the segment was running on emergency rules and had companies worried about major sports leagues taking a cut of revenue for themselves.

After the segment was cleared to be legalised by each US jurisdiction, West Virginia passed sports betting legislation and implemented emergency rules to get it up and running by the NFL season. As said rules were close to their expiration date, major sports leagues were trying to push for sports integrity fees to be included in the final version of the regulation, but failed to accomplish their goal.

“If the Sports Wagering Rule does not include the strong and reasonable integrity protections the leagues are seeking, legalized sports gambling in West Virginia will deprive the leagues of important tools to detect and prevent manipulation and corruption,” a letter signed by the NBA (basketball), the MLB (baseball) and the PGA Tour (golf) said. “One scandal is all it would take to undermine fans’ trust in the integrity of the games they love.”