Can You Advertise Gambling

What's New Specific What's New information, by month

• Can You Advertise Gambling On Facebook
• Can You Advertise Gambling On Instagram
• Can You Advertise Gambling On Facebook

Google notes it already has “policies which determine when and where gambling and alcohol ads can be shown per local laws (e.g. Age restrictions),” but that the new setting is meant to give an. Ads that promote or facilitate online real money gambling, real money games of skill or real money lotteries, including online real money casino, sports books, bingo, or poker, are only allowed with prior written permission.

For Exempt/Excluded activity information, click here

December 14, 2020

Don’t Jeopardize Your Organization’s Gambling License

There have been reports that some Minnesota bars and restaurants intend to open for on-site eating and drinking prior to Friday, December 18 in violation of Executive Order 20-99. If so, your organization may feel pressure to also restart the conduct of gambling at these locations. Please remember that your organization is responsible for securing all games, including those played and unplayed.

The conduct of gambling at a location in violation of Executive Order 20-99 could result in the suspension or revocation of your organization’s lawful gambling license. If your organization has multiple premises permits, your ability to conduct gambling, even at sites that did not violate the Executive Order, could be affected.

December 10, 2020

To Attend Remote Board Meeting via WebEx: Prior to the 10:00 a.m. meeting start time, call 855-282-6330. At the prompt, enter meeting ID 146 757 1289, followed by the # key. You may be asked for extra information, but you may hit the # key again and you will be taken to the meeting.

To Participate in Public Comment: If you wish to provide public comment at the next meeting please submit, by 4:30 p.m. the prior Friday, your name, who you represent, and your comment to steve.pedersen@state.mn.us.

November 30, 2020

Can You Advertise Gambling On Facebook

The October/November/December 2020 Gaming News is now available.

Pull-tab Sales at Liquor Stores

Many gambling managers have the impression that because off-sale liquor stores may continue to sell pull-tabs at this time, and, per executive order, on-sale bars can now also sell off-sale beer and wine, that all bars may therefore sell pull-tabs. However, that conclusion is incorrect.

Only bar and restaurant locations with an off-sale liquor license may conduct pull-tabs at this time – provided that the pull-tabs are conducted in a portion of a building with a separate entrance where on-site eating and drinking was not previously allowed. Although executive order temporarily allows bars with on-sale licenses to conduct some limited off-sale, very few locations have an actual off-sale license. Again, bars without an off-sale license and a separate entrance into an exclusively off-sale portion of the building are not allowed to sell pull-tabs.

Guidance for Reporting “Paused” Games

On Friday, November 20 organizations were allowed the option of “pausing” their pull-tab games in play rather than closing them. Pausing a game means that the organization may put that same game back into play once their premises reopens for on-site eating and drinking. The proceeds from paused games must be deposited into the gambling account within 4 business days after the game was paused. However, the game is not reported as closed on monthly reports until the game has been placed into play again and then removed from play.

Pausing games creates some unique reporting issues at month-end. The instructions below are meant to help your organization report paused games correctly so that your Profit Carryover Reconciliation, form LG100F, will balance.

There are three important numbers for an organization to remember when pausing their games; the amount of their cash bank for the games being paused, their deposit total, and the difference between those two numbers (which should be an indication of what the net receipts were for the games at the time they were paused).

Organizations should take the following steps:

• Deposit all the cash from each site (“Deposit Total” in the examples below) into their gambling bank account.
• On the LG100A, Lawful Gambling Receipts and Expenses per Site, reduce the starting cash bank amount for the games that are paused at the site to $0.
• Report the difference amount from the starting cash bank and deposit total amounts on the LG100F line 14 (the difference amount can be positive or negative depending on the circumstance).
• When re-opening a site, withdraw the same “Deposit Total” that they initially deposited and report the same cash bank amount that they had at the time the games were paused.

Click here for examples of how the reporting would work out depending on the starting cash banks as compared to the net receipts for each game. If you have questions, please contact your Compliance Auditor for assistance.

Can You Advertise Gambling On Instagram

Continuing Education Opportunities

A new continuing education class on lawful purpose expenditures is now available by clicking on the following link: CE – Lawful Purpose Expenditures. It’s a video-based course presented by Nichole Engeswick, a Compliance Auditor working out of our Mankato office. Participants will watch four videos with a total combined running time of about 40 minutes and answer a few questions at the end of each video.

Information on these and other continuing education classes is also available under the “Education” tab by selecting the “Continuing Education” menu option.

Gambling advertising monitoring program

The ACMA has been monitoring how the new gambling advertising restrictions during live sport on TV, radio and online have been operating since they began in 2018.

In November 2019, the ACMA published a research report with findings from our first 12 months of monitoring gambling ads. The research looked at the placement and number of gambling ads on TV, radio and online, before and after the new restrictions were introduced. It also looked at people’s awareness of the new rules and attitudes towards gambling advertising.

During these first 12 months, the ACMA did not identify any major issues with the operation of the broadcasting code restrictions.

However, because of some inconsistencies in providers notifying scheduled start times, and issues with record-keeping obligations, the ACMA decided to keep monitoring how the Online Content Service Provider Rules (the Online Rules) operated for another year.

In our second period of monitoring the Online Rules, the ACMA compared information about the ‘scheduled start of play’ on platforms with the placement of gambling ads during live streamed sports coverage.

The ACMA also contacted online providers to get extra information about their gambling advertising practices. During the period, the ACMA conducted 3 investigations under the Online Rules.

Findings

The ACMA did not identify any major concerns about the operation of the Online Rules. However, there were some inconsistencies in how providers interpreted the rules. These included:

Use of exemptions

• The Broadcasting Service Act 1992 (BSA) allows for an identical online simulcast of a live sporting event to be exempt from the Online Rules (this is because the live sporting event would be subject to broadcasting codes of practice). The ACMA found this exemption is being widely used, and sometimes combined with an exemption for low audience share subscription television channels from the broadcasting codes of practice restrictions.
• As the size of online audiences for live sporting events continues to grow in Australia, it may be relevant to also consider the potential online audience share for live sporting events broadcast on TV, so that exemptions continue to apply as intended, where there are genuinely small audiences.

Can You Advertise Gambling On Facebook

Record-keeping requirements

• The ACMA found that online providers are making and keeping records of gambling ads shown during live sporting events, as required by the Online Rules. However, the types of records kept by individual providers vary.
• To avoid potential record-keeping breaches, the ACMA encourage providers to consider whether their records comply with the Online Rules, particularly for unique, digitally-inserted advertising.

Although our formal monitoring program has now ended, the environment for broadcasting and streaming live sporting events is evolving. We’ll keep watching developments in this sector and how these interact with gambling advertising restrictions.