How an Arizona Lobbying Frenzy Helped Sports App Bookies Write Their Own Rules

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The National Football League opener was less than 90 days away, which meant Warren Nichols, an assistant director at the Arizona Department of Gaming, had to act fast. The state's lawmakers had approved online sports betting as an emergency measure, normally reserved for legislation deemed “necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety.” The designation exempted gaming regulators from the usual rule-making timeline requiring extensive notice to the public.

So it was that in June 2021, Nichols hosted 92 people — lobbyists, gambling company executives and representatives of professional sports franchises among them — for a kind of group editing session of the department's first draft of the new regulations. Over the next hour and a half, he encouraged them to keep firing away with suggested edits. “You will see significant changes to the rules based off the feedback we expect to get today,” Nichols said during the virtual meeting.

The industry officials eagerly complied, chiming in so frequently that one of them, Andrew Winchell, director of government affairs for Flutter Entertainment Plc's FanDuel betting app, at one point apologized for taking so much time. “Oh, don't apologize!” Nichols responded. Citing specific line numbers from the draft's hundreds of provisions, the FanDuel executive proposed, among other things, allowing apps more time to cash out customers' accounts.

Another industry representative, John Pappas, teased Winchell for going over the department's suggested two-minute allotment for speakers. Pappas — the founder of Corridor Consulting, which says it “delivers a proven, integrated approach to drive client agendas forward in Washington, D.C. and in state capitals” — had his own request.