An anti-doping amendment is going to allow Nevada’s legal sports betting operators more freedom to offer esports wagering.
The Nevada Gaming Commission decided Thursday it won’t prohibit performance-enhancing drugs or require anti-doping mandates for sportsbooks to receive regulatory approvals for the video-gaming event betting industry within the state, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Previously, operators needed the commission’s board chairman to review requests to offer esports wagering because of language that included online betting sites needing to have “integrity safeguards” surrounding anti-doping.
Now, esports will be treated much like sports betting in Nevada with state regulators.
Arguments against anti-doping
Entertainment Software Association representatives argued that it would be impossible for sportsbooks to guarantee that esports-event participants were properly drug tested.
In written testimony, Tara Ryan, the association’s vice president of state government affairs, said that the anti-doping requirement was “unnecessary” and would make most esports tournaments “ineligible for wagering.” The sport does not believe anti-doping measures are “cost prohibitive,” Ryan said in the statement obtained by the LSRJ.
The association’s argument extended to showing no data offered to support that drugs are performance-enhancing in esports.
“Absent such a showing, it is unnecessary to impose programmatic requirements related to those substances,” Ryan said.
Rise of, other issues with esports
Esports has taken off globally, especially in Asia and North America, allowing for more interest in wagering on these events.
Toronto-based esports operator Rivalry Corp. projected profitability in 2024 from esports wagering in August.
It could be for Nevada, which reported a sports betting handle of $431.3 million in August, as well because of the influx of U.S. and international visitors to the Silver State.
Las Vegas venues have supported and held esports events, although the LSRJ says wagering on them has lagged in recent years.
These new amendments could help sportsbooks offer more types of betting for esports, which has had an ongoing battle with integrity. Match fixing and having participants reach the age requirements for sports betting regulators have been challenges in the industry.
Integrity company Sportradar said in July 2022 that esports had the second-highest number of suspicious betting alerts.
