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42 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 that a Class B License cannot be issued within the 2-block zone of a Class A facility or in areas of the District where gaming licensed or operated by the OLG is prohibited (commonly referred to as the Federal enclave). A Class B License is valid for 5 years and the initial fee is $100,000. There are several Class B applicants in varied stages of the licensing process. In addition to license application fees associ- ated with privately-operated sports wagering, the District collects a 10 percent tax on operators’ monthly gross gaming revenue. After much fanfare, which included a controversial contract award to our gaming system vendor to stand up a lottery-operat- ed sports book, a court-ordered temporary restraining order to stop all work under the contract, and a pandemic that caused a global shutdown of nearly all sports, we launched the much-anticipated DC Lottery-operated sports betting platform, GambetDC, on May 28, 2020. Wagers on the mobile app and website can be placed in many areas of the city; however, no wagers can be accepted within the 2-blocks surrounding the four major arenas designated as Class A locations, as well as within the “Federal enclave” that includes the monumental and governmental core of the District, along much of the Potomac waterfront, or land abutting Rock Creek Park. There’s a lot of intricate geofencing involved, to say the least. In addition to the digital component of GambetDC, we will file regulations and begin rolling out a network of retail sports betting locations in mid-2021. So each statutory change literally requires an act of U.S. Congress? B. Bresnahan: Once legislation of any kind is approved by the D.C. council and is signed off by the mayor, it is then sent to Congress for approval. So, it literally takes an act of Congress to make changes here. For instance, the complicated location- based restrictions that we are required to comply with are embedded into federal legislation and would require Congressional action to strike down. The Appropriations Act that created the DC Lottery in 1982 stipulated that the Lottery cannot license or advertise its products within the area defined under the Shipstead-Luce Act of 1930. The Shipstead-Luce Act created the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts to protect the architectural integrity of the buildings in the monumental core of the District. The Lottery did not exist in 1930 and the internet did not exist when the restrictions were placed in 1982, but that congressional act is now interpreted as prohibiting online gaming transactions offered or licensed by the Lottery. How would you geofence broadcast TV? B. Bresnahan: That is not technically possible without refraining from all TV advertising but, we made every effort to ensure that any of our land-based out-of- home advertising does not cross over into the restricted areas. For instance, when we purchase advertising on the sides of busses, we refrain from placement on busses that have routes passing through these prohibited zones. We are not penalized if it happens because of detours or unforeseen events. But we do need to be very careful and mindful of all the location-based restrictions. We miss out on a tremendous amount of sponsorship opportunities because so many events are held either within the National Mall or in that governmental core. In fact, the core business district of the District of Columbia falls within that Shipstead-Luce mapped area. That makes it difficult to grow our footprint and revenue as we can’t do business where most of our commuters or visitors and the general public are conduct- ing their everyday business. It just does not seem like the Shipstead- Luce Act of 1930 or the Appropriations Act that created the DC Lottery in 1982 intended this level of regula- tory fussiness over games and media channels that did not even exist then! B. Bresnahan: Of course, many states must deal with the problem of obsolete statutes or regulatory restrictions that need to be modernized for a new world that includes the internet, smart-phones, and new game categories like sports betting. Every jurisdiction that offers mobile gaming has to comply with the Federal Wire Act and implement geofencing to prevent transac- tions from outside of their jurisdictional borders. The thing that makes our situation unique is that the boundaries wind around individual blocks within a very small geo- graphical area, and our regulatory statutes must be addressed by the U.S. Congress which always has more than a few other issues on their plate, most of which are more pressing than issues like the location-based operational restrictions on the DC Lottery. Are there incidents wherein the geofencing system fails to detect that a player is on the wrong side of the street? B. Bresnahan: The system works quite well and does accomplish what it is tasked to do. The problem, though, is that the average consumer does not know, or care about,about the implications of the Ship- stead-Luce Act on where you can play lottery games, right? The player may be walking down Pennsylvania Ave, does not realize they crossed into a restricted area even though they are still within the boundaries of the District, and does not understand why they are halted from wagering on GambetDC, the DC sports betting app. They just think our app is malfunctioning. We have been proactive with consistent messaging, but consumers do not always pay rapt attention to pop-ups and digital “The pandemic has cut hugely into that commuter traffic and therefore a significant source of our revenue. Diversifying our portfolio of games and modernizing the ways we make those games available to the players has truly become mission-critical to the goal of growing revenues.” Beth Bresnahan continued from page 14 Continued on next page