Ensuring Digital Signature Lawfulness for Sport Organisations in Australia

How to eSign a document: digital signature lawfulness for Sport organisations in Australia

the beginnings were as inadvertent as they come hastily drawn up and jammed into the entirely unrelated Safe Port act the unlawful internet gambling Enforcement Act passed through Congress in September of 2006 then with President Bush's signature a month later became law the unremarkable bit of legislation banned gambling companies from taking payments over the Internet made in violation of state or federal law the Old Guard of online gambling the likes of Full Tilt Poker poker stars and absolute poker the new law would prove an existential threat for a set of upstarts though it functioned as the Legal Foundation of an as yet untapped Market in trying to close one loophole the ACT opened another with this seemingly innocuous exemption that betting and wagering did not include participation in fantasy sports which were deemed as games of scale not chance at the time the distinction made sense fantasy sports were fundamentally different from any sort of online gambling people didn't get rich off fantasy sports nor did they lose thousands tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in one Fell Swoop fantasy team owners wagered on season long outcomes with their friends from school or work and poured over stat sheets for bragging rights as much as money they might have been obsessed but they were never quite addicted then in 2009 a fateful backyard brainstorm at South by Southwest completely altered the trajectory of fantasy sports and as it would turn out sports betting the company that coalesced under the Austin sun was called FanDuel and it was everything that fantasy wasn't countering the traditional season long League FanDuel offered daily fantasy rather than just playing with your buddies the service provided tournaments and cash games to compete against countless others whereas traditional fantasy leagues only saw minimal Financial exchanges in league buy-ins and annual draft guides FanDuel moved a major money just one good day they advertised could net a couple thousand dollars and thanks to the unlawful gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 it was online and in your pocket what had been slow moving and cumbersome was now fast and convenient just play from your phone win and cash out that very same day young people followed and so too did money fanduel's first rounds of funding topped one million dollars then four million dollars then by 2013 11 million dollars as investment climbed so too did winnings that same year the platform crowned its first million dollar Prize winner during its December Fantasy Football Championship and dished out more than 150 million dollars in prize money overall the following year FanDuel partnered with the NBA while its Rising competitor DraftKings NAB the MLB and NHL suddenly companies that didn't exist just years prior were outspending the entire beer industry running ads every 90 seconds on national TV with palm of your hand convenience cheap buy-ins mouth-watering prize potential and unavoidable promotional offers daily fantasy Services had maximized the potential of fantasy sports sports fans played sports leagues and media invested while critics and academics began asking exactly to what extent this sped up further gamified version of fantasy sports actually differed from sports betting yet rather than Regulators intervening legislators League leaders team owners and daily fantasy consumers alike began to rethink just how bad sports betting really was banned by Congress in every State except Nevada and opposed by all major leagues sports betting had long been perceived as the antithesis of fair sport this wasn't only the position held by League Commissioners either as 56 percent of Americans polled in 1993 disapproved of its legalization through the 2000s after point-shaving scandals rocked college basketball then Insider betting in the NBA came to light betting remained a dark Shady Sports underworld in the view of most and to League leaders a direct threat even through 2012 NFL's Roger Goodell MLB's Bud selig NHL's Gary Bettman and ncaa's Mark Emmert each came out against the idea of overturning the federal ban or at least that's what they said outwardly as teams and leagues entered Partnerships with gambling adjacent fantasy platforms internal conversations slowly shifted from sports betting as a Scourge to sports betting as a potential opportunity daily fantasy drove more fan engagement and so too would Sports better at the same time sports fans were voting with their wallets as the American gaming Association estimated that Americans were spending about 150 billion dollars on Wagers annually with only a small fraction actually going through legal means in Nevada then finally the head of the NBA came out and said it if Americans were spending billions on Sports bets American newspapers and media were publishing betting lines and other countries were finding success in regulating Nationwide gambling then why not just Legalize It by and large the public followed the logic as 2017 polling showed that 55 of Americans had now come to favor the idea of legalized regulated gambling while only 33 percent opposed it polling though doesn't overturn Federal bans but the timing was perfect while daily fantasy shot Skyward an American opinion came around the legality of the federal ban was coming under question New Jersey's effort to legalize sports betting to prop up a faltering Atlantic City had climbed all the way to the Supreme Court and in 2018 a surprise ruling opened the floodgates as Justice Alito delivered at the 72 opinion acknowledging that while Sports gambling is fraught with controversy It ultimately wasn't the federal government's constitutional right to ban it rather that it was the choice of each individual State the race was on eight states legalized sports betting in 2018 10 more joined in 2019 sportsbooks opened in state and tribal s sports venues added bedding kiosks while DraftKings and FanDuel The Darlings of daily fantasy opened up brick and mortar lounges across the US and launched Mobile online betting in states that allowed it but this race to legalize wasn't between states this was a time trial to see which gambling industry Representatives could secure legalization as quickly as possible in the friendliest terms possible the likes of FanDuel and DraftKings who had previously spent Millions ensuring that state legislators saw daily fantasy as a game of skill and not of luck the strategy was already established and the team already assembled from Trenton to Tallahassee to Topeka lobbyists bought lawmakers gifts and presented the plot points of A New Path over expensive glasses of wine legalized sports betting they pitched would bring tax revenue by the millions and besides they argued people were betting illegally anyway why not bring it above board bring in revenue and create a win-win or what about a win-win-win they'd ask were regulations and taxes are slightly less burdensome so more Sports books are incentivized to enter the market so more users have more Outlets to bet so more volume brings the state more tax revenue the pressure was immense as the Deep Pockets of the world's most recognizable s spared no expense in helping state legislators see the issue from their point of view well the extent varied from state to state the blitz was largely a success by 2022 30 U.S states and Washington DC had some form of legal and active sports betting and this wasn't the sports betting of old this was sports betting in the digital age sure like before people bet on the individual outcome of the game they were going to to heighten the experience they put future bets down on whether or not the teams would match the win totals that their Sportsbook projected and wagered on odds for end of season awards and champions but now they bet on far more too odds not for games but for haves and quarters propositional bets that didn't have to do with the outcome of the game like Player points or shots on goals and in-game parlays that combine propositional Bets with score outcomes to boost potential payouts just as mobile devices turn Fantasy games from four month seasons to daily games mobile gaming apps unlocked in-game betting that people could wager on in the middle of the sporting event they were watching on TV people had more options and easier access than ever before in the established gaming houses of Vegas took note joining FanDuel and DraftKings were online Sports books by familiar names like bet MGM Caesar's win bet and Penn National Gaming's Barstool Sportsbook while various other s and companies launch smaller more Regional online outfits in 2019 U.S betting Revenue doubled that of 2018. then 2020 despite Sports as an entity disappearing globally for a matter of months saw Revenue nearly double once again then in 2021 Revenue tripled to over 4.3 billion dollars a year simply put sports betting just exploded at least it looked like it exploded it looked like an unmitigated force of nature perhaps triggered by humans but hardly managed by them but that's what the industry wanted it to look like to support the plot that they had laid out to legislators prior to legalization they wanted it to look like this was only natural that there was always a huge volume of betting behind closed doors and that sector growth merely represented this phenomenon moving into the legal space where it could be next and regulate it well that was undoubtedly part of it a huge additional chunk of this growth was precipitated by a carefully choreographed long-planned Deluge of spending and effort by the burgeoning industry a well-funded Scramble for market share before a hierarchy could set in they knew that if the industry looked anything less than Unstoppable it could be stopped step one was to normalize the practice and for this the industry was gifted a massive opportunity the covid-19 pandemic with the World of Sports reopening into a new less physical less social context the industry realized it could capitalize on the degraded Fan Experience to effectively manufacture a new normal spend was slowly and steadily growing pre-pandemic but come Q3 2020 as the NHL NBA and MLB restarted their seasons in various forms of biosecure bubbles the industry spent three times more than any prior quarter on TV advertising and logos went everywhere FanDuel adorned the boards around the NHL's pandemic proof rink in Edmonton on screen sitting where the NBA's courtside seats would normally go on the pitcher's mound at MLB ballparks and anywhere else where competitor hadn't already Inked a deal with the knowledge that their most promising customer demographic was 18 to 35 year old men based on their above average propensity to develop long-term potentially addictive gambling habits companies even Inked deals with LSU Michigan State University CEO Boulder and other colleges to advertise sports betting to their own students sometimes as a New York Times investigation exposed to the extent of paying a fixed amount per sign up this sports betting omnipresence wasn't normal but it was tough for anyone to recognize that when nothing was but making the practice feel as integral to the sports viewing experience as donning a jersey or assembling some nachos was only half the battle once the gambling companies got people in they had to keep them they had to turn a sign up into a habit and for that there were inducements the concept is Loosely based on the experience in Vegas around 40 of gambling is conducted by the top five percent of gamblers the high rollers so the s generally Focus their inherently limited resources on keeping these gamblers gambling typically that task Falls onto the hosts they're supposed to act as the high rollers friends accompanying them to dinners arranging Show tickets grabbing drinks from the bar booking free flights really doing anything they can to make the guests experience better but what their job really is is to use that social Dynamic and the power to occasionally reimburse some losses to subtly nudge the High Roller towards playing more and betting bigger the opportunity with online sports betting was that this task could be automated and extended to all no matter if they bet one dollar or one million dollars for example if an algorithm predicts that a player is likely to stop betting after a string of losses which some can with remarkable accuracy it'll automatically offer a risk-free bet if they lose the next one they'll get their money back but the terms will indicate the money returned can't be withdrawn it has to be spent on another bet after two additional bets there's every chance the player wins one and decides to keep going but even if they don't they've gotten back into the groove of it so even given the high cost of this inducement the economics workout and aggregate so that free bets are a winning proposition for the gambling companies the systems are just incredibly effective at forming a habit and their players in a cost-effective manner unsurprisingly Myriad academic research has demonstrated that inducements have a dramatic effect on the size of bets and encourages the behavior that turns gambling from a form of entertainment into a pro problem governments know this and yet they allow this in fact not only are inducements legal but in many states thanks to aggressive lobbying they are tax exempt meaning sports betting companies have avoided paying Millions upon millions of dollars in taxes by engaging in the practice that develops addicts underfunded and overstretched state regulatory agencies have been unable to properly manage the sports betting companies and their corresponding legislators have overwhelmingly failed to resist the influence of some of America's highest paid and most effective lobbyists well everyone in the equation hides it as best as possible the gambling industry is in charge they are calling the shots and America is slowly and quietly turning into a nation of gamblers this is far from unprecedented on the other side of the Equator one of the US's closest cultural equivalence has already marched far further down this path Australia is already a nation of gamblers it is as deeply intertwined into society as guns are to Americas no population loses more to gambling than Australia's each adult resident averages over one thousand dollars a year in loss a clean doubling of America's equivalent figure and the explanation is concerningly straightforward in the U.S s are a destination from the center of New York City the closest proper one is a 50-minute trek into Queens from Dallas it's an 80-minute Drive North to Chickasaw land in Oklahoma from San Francisco it's a similar 60-minute Drive North into Sonoma County in Australia however s are City Center attractions Melbourne's Crown development sits just across from the city central business district and is turned the riverfront into a lively nightlife destination that just happens to include a place to play poker roulette or craps Sydney's newest tallest skyscraper now sits just steps away from the very location where the First Fleet of European settlers started their colony and acts as the home to another Crown development and up in Brisbane a slice of its City Center was torn down and is now being rebuilt into the largest development in the country which will Tower over and look down upon the historic neighborhood below even Las Vegas separates the bulk of its s away from the city center in Australia they're tough to avoid gambling doesn't have to be purposely planned it can simply be spontaneous a convenient accessible way to turn one's day around for the better or more often worse but the concerning convenience compounds across the country nestled in a sizeable proportion of bars and clubs sit 188 thousand slot machines or pokies as the locals would call them that's one for for every 137 residents they are simply everywhere but they are especially in the areas that use them the most which more often than not are low income neighborhoods in Sydney for example a doll residents of the upscale ritzy karenga area only lost an average of 180 a year to the pokies meanwhile to the West in Fairfield overwhelmingly home to low-income immigrant families the average adult lost nearly 10 times as much 1558 a year and this pattern extends City and Country Wide the lower the average income the higher the average annual gambling loss from a systematic perspective gambling in Australia is acting as a wealth transfer mechanism from lower income individuals to wealthy gambling conglomerate owners and this has crafted a legitimate Nationwide Public Health crisis roughly one of every 14 Australians have exhibited signs of problematic gambling Behavior the government says this the government knows this and yet the government enables this because the gambling companies are in control the methods used to exert their influence are neither unique nor interesting it's the same lobbying political donations and revolving door between industry and politics that you see in America and Beyond it's just its extent and Effectiveness that sets Australia apart as many observers have put it the gambling industry is Australia's equivalent of the American gun lobby but there is still one final step in the gambling Industries grand plan people gamble more when it's convenient we know that people play more when they live closer to Pokey machines we know that people's Sports bet more where they can do so on their phones and so the gambling industry knows what their biggest legislative win to date would be I gaming that's the technical term for the broad bucket of chance based gambling roulette slots Bingo and more taking place on the Internet or apps this would create a problem Time and Time and Time Again a causal relationship has been demonstrated between accessibility of gambling and the likelihood of it developing into a problem to the legalization of eye gaming would undoubtedly increase the number of addicts gambling can be safe and fun just like alcohol can be safe and fun consumed in the right amounts in the right places by the right people there is no problem with drinking done in the right amounts in the right places by the right people there doesn't have to be a problem with gambling but in both cases improper use can wreak havoc on life and livelihood and increasingly in America legal gambling is occurring improperly gambling has to be a destination not a convenience anyone can have a terrible hopeless day log on to an app wager far more than is responsible lose it in an instant and trigger a downward spiral of issues that turns a bad day into a bad year far fewer people can have a bad day drive 80 minutes north to Oklahoma and still think it's a good idea to wager an excessive amount putting such potential pain in people's pockets requires a degree of personal responsibility that few players are able to consistently fulfill across the full spectrum of emotions right now on average across the U.S the Power Balance swings towards gambling companies rather than The Regulators underfunded and overworked State Regulators are struggling to cope with the massive well-funded explosion in online gambling until regulation of existing rules is inconsistent and weak gambling companies feel this and it means they consistently operate off of forgiveness rather than permission gambling company bodies need to be terrified of regulators to keep the industry safe notably Nevada's gaming commission has a death grip on Las Vegas s holding them to an exceptionally high standard leading to gambling companies often operating above those standards to allow for a margin of error but in the rest of the US those very same companies and more consistently skirt Bend and push the rules because they know they can get away with it they downplay the risk of loss in advertising even when that's illegal they allow gamblers to accumulate credit card debt through deposits even when that's illegal they operate sports betting on Lower division semi-professional leagues even when that's illegal and more often than not they're just told to do better in the future sports betting doesn't have to be a problem it can be what it's portrayed as it can be a fun social way of upping the emotional Stakes of the viewing experience far too often it fails to hit the mark faced with few roadblocks and increasingly capable of knocking the remaining ones down the industry is doing what industry does finding and following the greatest possible Revenue Opportunity by turning the us into a nation of addicts the trend is worrying and it is a trend West Virginia Delaware Pennsylvania New Jersey Connecticut Michigan all have legalized some form of eye gaming and more states are expected to follow in 2023 the dominoes are falling the slow silent March continues the gambling industry takes another step forward in its grand plan to consume America and Americans alike okay so I'm really weirdly excited for this ad read because it's been an incredibly long time coming six months ago I made a video called the carbon offset problem where the conclusion was that while carbon offsets as a concept can theoretically work the current Marketplace for them enables and even incentivizes scams to the point where they're nothing more than a green washing tool on average the video got a ton of attention and was even included in a John Oliver segment about the same subject and then a little later the people at a company called Iran reached out and claimed they had created a system to help make offsets actually work I talked with their CEO Landon their project evaluator Sophie and a few others over there for over an hour and they walked me through the process and responded really well to all my grilling and I left pretty confident that Ren is as good as it gets in the carbon offsetting Market as you might remember from my video offsetting is only as good as the accuracy of project evaluation so their project evaluator Sophie showed me the hundreds of tiny tiny details that she individually verifies to make sure project is actually going to do what it says it will and it's an ongoing process once the project actually starts too they only have seven active projects so they put a ton of focus into each but one thing I think is really smart is they only sell offsets in a combined portfolio of all of these that way they reduce risk and build in a margin for error if one project falls short in addition unlike single project offsets they can use the fund to help Finance more experimental or ancillary projects that still help fight the climate crisis but are tougher to quantify in tons of carbon for example they recently added carbon 180 to the mix where they're helping this policy group that Advocates and works for more funding for offset projects which hopefully leads to a compounding effect I could go on and on about all the different tiny ways they assure what they're doing actually works the thing to know is that based on what I know about the subject Ren is the real deal and if you're still skeptical you should check out their website because they do a good job of explaining how so if you want to be genuinely as sure as possible that you actually offset emissions from taking a flight for example they're the place to go I've turned down plenty of carbon offsetting sponsors in the past and have opened myself up to plenty of criticism by doing this since I've been such a vocal critic of the carbon offsetting market so you can know that genuinely believe in them they'll be what I use going forward both for my personal and business carbon offsetting and I think you should too they make it super simple to calculate your personal carbon footprint and give personalized suggestions on how to reduce it then for anything else you can set up a monthly offset so you can reduce your personal contribution to the climate crisis doing this probably costs a lot less than you think and it's even less considering that if you click the button on screen or head to our Link in the description they'll pay to offset the first month of emissions for the first 100 people to sign up