Sports Gambling Apps Wrote Their Own Rules After Lobbying Blitz (1)

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 hosted92 people — lobbyists, gambling company executives and representatives of professional sports franchises among them — for a kind of group editing ...