Injuries are part of the sports experience. As a fan, you don’t like it, but you accept that it’s part of the game. Those LA Lakers fans who went into this year’s Playoffs without Luka Doncic know how it feels. And those Kansas City Chiefs fans sweating on the rehabilitation of Patrick Mahomes after a knee injury cut short his campaign last season will know it well, too.
With injuries and sports betting, however, you can feel a little bit personally put out. If you’ve backed a team to win, and the star player suddenly pulls their hamstring, then that carefully thought-out betting strategy might go up in smoke. Yet, should there be more “injury protections” for bettors? Some New York lawmakers think so.
Several sports betting bills introduced in New York
Bill 11414 has been introduced in the New York State Assembly by member Jordan Wright. It would effectively protect bettors from player injuries, requiring sportsbooks to void bets when a wager is directly impacted by them. Richard Janvrin, who covered this story in more detail for Casino.com, also points out that Bill 11414 is one of a number of new sports betting bills in New York, including those that would rein in live betting and betting on college campuses.
Yet, Bill 11414 is interesting for a few reasons. The first thing to note is that many sportsbooks already do what it proposes to legislate for. If, for example, you bet on an NBA player to score 30+ points in a game, and that player was injured before the game, then a lot of sportsbooks would simply void (scratch) the bet, returning your stake. Some (as was pointed out by Janvrin in his piece) might not return the bet as straight cash, perhaps instead offering a free bet token.
Regardless, the idea behind the bill is to standardize the issue, so bettors would know that sportsbooks would be obliged to offer protection should events change that are outside of their control, such as injuries or other withdrawals, but also other factors such as event cancellation.
Bill is open to some interpretation
The language of the bill is fairly broad, though one would imagine that the remit would not include moneyline bets on teams. For example, if you placed a bet on Argentina to win the upcoming World Cup, there’s basically no sportsbook in the world that would void the bet should Lionel Messi get injured. If it were a direct bet on Messi to, say, be top scorer, that would be a different matter.
The language of the bill also suggests that lawmakers can provide additional scenarios that would require sportsbooks to void bets. The initial reaction has been welcoming, though concerns are being raised as to whether the bill would go too far, which could have the unintended consequence of forcing sportsbooks to remove markets, lower odds to protect profits, or encouraging bettors to move to offshore sportsbooks if those markets are no longer available.
Of course, there are no guarantees that Bill 11414 will pass, nor do we know what it would look like in its final form should it be amended. For now though, the idea of clarity and uniformity should be welcomed in a “fair deal” for bettors, yet there will certainly be vociferous opposition should the bill push too far.