The Canadian parliamentary effort to decriminalize single-game sports wagering suffered an apparently fatal blow Wednesday night in the face of Liberal Party opposition. The House of Commons rejected single-game sports wagering bill C-221 by a close vote count of 156 to 133. Had it been approved, the bill would have been referred to the House’s Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Now, its hopes—and the hopes of single-game sports wagering in the country—are effectively dead for the foreseeable future. New Democratic Party MP Brian Masse, who introduced the bill, had argued that the passage of the bill would have created…

This week, the first week of a new NFL season, is the biggest of the year for companies like DraftKings and FanDuel, the platforms that offer a “daily” alternative to traditional “season-long” fantasy sports. This week is when new users sign up in droves. But this season, there are more states where users can’t play DraftKings or FanDuel than there were one year ago. Amid widespread legal scrutiny after the two private tech startups flooded airwaves with $200 million worth of advertising, a few new states became unfriendly. (See where every state now stands on daily fantasy sports.) One of…

Two Irish boxers have been questioned over betting activities at this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) confirmed the news in a statement, saying that the pair were being spoken to about “inappropriate betting activity”, but did not disclose the identity of the boxers in question. Although it is not illegal for athletes or officials to place bets at the Games, it is against the rules of governing body the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The OCI added in its statement: “The matter is still under review so there will be no further…

Daily fantasy sports platform FanDuel announced on August 1 a bold new feature that takes on the bigger, more entrenched “season-long” fantasy sports providers. And today that feature goes live to all FanDuel users. The feature is called Friends Mode, and it allows FanDuel users to set up private, recurring leagues to play against friends every week of the season. (The core of the FanDuel product, in the past, was for users to enter large prize pools with strangers.) The format of this is still “daily” fantasy, meaning that every week, users can draft a new team, but by making…

888sport is tapping into Pokémon Go fever with the introduction of a new geo-targeting game which lets English football fans search for free-bet offers when near to a stadium. Free Bet Hunt will be available at Premier League fixtures throughout the season as well as the stadiums of the four second-tier Championship teams – Birmingham City, Brentford, Nottingham Forest and Preston North End – which are sponsored by 888sport. When playing the Free Bet Hunt game, which is available via the app and mobile website, players will be shown a map with the exact free bets location. Free bets can…

Sports betting will be broadly legalized in the US in approximately four years and one of its highest profile proponents, the National Basketball Association, will continue to call for a regulatory framework for wagering, American Gaming Association president and CEO Geoff Freeman said Wednesday. Those calls, however, will likely continue to stop short of direct legislative lobbying. NBA spokesman Michael Bass told Gambling Compliance that while his league maintained its position in favor of a law regulating sports betting, it was not going to become more aggressive in directly advocating for such a law. Freeman told those assembled that he…