Geolocation Presents Final Hurdle For Sports Betting In Washington D.C.

• Legal sports betting in Washington D.C. was approved by the city council in December of 2018.
• Washington D.C. was the first area without casinos to enact legal sports betting.
• Federal buildings and national park property fall outside of local jurisdiction, meaning that geolocation services would have certain restrictions.

Washington – Sports fans in Washington D.C. have been anxiously waiting for sports betting to finally be introduced ever since the city council legalized the activity last year. However, one aspect they may have overlooked is the sheer complexity of geolocation services.

As many in the nation’s capital know, there are no casinos in Washington, which is why the lottery commission will be both regulating and providing this new gaming activity.

The lottery’s gaming provider, Intralot, plans on introducing a mobile sports wagering app in Washington, but the stipulations in which the app can operate is very different from other states with mobile sports betting.

While New Jersey only has to worry about geofencing state lines, Washington will have to accommodate for city borders, state lines, and in-city areas.

“D.C. does present a very unique geolocation challenge,” said John Pappas, public affairs officer for GeoComply to WTOP in an interview. “Within the District itself, there are going to be so many different exclusion zones.”

That is mainly due to the fact that federal buildings fall out of local jurisdiction as well as any national park property. There are a total 19 national parks and 55 federal buildings within the district’s city limits.

Another major hurdle that was set into the original law that passed was the ability for Washington stadiums to introduce independently operated sportsbooks and mobile betting apps.

The stadiums and arenas would have a two-block exclusion radius, which means that if you are standing within a zone you would not be able to use either the lottery’s mobile sports betting platform or the one provided by that team.

Nationals Park and Audi Field are only two blocks away from each other, so that issue would have to be resolved by the lottery before either unveils their own betting app.

“From a commercial standpoint, from a tax revenue standpoint, we want to be able to create as big of an industry as possible—as big of a marketplace as possible—so that D.C. government can collect that tax revenue,” said Pappas.

Once those geolocation borders are set, users of the apps will have to disable any Virtual Private Network or location blocking software that their device uses.

Final regulations should come sometime this summer as the city hopes to have active sports betting apps in time for the start of 2019 NFL season.

News tags: sports betting | Washington DC