Barstool Sports activities is utilizing the First Modification of the US Structure to defend its Can’t Lose Parlay promotion from the lengthy arm of the Massachusetts Gaming Fee. It’s the newest, and most weird, chapter within the race to outline the parameters of the regulated US sports activities betting market.

Earlier this 12 months, the Fee questioned the legality of the Can’t Lose Parlay. Phrases like “can’t lose” suggest that there is no such thing as a threat concerned with the wager, they mentioned, placing Barstool Sports activities in violation of gaming laws.

Barstool, which is owned by Penn Leisure, refused to take the case mendacity down and provided a uncommon (and vigorous) protection of their adverts at a listening to earlier this week. Barstool was represented by First Modification skilled Jonathan Albano, who argued that no cheap particular person would ever assume that any parlay didn’t contain threat, and that the Fee ought to simply again off.

“In context by the eyes of an affordable shopper, we submit that [when they] noticed a parlay that requires a buyer to win not one, not two, not three, however 4 bets, no cheap particular person would imagine they had been participating in a risk-free exercise,” he mentioned in feedback reported on MSN.

Albano additionally went on to counsel that authorized protections afforded to merchandise like Crunch Berries (breakfast cereal) – which aren’t berries – needs to be given to Can’t Lose Parlays.

Commissioner Eileen O’Brien was solely unimpressed with the argument. She identified that 55 p.c of gamers who took benefit of the provide had been repeat bettors, and that 90 p.c of them misplaced on their preliminary parlays. When Albano identified that that meant they knew what they had been entering into she shot him down saying, “So, one other manner to take a look at that Legal professional Albano, was these persons are chasing losses, and so to be blunt, I’m not overly persuaded by that piece of data.”

A full report on the Can’t Lose Parlay controversy from the Gaming Fee might be launched at a later date.