Connecticut Joins Ranks of States Banning Offshore Books
State Governments Are Cracking Down

More and more states are starting to turn against offshore betting sites, such as Bovada. The number of offshore sites blocked by states is growing almost every week and the list now includes Connecticut as the state’s gambling regulator sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bovada’s parent company. The news comes on the heels of Michigan announcing that Bovada — one of the biggest and most prominent offshore books on the market — cannot be accessed in the state.
Michigan’s gambling regulator sent a similar cease-and-desist to Bovada in early June and is now officially one of seven states where Bovada isn’t allowed to operate, including Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, New York and New Jersey. Assuming that Connecticut follows Michigan’s path for banning the well-known offshore site, the Nutmeg State could become the eighth state to close its doors to a huge sports betting site, albeit one that has lost some steam in the era of legal sports betting.
While the mere act of sending a cease-and-desist letter does not mean that Bovada is automatically shut down in a particular state, it’s a pretty tried-and-true precursor to an eventual ban. By sending the cease-and-desist a state — such as Connecticut — is essentially telling Bovada to stop conducting certain activities in the state, many of which are crucial to the actual business model of the site.
In this case, Connecticut is telling Bovada to stop operating without a state gaming license and because Connecticut won’t grant Bovada said license, the choice is either to continue operating illegally or just don’t stop operating.
Existing Customers Get Screwed
While betting on offshore sites blocked by states is technically illegal, state regulators aren’t interested in going after individual bettors. Instead, they want to crack down on the offshore sites because the ones that have been able to escape regulation by state governments, do not contribute to taxable revenue collected by the states and are not even based in the United States, inviting fraud and other potential crimes such as payouts being withheld from customers.
While they might be able to offer scores and odds at better values than terrestrial books because they don’t have to deal with the same tax burdens as legal sportsbook operators, there are many concerns regarding offshore sites. As state governments try to gain more control over a rapidly growing marketplace, a quick way for them to do so is to rein in — or shut down — the offshore sites that are legal risks and take any revenue and market share from the sportsbooks with valid licenses that contribute tax revenue.
But, that doesn’t do much to help current customers who rely on those offshore sites for whatever reason. In Michigan, for example, people who try to use Bovada are given a screen stating that “We currently don’t offer services in your area” and, if they have Bovada balances, they can only withdraw their money in volatile cryptocurrency as opposed to checks or direct deposit.
It also can be difficult to have to deal with customer service representatives as opposed to an easier withdrawal process through an app or website.
More States Will Follow
The list of offshore sites blocked by states is only going up as there’s more incentive for state governments to make their states as desirable and inviting to legal operators as possible. Simply put, the offshore books don’t provide much value to governments and gaming regulators while the legal books can result in tax revenues, tourism and other positive externalities.
As such, even though the list of current states where sites like Bovada are blocked is relatively small, there are some very influential states in the group such as New York, New Jersey and Nevada.
For a variety of reasons, those states have held a lot of sway in the legal sports betting discussion and the steps they took to ban the offshore sites will certainly be closely looked at by other states considering a similar move.
While most sports bettors will continue using the same online sportsbook before and after these bans, such actions are certain to have big ramifications throughout the country. While numbers are hard to track for these sites — which is kind of the point of operating an offshore book — most of their customers in banned states will simply migrate to legal books, increasing revenue and profits for books and state governments.
In that way, it should be a big positive even if those who benefited from the freedoms of offshore betting could see a dip in their take-home monies because of tighter lines and higher vigs.
For Gambling news, odds analysis, and more, visit Point Spreads Sports Magazine.
Can’t get enough? Here’s more!
- MGM Resorts Purchasing Tipico U.S. Sportsbook
- Betfred to Exit Maryland’s Sports Betting Market: What It Means for Bettors
- Jake Paul’s ‘Betr’ Partners with ‘Betting Ladies’ to Empower Women in Sports Betting
- NJ Betting On Car Jit-Su: Yes, It’s a Real Sport
- Pennsylvania’s Betting Market Is on Fire