Gaming Law Commons^™

Friedlander V. Tamarack Junction (142 Nev. Adv. Op. 23, Mar. 12, 2026), Kerri Richards

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

House rules govern gaming wagers. Patrons are bound by constructive notice, and courts defer to the Gaming Control Board when its decisions are supported by evidence and law.

The Gamification Of Banking, Colleen Baker, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Gamification is coming to banking. This phenomenon is already gain-ing ground in advertising, healthcare, manufacturing, and, more recently, with the GameStop and AMC meme stock saga in securities trading. The idea behind gamification is to make transactions seem fun, playful, and even casino-like in order to elicit habit-forming, addictive-like effects with consumers. This Article argues that the rise of financial technology (“fintech”) firms and their ever-growing business relationships with incumbent financial institutions has created the necessary conditions for gamification to take hold in the banking sector. In order to explore this observation, we undertake a study of current examples of …

Ai Governance In The Gaming Industry: A Proposal For A Use Case Registry, Cesar D. Lozoya Martinez

Student Research

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated into everyday life. From customer service chatbots and marketing strategies to player protection tools and surveillance systems, casino operations are embracing the trend. However, without a systematic framework to track the current and emerging use cases across the industry, concerns about transparency, ethical use, and potential consumer harm continue to grow. Rather than aiming to establish binding regulatory practices for an industry and technology that are both quickly evolving, this policy brief advocates for the creation of an AI-use case registry. The registry would comprehensively track gaming companies that are using AI. The growing …

Tort Liability For Failure To Age Gate: A Promising Regulatory Response To Digital Public Health Hazards, Matthew B. Lawrence, Brett Frischmann, Avi Sholkoff

Faculty Articles

Tort liability for failure to “age gate” is a promising legal response to the public health hazards of AI, social media, sports gambling, and other digital spaces. Tort liability for failure to “age gate” hinges liability for harms to minors on an app’s failure to take reasonable steps to prevent minors from gaining access or otherwise to apply appropriate governance rules, such as privacy-protective default settings or ensuring genuine parental consent. While no one legal response is a panacea, tort liability for failure to age gate carries several distinctive advantages that make it a particularly promising option at this stage …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Faculty Articles

In her important book, Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein illustrates the value of a comparative approach, drawing lessons from fights around the regulation of tobacco and ultra-processed food for the regulation of social media. Building on Bernstein’s work, this symposium contribution aims to draw additional insight from experience with drug and gambling regulation for the regulation of social media, video games, AI, and other potentially-addictive technologies.

Specifically, after introducing Bernstein’s book and the foundation it lays, we draw six lessons from the study of psychoactive drugs and gambling. As we elaborate below: Lesson one is that …

Data Privacy Regulations In The Gaming Industry: A Comparative Analysis Of Singapore, Macau, And Japan, Miloslava Plachkinova

Faculty Articles

This study explores the relatively under-researched area of comparing data privacy regulations and best practices across different countries, with a focus on the gaming industry. It provides an overview of general data privacy principles and existing global regulations, analyzing how gaming operators leverage personal data for competitive advantage. Specifically, the research examines the data privacy approaches and regulatory requirements in Singapore, Macau, and Japan, highlighting the cultural and historical contexts influencing these regulations. Through a comparative analysis, the article discusses the compliance needs for gaming operators in these jurisdictions.

Settler Colonialism And Ecosystem Change: How Ideology Has Shaped Minnesota’S Environments, Sarah E. Hobby

History Honors Projects

The formation of a uniquely American land ethic—defined by European political history and Christian biblical doctrine and forged through systems of dispossession—is central to the creation of environments within the United States today. Using Minnesota as a microcosm to understand how settler colonial interactions played out all across the United States, this paper analyzes connections between violent dispossession of Indigenous people and the degradation of environments. By understanding how Ojibwe and Dakota people think about and have shaped Minnesotan lands throughout their history and comparing Indigenous land-ethics to the Euro-American-settler land ethic, this paper evaluates the role that ideology and …

Loot Boxes May Exploit Gamers, But Their Sale Does Not Constitute Unlawful Gambling, John J. Chung

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The History And Trajectory Of Major Vice Regulations In Massachusetts, Jonathan D. Zlotnik, David K. Muradian

School of Professional Studies

No abstract provided.

Lost (It All) In Space: The Legality Of Extra-Terrestrial Gambling, Robert M. Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

Is gambling in outer space legal under United States law? With commercial space flights now almost routine, and gambling growing by leaps and bounds, this question is becoming more pressing by the day. As it happens, three existing federal criminal laws— dating, respectively, from 1790, 1825, and 1951—make it clear that betting in outer space currently is illegal in nearly all instances.

Addiction And Liberty, Matthew B. Lawrence

Faculty Articles

This Article explores the interaction between addiction and liberty and identifies a firm legal basis for recognition of a fundamental constitutional right to freedom from addiction. Government interferes with freedom from addiction when it causes addiction or restricts addiction treatment, and government may protect freedom from addiction through legislation empowering individuals against private actors’ efforts to addict them without their consent. This Article motivates and tests the boundaries of this right through case studies of emergent threats to liberty made possible or exacerbated by new technologies and scientific understandings. These include certain state lottery programs, addiction treatment restrictions, and smartphone …

Monetized Competitive Peer-To-Peer Skill-Based Game Play–An Introduction, Becky Harris, Bill Coley, Peter Gan, Anh-Vu Nguyen

International Gaming Institute Faculty Research

The COVID pandemic has changed the world in ways, both large and small, forever. One unexpected way the world changed was when live sports suddenly went dark and esports began experiencing attention from betting audiences that were suddenly starving for content.¹ Esports also received a second glance from gaming regulators. And, though not exactly suddenly (even though it felt like it), approvals for wagering on esports were granted in a variety of jurisdictions, most notably Colorado and Nevada.²

A subset of the larger esports environment, peer-to-peer (P2P) skill-based play is hardly a new concept. You can find it …

Law Library Blog (February 2022): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Pandora’S Loot Box, Sheldon Evans

Faculty Publications

The emerging trend of loot boxes in video game platforms continues to expand the shifting boundaries between the real and virtual world and presents unique insights into the impact each world should have on the other. Borrowing their design from the gambling industry, loot boxes operate as a hybrid between slot machines and trading cards. A consumer pays real-world money to buy a virtual box without knowing its contents. Upon opening the box, the consumer receives a virtual good that may be of great value, but more commonly is of little or no value.

This Article contributes a novel theory …

Pandora's Loot Box, Sheldon Evans

Scholarship@WashULaw

The emerging trend of loot boxes in video game platforms continues to expand the shifting boundaries between the real and virtual world and presents unique insights into the impact each world should have on the other. Borrowing their design from the gambling industry, loot boxes operate as a hybrid between slot machines and trading cards. A consumer pays real-world money to buy a virtual box without knowing its contents. Upon opening the box, the consumer receives a virtual good that may be of great value, but more commonly is of little or no value. This Article contributes a novel theory …

Steering Loan Modifications Post-Pandemic, Pamela Foohey, Dalie Jimenez, Christopher K. Odinet

Articles

As part of federal and state relief programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic, many American households received pauses on their largest debts, particularly on mortgages and student loans. Others may have come to agreements with their lenders, likewise pausing or altering payment on other debts, such as auto loans and credit cards. This relief allowed households to allocate their savings and income to necessary expenses, like groceries, utilities, and medicine. But forbearance does not equal forgiveness. At the end of the various relief periods and moratoria, people will have to resume paying all their debts, the amounts of which may …

The Use Of Expert Witnesses In Gambling Cases, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Black Mirror - Syllabus, Yafit Lev-Aretz, Nizan Packin

Open Educational Resources

Using episodes from the show Black Mirror as a study tool - a show that features tales that explore techno-paranoia - the course analyzes legal and policy considerations of futuristic or hypothetical case studies. The case studies tap into the collective unease about the modern world and bring up a variety of fascinating key philosophical, legal, and economic-based questions.

Talking About Casino Gambling: Community Voices From Boston Chinatown, Carolyn Wong, Giles Li

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

This pilot study examined the casino gambling practices of residents and workers in Boston Chinatown. The aim was to learn about the trajectory and life context of individual participants’ gambling activity, including how individual participants describe their motivation, nature and frequency of gambling, and its effects on self and family. The research was conducted by a university based research team in partnership with the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, and with the assistance of the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling.

The stories told by participants illustrate multiple and overlapping risk factors for problem gambling. Our conceptual approach took into account the …

Casino Gambling In The Caribbean, Jane Cross, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Putting Texas Back In Texas Hold 'Em, Scott Sloan

Student Scholarship

Texas takes pride in its unique Western heritage and its adventurously independent spirit. However; the Texas Legislature has spurned a widely popular and uniquely Texan pastime, Texas Hold 'E. Despite praising Texas's cultivation of Texas Hold 'Em, Texas low condemns participation in the game to the secrecy of Texans homes. Tronically, while maintaining an allegedly strict stance against commercial gambling, Texas manages its own lottery and administers pari-mutuel wagering on dog and horse racing tracks.

In a futile attempt to exploit perceived loopholes in Texas's private-gambling exception, some Texans have opened businesses, dubbed "Private Card Rooms" that invite individuals to …

Judges And Gambling, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Regulated Sports Betting: A Nevada Perspective, Becky Harris

International Gaming Institute Faculty Research

This article discusses the impact Nevada has had on legal regulated sports betting for the past seventy years. First, an overview and history of Nevada's sport betting regulatory framework will be presented; and, second, lessons learned and issues to consider for states wishing to embark on legalized regulated sports betting such as, integrity, why states and not the federal government should regulate sports betting, how tax rates and fees impact the legal and illegal markets, why technology is critical component of legal sports wagering, why multiple avenues for consumer protection are essential, and finally how cooperation among all stakeholders is …

Expert Commentary On Sports Betting Post-Paspa, Becky Harris

International Gaming Institute Faculty Research

Becky Harris, appointed by former Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval (2011-2019), served as the first female Chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board from January 2018 to January 2019. Harris was the first Chair to propose regulations addressing workplace sexual harassment. Prior to serving as Chair, Harris served in the Nevada Legislature for the 2015 and 2017 legislative sessions.

Gambling Under The Swastika: Casinos, Horse Racing, Lotteries, And Other Forms Of Betting In Nazi Germany, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sports Betting And Indian Gaming: Should Tribal Casinos Get In The Game?, Kathryn R. L. Rand, Steven Andrew Light

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

How Slot Machines Work -- And Why You Should Think Twice Before Playing Them, Anthony Frederick Lucas

Hospitality Faculty Research

A short summary of my recent academic research. The intent was to expose a wider audience to the findings. The U.S. Conversation was recommended by Mary Croughan, VP Research & Economic Development

Okada V. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 2 (Jan. 11, 2018) (En Banc), Paloma Guerrero

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that application of NRS § 463.120(6), as enacted in 2017 through Senate Bill 376, which protects certain information and data provided to the gaming authorities, does not apply to information requested before the effective date of the statute. From the plain language of the act that the privilege applies to “any request made on or after the effective date of this act,” the Court concluded that the privilege applies prospectively only and does not apply to any request made before the effective date of this act.

Control The Casinos And Stop The Dogs: Florida’S 2018 Proposed Constitutional Amendments, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Slave Gambling In The Antebellum South, Robert Jarvis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.