The West Virginia Lottery Commission on Wednesday approved final rules governing sports wagering, rejecting written comments from several professional sports leagues, reports Jeff Jenkins of West Virginia MetroNews. The comments on the emergency regulations, submitted on behalf of the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the PGA Tour, requested among other things that the Lottery require state-licensed sportsbooks to use “official league data” for purposes of grading wagers.
The emergency regulations allowed licensed casinos to begin taking wagers, while leaving the regulations open for additional comment before becoming permanent.
“Sports pool operators shall use only official league data to determine the result of ‘tier two’ sports wagers, provided that the data is available from governing bodies or a data sub-licenser based on commercially-reasonable terms,” wrote high-powered lobbyist Jeremy Kudon of the law firm Orrick, on behalf of the three sports leagues in an Aug. 30 letter obtained by MetroNews.