Official betting is wagering on sports events based on results and statistics issued by the sports league or official governing body. In the US, this typically refers to the NFL, MLB and NBA. Since the Supreme Court struck down a federal law against sports gambling, leagues have been working to establish themselves as primary stakeholders in legal state and federal sports betting. This has involved beefing up in-house technology, deploying security personnel to monitor sportsbook activity and partnering with integrity firms to identify suspicious betting patterns.

But the most visible effort to date has been lobbying regulators to mandate the use of official data in sports betting markets. The leagues have been successful on several fronts this year, and their quest to monetize official data has now supplanted their years-long opposition to gambling as the centerpiece of their strategy.

In the latest twist on the issue, the leagues have been pushing lawmakers to add a requirement for official data in new state sports betting laws. The industry widely considers these data mandates to be bad policy, forcing operators into commercial agreements with the leagues and giving one party what amounts to a monopoly on certain information. Nevada, for instance, has operated its regulated market without any such data requirements and has not paid any such “integrity fee” in its decades of handling wagers.

All player-specific bets must start the game in two-way market types, such as moneyline and spread betting. If a player does not start the game, all bets will be void, unless the bets were already settled before abandonment.