73
What started out as a bill to provide West Virginia universities with anonymized player data to study problem gambling ended up as a law that could establish West Virginia University as one of the premier higher education institutions on the East Coast for gaming-related degrees.
And that is the version of the bill passed by the Senate and concurred by the House this weekend.
The House passed the original version of the bill, sponsored by Delegate Shawn Fluharty, but a Senate committee substitute revised large swaths of the language. For example, the word “required” was removed from the section involving operators providing player data and the new version does not seem to mandate the data is provided. The new section reads:
“For the purposes of research only, West Virginia University shall be permitted to analyze transactional data and metrics of the type collected and maintained by the West Virginia Lottery as of March 1, 2024, related to gaming operations conducted in the state. F..
