About this app
What is Wild Bullets?
An issue raised by Giannis Vasiliadis, director of WBAS, was the limited access to recipients’ banking information. This limited data can hint at suspicious activity but cannot conclusively verify gambling transactions.
Data Protection Commissioner Maria Christofidou said her office had reevaluated a 2022 legal opinion and now recognised a potential legal basis for more granular access to banking information.
Various MPs voiced concerns about the risk of privacy violations in accessing this data, and the potential social stigma around the information being shared.
About Wild Bullets
Since the Supreme Court’s PASPA decision in 2018, there has been an uptick on harassment against athletes from bettors. The collection of incidents, in the view of the industry, is typically construed as both troubling and prevalent. Against a backdrop of alarming threats in numerous sports, perhaps the most disconcerting occurred at the hands of Benjamin “Parlay” Patz, a California bettor.
Approximately 15 months after the high court’s ruling, Patz sent a series of explicit messages to four members of MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays, threatening to “sever” their necks open. Accused by federal investigators of targeting more than 300 accounts of pro and college athletes, Patz pleaded guilty in 2021 to transmitting threats in interstate or foreign commerce. Although a judge ordered Patz to undergo mental health treatment and abstain from gambling, he did not sentence the bettor to prison.
Years later, former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin convened a sports betting hearing in December 2024, the first federal hearing held on the subject in six years. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, opened the hearing with an anecdote from March Madness the prior season. Despite recording a double-double in a win over Michigan State, former North Carolina center Armando Bacot received more than 100 threats on social media, Durbin told the committee. Bacot, who finished with 18 points and seven rebounds, drew the ire of bettors for missing the “over” on his rebound total.
About Wild Bullets
According to the court’s statement, the judges rejected challenges from gaming hall operators and said the city’s public decision was legally sound.
The ruling preserved a revenue measure the city says was designed to bring in up to €1 million according to the court’s own summary.
Andreas Braun, owner of four arcades in Wiesbaden, filed an objection and constitutional complaint against the tax rate in April last year according to local reporting. He argued that the tax rise had provided a ‘strangling’ effect to business and that it consumed operator profits.
