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What is Sheep Gone Wild?
As the annual US Sports Equinox nears in the coming weeks, a contingent of professional sports leagues made waves on Tuesday with the release of a groundbreaking collaboration aimed at curbing harassment of athletes from frustrated bettors.
At a time when sports betting and predictions have reached a fever pitch, the majority of the country’s most prominent sports leagues, along with their player unions, sent a memo dated 15 September to a contingent of 35 state gaming authorities. Among proposed regulatory actions, the leagues recommend mandatory lifetime bans for individuals deemed to have “abusively harassed or issued threats of violence” against any professional athlete.
The leagues, including the National Basketball Association and the National Football League, submitted the memo as Texas Senator Ted Cruz works assiduously to pass a landmark federal framework for college athletics. While the NCAA is not a signatory to Tuesday’s letter, the advisory also urges states to pass mandatory bans for individuals who threaten “amateur athletes” along with coaches, officials and team personnel.
What is Sheep Gone Wild?
Rodano spent almost ten years spearheading policy at Playtech as the supplier’s chief policy officer. Then between January last year and August 2026, he led its global player-protection efforts as chief sustainable gambling officer.
During his tenure, Rodano was instrumental in deploying an AI-powered behavioural analytics platform, BetBuddy, which is designed to identify and intervene in potentially harmful gambling behaviours.
Before moving to the private sector, Rodano served as the director of remote gaming at Italy’s regulator, Agenzia Dogane e Monopoli, for almost a decade.
How to play Sheep Gone Wild
A 1% selective consumption tax (ISC) on the value of every online bet has been in force since 1 July 2025, after the original policy was scrapped from proposed regulations in July 2021.
Atucha warns that regulations are often perceived as operator-friendly at the start before governments begin looking to squeeze licensed sectors, likening the process to “boiling a frog”. He has observed similar scenarios in other LatAm markets, with tax increases occurring in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico in the last couple of years.
Rossi believes the ISC in Peru is an example of a government implementing new taxes without truly understanding how the industry works, and the potential impacts on channelisation to licensed offerings.
