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The Responsible Online Gaming Association (ROGA) released its Marketing and Advertising Code on August 18 in Arlington, Virginia, the first industry-wide rulebook covering how America's biggest sportsbooks and their affiliates, agencies and influencers can pitch bets. The ROGA Marketing and Advertising Code has been adopted by all eight ROGA members: bet365, Bally's Corporation, BetMGM, DraftKings, Fanatics Betting and Gaming, FanDuel, Hard Rock Digital and Penn Entertainment.
The timing is the story. Eight days earlier, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Paul Tonko and Valerie Foushee gave FanDuel CEO Christian Genetski until August 24 to answer why a VIP host sent a losing bettor a personalized Bryce Harper video as a retention reward, part of a pattern of high-touch VIP outreach lawmakers called predatory. Legal Sports Report's own headline on the code's release put it plainly: it landed amid FanDuel congressional scrutiny.
What the ROGA Marketing and Advertising Code actually restricts
The code sets four bands of rules that member operators and anyone marketing on their behalf must follow within three months of publication:
- Legal age protections. No marketing designed to appeal to minors, no ads on college campuses, no endorsements from underage collegiate athletes, and only platforms where at least 75% of the audience is expected to be legal age.
- Message content. Odds and outcomes must be represented accurately, promotional terms disclosed clearly, and "risk-free" framing that casts betting as a financial strategy is out.
- Digital marketing. Influencer partnerships require legal-age creators with paid relationships disclosed in the content itself, not buried in a bio link.
- Responsible gaming commitments. Members must publish support resources, let customers restrict or revoke access to VIP benefits, promotions and direct marketing, and stop targeting anyone flagged for gambling concerns.
Compliance runs through ROGA's forthcoming independent Certification Program, built with the Responsible Gambling Council. Substantiated violations mean withdrawn material; repeat failures risk suspension or loss of certification, according to the association.
The part that actually changes affiliate marketing
Buried in "digital marketing" is the clause that reaches furthest: the code binds "third parties that market their services, including affiliates, agencies, influencers and brand ambassadors." That is new ground for a voluntary US code. Affiliate marketing has operated for years on the assumption that disclosure and age-gating were the operator's problem, enforced loosely through affiliate program terms rather than an industry standard with a certification body attached.
If ROGA's certification program actually audits third-party content, not just operator-run campaigns, affiliates working with any of the eight members inherit a compliance layer they did not have in July. That is a bigger structural shift for performance marketing than another CPA-to-revenue-share renegotiation: it is the first time a US operator coalition has put its name behind policing what its paid partners say, not just what it says itself.
Why a voluntary code, and why now
ROGA formed in March 2024 with seven founding operators; Bally's joined that June, and the group has pledged more than $20 million toward research, education, an independent data clearinghouse and the certification program now absorbing this code. It already published VIP-specific guidance in May 2025 after an earlier round of criticism.
None of that has stopped the legal exposure from mounting. Baltimore sued FanDuel and DraftKings in April, alleging their VIP programs use targeted data and dedicated hosts to keep flagged problem gamblers betting; a federal judge sent the case back to state court in August rather than ruling on the merits. In Congress, the SAFE Bet Act, reintroduced after stalling since 2024, would go much further than anything ROGA proposes: an 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. advertising blackout, a ban on live-game ads, and a federal end to bonus bets. It has not moved, but it has not died either.
Read against that backdrop, the code functions as a hedge. Operators built voluntary standards and a certification process before a state attorney general, a federal court or Congress built mandatory ones. Whether ROGA's members follow through matters more than the document itself: DraftKings and BetMGM are the two named in the Baltimore suit, and both signed a code committing to language, like "reasonable efforts" and third-party accountability, that a plaintiff's lawyer can now quote back to them.
The rulebook only works if the certification bites
A voluntary code with a members-only enforcement panel is not the same as a regulator with subpoena power, and critics of industry self-regulation have said as much about ROGA before this code existed. What is different this time is the paper trail: eight operators have now put specific, checkable commitments on the record, covering their own marketing and their affiliates', at the exact moment lawmakers and a major US city are testing whether the industry's VIP economics are defensible in public. The code will be judged less on what it says in August than on whether ROGA actually pulls certification from a member, or an affiliate, before the next headline forces the question.