An emergency meeting held on Friday still wasn’t enough for the members of the Gaming Commission to agree on the actual dates for the possible launch of sports betting here, but at least they were able to agree on wide time windows for the start of personal and mobile betting next year.
The commissioners agreed to designate “late January” as the launch date for Category 1 sports betting operators, i.e. the two state casinos and one slot machine, and to designate “beginning of March” as the launch date for Category 3 or mobile operators. The process for Category 2, which includes the state’s two simulcasting centers, has been put on hold as the commission awaits more information from those facilities, officials said.
If the target dates are met, Massachusetts gamblers can place a bet on the Super Bowl at Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville, MGM Springfield or Encore Boston Harbor in Everett, then wager on the March Madness college basketball tournament using a mobile device. Such tournaments are the only situation in Massachusetts where bets can be placed on matches involving a Massachusetts college or university.
But the committee made a series of caveats to its vote on Friday, making it clear that the “late January” start of retail betting may need to be reconsidered if staff working behind the scenes to launch betting find themselves in “extraordinary circumstances” or if there are significant issues come in public comments. And the ‘early March’ launch of digital betting could be delayed if the commission receives a large number of applications for the seven mobile licenses it can issue.
“Okay, here we go, everyone. Let’s have a party,” said Chair Cathy Judd-Stein after the committee’s 4-0-1 vote. Commissioner Nakisha Skinner, who made it clear that she was not comfortable with the idea of setting the committee’s timeline based on the sports calendar, abstained.
What the committee finally agreed to around 3:30 p.m. Friday reflected the updated recommendation Executive Director Karen Wells made at the start of the noon meeting.
The debate that filled the intervening hours largely boiled down to what risks the committee is willing to accept in a trade-off for speed. For example, the timeline Wells presented Friday assumed the committee would support an abbreviated approach to assessing third-party suppliers. But when that discussion came up later on Friday, it sparked a heated debate among the commissioners.
Skinnner said she did not like that the Gaming Commission had a less detailed process for the world of sports betting than for the casino gambling sector. Commissioner Eileen O’Brien said she had many of the same concerns.
“The risk is the same and so I think we should apply the same rules across the board in sports betting that we have for the game sellers,” Skinner said. “If we are going to demand that they have a license at all, I see no difference. I see no reason to have different rules.”
O’Brien offered a compromise that was eventually accepted by the other commissioners: to use the abbreviated process to get started, but to incorporate a sunset clause that would return to the commission’s more general and more detailed process for assessing external suppliers on 1 September. , 2023. This allowed the committee to refocus its attention on its potential timeline.
At one point during Friday’s meeting, Wells and the commissioners delved into a discussion about the actual launch dates for personal betting. Wells first suggested a start date of January 26, but Commissioner Brad Hill said he would prefer January 18, and O’Brien thought the group had largely settled in two weeks before the Super Bowl, which would be January 29.
That date, Sunday, January 29, was shaken up for a while, and committee staffers thought it was reasonable as it wouldn’t overlap with a busy Friday or Saturday night at the casinos. But then Wells got a text from an unknown number that was more of a concern: Sunday, January 29, is the date of the AFC and NFC championship games, the games to decide which teams go to the Super Bowl, and the betting magnets of their own.
“In fact, if you made it effective at noon on the 29th, that would be extremely volatile,” said Sterl Carpenter, the committee’s compliance manager, referring to the massive influx of gamblers that would be expected.
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