Casinos In Massachusetts Fined For College Mistakes
Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Let's get to what we're gonna talk about with you and I.
00:04 We'll start off with casinos in Massachusetts
00:08 having some issues with some college wagering going on.
00:12 What specifically was the issue here?
00:14 - Yeah, Craig.
00:16 So Plainridge Park Casino and MGM Springfield
00:19 each got fined $20,000
00:20 and Encore Boston Harbor got $10,000 fine.
00:23 All three casino operators through their sports books,
00:26 right, Barstool win.
00:28 And then BetMGM at the physical casinos
00:32 offered those in-state college games,
00:34 the regular season games, right?
00:36 In Massachusetts, the law is if there's a tournament,
00:38 collegiate tournament involving four or more teams,
00:40 that's legal for Massachusetts residents and visitors
00:43 to bet on, but anything else
00:45 in terms of that regular season market, that's closed.
00:47 You can't offer that, right?
00:48 So all these companies,
00:49 as they were kind of gearing up for launch
00:52 in late January and then online in March 10th,
00:57 they offered these things by accident basically,
00:59 whether it was a slip up of,
01:01 oh, this school is listed in Florida
01:03 instead of Massachusetts,
01:04 or we didn't have Boston College
01:07 or something on our ban list.
01:08 So there were all sorts of college games that were offered.
01:10 They finally put the fines out.
01:12 These adjudicatory hearings had happened months ago.
01:15 So finally the gaming commission put out to the public
01:18 what the fines were.
01:19 They were pretty expected, I think pretty standard.
01:21 They often say 5, 10,000, 20,000, okay.
01:24 They all self-reported them,
01:26 realized we made a mistake.
01:27 They self-reported it to the regulator,
01:28 which is what you have to do under the statute.
01:31 And the regulator fined them and said,
01:33 you can't have this happen.
01:34 They hopefully rectified these things.
01:35 We still have the Barstool can't lose parlay.
01:38 We don't know if that's just gonna come off the board,
01:40 right, Barstool doesn't offer that anymore,
01:42 through the Dan Cats, the big cat Dan Cats parlay.
01:45 We'll see if they get fined.
01:47 DraftKings had the unauthorized tennis wagers.
01:49 They had their adjudicatory hearing.
01:50 We'll see if they get a similar fine.
01:51 I believe there's another outstanding casino one as well.
01:54 One of those three casino operators had offered some,
01:57 you know, another college game,
01:58 I believe they weren't supposed to.
01:59 So anyway, Massachusetts regulators clamping down, right?
02:02 They really wanna set the standard of,
02:04 you know, let's make sure these books don't do this again.
02:06 Let's put these fines out.
02:07 Again, are they rounding errors for these books?
02:09 Yes, they are.
02:10 You know, books are hopefully in their eyes,
02:12 making millions in these states,
02:14 in revenue off of sports betting.
02:16 But again, you hope that this is the deterrent
02:18 where you keep getting fines, they keep accumulating,
02:20 or you can be suspended, you know,
02:22 if you do something incredible as an operator,
02:24 you could be banned in the state permanently,
02:25 you know, depending on what your infraction was.
02:27 These are kind of seem like slap on the wrist to an extent,
02:29 but hopefully these books get in line,
02:31 don't offer these college games
02:32 that aren't the tournaments involving four or more teams,
02:34 and we move on here.
02:35 But again, Massachusetts regulators clamping down,
02:37 more cases to come, probably more fines to come as well.
02:41 (upbeat music)
02:43 [MUSIC]