Massachusetts Debates Sports Betting Limits for Transparency
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00:00Okay, now one discussion that has been very prominent in sports betting is in order to
00:07solve some of the problem gambling is to limit sports bettors.
00:11Now, naturally, the books don't want to do this, but it may be in the best interest of
00:17some people to know when it is too much to bet.
00:21What's going on here in Massachusetts?
00:22This is sort of surrounding a discussion and a roundtable to talk about whether or not
00:27they can implement this.
00:29Well, so what's happened in Massachusetts is the regulators, it's a very, you know,
00:33we talk about it all the time on the show, whether it's me or Mike or Jim or whoever
00:38was covering it at the time.
00:40They started talking about this at the beginning of the year, really, they said they've been
00:43receiving complaints from bettors saying they're being limited and they don't know why.
00:48And they want to get to the bottom of it.
00:50They want some transparency.
00:51They want data from the operators.
00:53They want to know, you know, how these limits are set and all that.
00:58Well, the first meeting, I think it was in May, only one operator showed up, Bally's,
01:04and the rest of the operators in the state didn't show up.
01:06They had said they wanted to take part, but they wanted it to be operators only.
01:10And there was a lot of privileged information that they wouldn't want to share widely.
01:14And you know, so that happened.
01:17And there was just mostly industry people saying, you know, industry adjacent people
01:22talking about it.
01:24And but no real operator input.
01:27So then months go by.
01:28And now we're here we are yesterday, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission met for about three hours.
01:34First half was all eight operators in the state, including Fandle, DraftKings, Caesars,
01:39that MGM.
01:41And then the second half was, again, industry adjacent people talking about the issues of
01:48limiting.
01:49And really, it was pretty insightful from the operator point of view.
01:52I mean, they again, they kept some things back, but they tried to open up.
01:56They said it's a very small number of people who are limited.
02:00And it's really through a long review process of better behavior and things like that, that
02:08they kind of look at before they limit.
02:11Fandle said in 2023, it was less than 1% of all bets in Massachusetts reached the user
02:17limit, whatever the specific limit is.
02:20So it's, again, a very small portion.
02:23The Gaming Commission said, you know, they want more transparency.
02:27They're trying to work with it.
02:28They want to make sure bettors, casual bettors, because a lot of the operators are talking
02:33about how it's operators that are taking advantages against the sports books, and they find that
02:36behavior.
02:37And a lot of them said that it was often losing bettors, or at the time they were limited,
02:43they were still loser bettors.
02:44They just figured it out from the behavior.
02:48Again, it's going to be a lengthy discussion at this point to see where we're at, or what
02:55the Massachusetts Gaming Commission will do.
02:57Again, they just want to protect the casual bettor who might get caught up in this.
03:02And again, it's probably a very small amount of people, but they want to make sure it's
03:06not happening and pushing them to the offshore market.
03:09That's something they said was very important to them, was keeping the transition to the
03:15open regulated market strong.
03:18And so we'll see what happens.
03:20I assume there's going to be another discussion because the Jordan Maynard, the interim chair,
03:25said, you know, this is going to be a long discussion, something they got to think carefully
03:28about and deliberate carefully.
03:30So we'll see.
03:32It is certainly something you see a lot of on sports betting Twitter, people saying they've
03:38been limited or being upset that they're limited.
03:40And so Massachusetts has been a trendsetter in a lot of ways tackling subjects like this.
03:45So we'll see what they do, if they do anything, and see if other states follow suit.