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.

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