MA Gaming Commission Punts On Sports Betting Launch Dates

MASSACHUSETTS — A marathon Massachusetts Gaming Commission meeting on Thursday ended with the MGC delaying for at least one more day establishing target dates to launch sports betting in the state.

The MGC appeared to be headed toward a "staggered" launch setting Super Bowl Sunday as the target date for legal sports betting in the state in person at the state's three casinos, with the hopes that mobile and online betting could begin by the NCAA tournament in mid-March.

But that proposal fell apart toward the end of the eight-hour meeting when the five-member board could not come to a consensus about whether the mobile launch date should be tied in some way to the launch of in-person casino betting.

"I am concerned about the rate of our decision-making," MGC Chair Cathy Judd-Stein said.

The MGC went into recess about 6 p.m. on Thursday with plans to reconvene Friday at noon.

The staggered launch was a compromise given that the casinos have already passed many of the regulatory hurdles necessary for a license. There was hope in an "aggressive" timeline that mobile and online sports betting could launch within the next month, but concerns were raised about whether the condensed process would put less-established bidders at a competitive disadvantage for licenses.

Commissioners began the day split on whether to pursue an expedited process that Jordan Maynard referred to as a "patron-centric timeline," which would have sports betting launched in time for this winter's major sporting events, and two commissioners who wanted the timeline to play out as necessary to achieve as inclusive and responsible process as possible without any arbitrary sporting event dates as a benchmark.

"I do think the law, for all its flaws, did expect that there would be a quick process," Maynard said. "They did write emergency regulations in the process.

"On the policy itself, we're crazy if we don't think that people will not be placing wagers in Massachusetts for the Super Bowl, for March Madness. The questions are they are going to be whether they are doing it either a) illegally, when we can help stand some stuff up and get ready and take some of the illegal market out, and b) whether they are going to be going north (to New Hampshire) and going south (to Rhode Island and Connecticut where sports betting is legal)."

Commissioner Bradford Hill said: "I fully intended when this bill was passed that you would be to place a bet on the Super Bowl. ... We need to be pushing for (retail) to be open by the Super Bowl ... and for (mobile) to be open by the NCAA tournament."

Commissioners Eileen O'Brien and Nakisha Skinner pushed for the more conservative approach.

"Speed is not the sole measure of perfection," O'Brien argued.

O'Brien said she supported the retail, or casino, betting advancing first but added that the number of applications should determine how much longer it takes to launch mobile and online betting.

Judd-Stein looked to mostly facilitate the discussion for much of the first three hours devoted specifically to the launch timeline before she concluded that launching casino sports betting first was most feasible but that targeting general launch dates for all forms of sports betting was important to the vendors and public.

"I am concerned that the equity problem grows more the we extend out (mobile/online licenses)," Judd-Stein said. "At a certain point in time I am going to assume that we are going to have a timeline that takes into consideration that the gap needs to be somewhat reflective of that.

"I am fine with the staggered launch but I would be very concerned if we take that vote (on Super Bowl Sunday for casinos) today and I see that we're think months after (for mobile/web)."

MGC Executive Director Karen Wells said that under any timeline her office would have to "just have to buckle down and get it done."

"There are jurisdictions that have been at it for a year," Wells said. "We don't want to be that jurisdiction that takes a year to launch anything. There is some pride in being efficient and doing what we need to do."

The MGC did vote to at least begin the application process in publishing the application language for public comment as of Friday.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)