MA Sports Betting Launch Targets Super Bowl, March Madness

MASSACHUSETTS — Massachusetts residents should be able to go to a casino to place a bet on the Super Bowl and wager on March Madness on their phones as part of a timeline the Mass Gaming Commission voted to accept on Friday.

In the 13th hour of a two-day meeting to lay the groundwork for legal sports wagering in the state, the MGC voted 4-0-1 on a timeline that would have casinos go online for wagers in late January and a mobile/online launch in early March.

The marathon timeline discussion featured quite a bit of push and pull between commission members who wanted betting up and running in time for this winter's major sporting events and those who preferred to let a measured and inclusive timeline lead to an organic launch date.

In the end, the reality that launching sports betting in the state on dates that residents are mostly likely to bet on sports won out.

"We started with something that made sense in light of the market realities," MGC Chair Cathy Judd-Stein said. "Sports betting is centered around September and March Madness."

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.

While there was great confidence in the late January launch for the so-called retail launch in casinos, the MGC did give the caveat that the March launch for mobile was based on an expected amount of companies applying for the licenses to be less than the dozens that expressed interest in doing so after the Gov. Charlie Baker signed the bill into law in August.

A larger amount of candidates for mobile licenses could extent that launch timeline out weeks or longer.

But MGC Executive Director Karen Wells said she was comfortable that the approved timeline — while expedited and ambitious — is reasonable.

"Right now we have sports betting going on in the Commonwealth — it's just not legal," Wells said. "We have some experience in the law enforcement world and the connection with organized crime. So, obviously, there are those connections and there is loss of revenue (with delays). That is a risk.

"We're quite proud of our research and responsible gaming initiatives so getting it going is definitely helpful in promoting a safe and secure way of wagering."

The MGC decided to opt for a "window" of late January for in-person betting rather than a specific date in order to consult with the casinos and other experts on the launch logistics — for instance whether it would be best to launch days before or immediately after Jan. 29 given that those are the dates of the AFC and NFC Conference championship football games.

The early March date would open the mobile gambling about one week before the NCAA men's basketball tournament begins with play-in games on March 14.

(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.)