Commission asked to hold off iGaming legalisation

A Commission in Massachusetts asked the legislature to hold off the legalisation of some iGaming activities.

US.- The Special Commission on Online Gaming, Fantasy Sports Gaming and Daily Fantasy Sports submitted a draft report to the legislature where it recommended that daily fantasy sports (DFS) should be legalised, whilst online poker and casino gambling should wait for their turn.

The legislature had asked the commission to determine how the state should move forward with a potential expansion of legal online gaming. “Legalising DFS as a subset of online gaming and enacting legislation that would put into law the proposed regulatory, governance and taxation system,” said the report. However, it insisted that online gaming should not further expand as the state should wait until MGM Springfield and Wynn Boston Harbor open to the public to see how the impact can be managed.

“The Special Commission recommends not legalising more expansive online gaming at present, particularly in consideration of the fact that two resort casinos are not yet open, but urges re-evaluation in the near future and legislative oversight to continue to evaluate online gaming and activity at state and federal levels,” said the report.

The members have until the end of the month to decide whether they should accept the recommendations or not. As wwlp.com reported, DraftKings’ director of public affairs, James Chisholm, said that the company fundamentally disagrees with some of the recommendations in the Commission’s draft report, particularly its proposal to define fantasy sports as ‘online gaming’. “No other state in the country has characterised fantasy sports this way.”

“DraftKings is proud to call Boston and Massachusetts home. We have more than 300 employees from 79 cities and towns across the state, and while we are committed to growing and innovating here, this provision, if adopted, could impact our ability to do that,” Chisholm said.