Massachusetts governor supports sports betting

Governor Charlie Baker has said he is in favour of legalising sports betting to help the state’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

US.- Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker has said he believes legalising sports betting would help the state’s recovery from the pandemic.

According to Boston.com, when asked at a press conference Baker said he “absolutely” agreed that the move could help the state.

He said: “We wanted to give Massachusetts the ability to have people play here rather than playing elsewhere. And I absolutely believe that, in addition to sort of the cross-border competition issues that would be addressed by doing something here in Massachusetts, it would certainly generate revenue and it would be something that a lot of people would be interested in here at home as opposed to doing across the border.”

His response came after Boston Red Sox executive David Friedman pushed for the legalisation of sports betting while casinos remained closed.

Friedman said: “Four months into this pandemic, mobile sports betting takes on a new urgency for the leagues and teams. As I said, our revenues have fallen off a cliff, and so the direct financial impact of revenues for sports betting for teams may be relatively modest – we’re not going to be running sportsbooks ourselves – but today every single dollar of advertising and sponsorship revenue is extremely important to us.”

While not legal in the Bay State of Massachusetts, sports betting is legal in the neighbouring states of Rhode Island and New Hampshire.