Massachusetts sports betting bill still on hold

The legislature has entered recess with no action. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has asked for a legal sports betting study.

US.- The Massachusetts Senate has entered recess without approving sports betting legislation. As anticipated by Senate President Karen Spilka, addressing the sports betting bill that was almost unanimously passed by the legislature’s House of Representatives in July was not made a priority for the session.

State lawmakers aren’t set to reconvene until early January, meaning betting on sports through regulated channels is remains months away at least. Meanwhile, Mark Vander Linden, Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s director of research and responsible gaming, has presented a slate of five possible topics for an ad hoc study by the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) research team. 

Vander Linden has recommended a study of how legal sports betting has been implemented in the nearly three dozen states that have approved it in recent years. Commissioners said they would be interested in seeing if the SEIGMA research team could complete a report before June 30, 2022, which would be the typical deadline for a fiscal year ad hoc study.

Vander Linden said: “An analysis in this area would be done to take a look at, obviously leveraging [a previous National Council on Problem Gambling] study, looking at other data that may exist in other states, looking at how legalization has been rolled out in those states, and combining that would allow us to have a better understanding of the likely impacts of legalization of sports wagering in Massachusetts, should it be legalized, as well as what would be kind of a guiding path towards measures to mitigate that harm.”

Commissioner Brad Hill, who voted in favour of sports betting this summer, said: “The more information we can get the better to help us as we come up and make our decisions.” 

See also: Massachusetts’ three casinos see record revenue in October