Are Two Key New England States Ready To Legalize Sports Betting?

Sports betting has had two small victories in New England: New Hampshire and Rhode Island. It now looks like it’s ready to take over the region, with Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine all serious contenders to pass sports betting bills in 2021.

Both states would be significant victories for sports betting supporters, and the expansion efforts may not end with sports betting. In Connecticut, everything is on the table, and online lottery and casino games have been brought up in Massachusetts many times. And with compromise needed in both locales, legislation may need to go beyond sports betting.

What Does Compromise Look Like in Connecticut?

You can be forgiven if when you think of gambling in Connecticut, your mind immediately jumps to the two gambling tribes in the state, the Mohegans (Mohegan Sun) and the Pequots (Foxwoods).

Yes, those are the two big players, but Connecticut gambling is multi-faceted, with a state lottery and off-track betting parlors. That helps explain the state’s inability to pass sports betting and online gambling legislation despite tribal support.

Tribes are steadfast in their belief that they have exclusive rights to sports betting, which is why the state seems to be taking a more comprehensive approach to expanded gambling. It’s an effort to placate all the stakeholders.

To that end, you have SB 146, An Act Authorizing Sports Wagering, Internet Gaming, Internet Lottery and Internet Keno. And then there is SB 570, An Act Authorizing A Tribal Resort-Casino in Bridgeport, Sports Wagering, Internet Gaming and Internet Lottery.

The big question in Connecticut is can these groups get on the same page, or can the legislature pass a bill that cuts one or more of these entities out?

That will undoubtedly require the tribes cutting the lottery and possibly OTBs into specific forms of gambling. That could mean online lottery products and perhaps retail or kiosk sports betting at OTBs. The comprehensive bills give the legislature plenty of wiggle room to strip out some forms of gambling or open it up to some entities.

What Method Will Massachusetts Use?

Massachusetts will need to broker its own sports betting compromise. As noted in a December column, the Bay State has no less than a half-dozen parties interested in sports betting:

• The state’s three casino operators, Penn National, MGM, and Wynn
• Boston-based DraftKings
• Outside online sports betting interests
• The Massachusetts Lottery
• Brick & Mortar lottery retailers
• Simulcast racing operators at Suffolk Downs and Raynham Park

That said, the Bay State’s big issue could very well be too much choice and the state’s penchant to engage in paralysis by analysis.

This is an annual issue in Massachusetts. The state had about a dozen pieces of legislation to choose from in 2019. Those proposals were rolled into a single entity in 2020. That bill never went anywhere, as the upheaval caused by COVID-19 sidelined sports betting talks for most of the legislative session before some last-minute efforts emerged.

2021 offers Massachusetts a clean start.

2021 has already produced several competing bills in Massachusetts:

• HD 118 and 119, introduced by State Rep. Bradford Hill
• SD 192, introduced by State Sen. Michael Brady
• SD 177, introduced by State Sen. Brendan Crighton
• HD 678, introduced by Gov. Charlie Baker

Each of these bills attempts to legalize sports betting in Massachusetts (and in the case of HD 118, other forms of online gambling) in some manner.

The remaining policy hurdles appear to be:

• Prohibitions against wagering on college sports
• The overall tax rate and licensing fees
• Market access, from online-only operators like DraftKings to Lottery retailers to sports teams

Of course, Massachusetts being Massachusetts is a problem in and of itself, as the state is well-known for being a legislative quagmire regarding issues such as gambling.