Coalition Makes A Late Push For Massachusetts Sports Betting

Massachusetts sports betting

It appears Massachusetts sports betting efforts are only mostly dead in 2020. That new categorization comes after an unlikely coalition of local professional sports teams, the PGA Tour, and gambling operators sent a letter to Massachusetts lawmakers making a case for legal sports betting in the Bay State.

The main carrot the letter’s signatories are dangling is an estimated $50 million in tax revenue for FY2021. They also make the case that a legal, regulated market can displace the offshore sports betting market:

“The fact is that there is already a huge betting market in Massachusetts – it’s just a thriving illegal market run by offshore sites that continue to advertise heavily to Massachusetts residents. According to a study by Oxford Economics, approximately 1.4 million Massachusetts residents place almost $3.2 billion in sports wagers online in the illegal market. These illegal mobile sportsbooks are not regulated, they provide no tax revenue or economic benefits to Massachusetts, and they offer no consumer protections. The single most effective way to defeat the illegal market is to create a competitive, legal sports betting framework. The signatories to this letter stand ready to invest heavily to ensure a legal market in Massachusetts will thrive.”

The letter was signed by:

  • Sam Kennedy, President, and CEO SVP Business Affairs, Boston Red Sox
  • Robyn Glaser, The Kraft Group & Club Counsel New England Patriots/New England Revolution
  • Chris Kelley, President, and COO, MGM Springfield
  • Jason Robins, CEO, DraftKings
  • Andy Levinson SVP, Tournament Administration, PGA Tour
  • Matt King, CEO, FanDuel

The Shrinking Window for Sports Betting

The letter was sent to a joint committee trying to reconcile the competing economic development bills passed by the Massachusetts Senate and House. The House bill included sports betting legalization; the Senate bill did not.

And while MGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel are signatories, Penn National (Barstool sportsbook) and Wynn (WynnBet) are notably absent. That shouldn’t be a surprise, as the two Massachusetts casino operators sent a letter not too long ago that supported sports betting, with caveats that favor land-based casinos [bold mine]:

“The public interest, and the jobs and taxes that our facilities support, depends upon a sensible regulatory approach. Those that make actual investments in Massachusetts, assume legitimate risk, and incur costs to provide a service or benefit in the Commonwealth should be enfranchised under this legislation. Conversely, automatic windfalls to industries or interests which assume no new costs, risks or obligations as a result of this type of expansion are not only harmful to the gaming industry’s interests but even more so to overall public interest.

The joint Penn National-Wynn letter does leave the door open for an online-only license:

“Online only operator: We support the ability of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to authorize an additional license for sports betting to be granted by the Commission directly to an online sports betting operator that is headquartered in Massachusetts and has a majority of their employees located in the Commonwealth.”

Other groups in lawmakers’ ears are the Massachusetts Lottery, convenience stores, bars, and restaurants, the IBEW local 103 union representing workers at Suffolk Downs, gambling harm advocates.

And historically, Massachusetts doesn’t blindly rush into gambling expansions. It would be out of character for a state that legalized casino gambling in a slow, thoughtful manner to jam through a sports betting bill in a joint committee to find (up to) $50 million of revenue for a state with a $45 billion budget that is facing a $3.5 billion tax revenue shortfall.

There’s Always Next Year

Bottom line, sports betting would be nice, and a welcome addition, but it’s also controversial (in how it would be structured), and there is plenty of other low-hanging fruit to pluck.

As NBC Boston reported in October, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker revived “his plan to increase fees on Uber, Lyft and other transportation network companies from 20 cents to $1 per ride, and has resubmitted a plan that would accelerate sales tax collections, netting the state $267 million in one-time revenue.”

And that’s just one quick fix that would raise more money than sports betting, which likely means sports betting gets pushed to 2021.

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