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Massachusetts Introduced Three Sports Betting Bills
January 19, 2019 Tamara Vucinic
Massachusetts’ lawmakers introduced a series of three different sports betting bills on Wednesday…
…which is just another step forward towards the legislation of sports betting in this US state.
Home to Eminent Teams
Officially named the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it is the most populous state in the region of New England. With the population of 6.9 million citizens, Massachusetts is the home to major sports teams…
…like a glorious professional American football team New England Patriots and Boston Red Sox, a renowned professional baseball team.
Let’s not forget that DraftKings, popular daily fantasy sports contest provider, also comes from Boston.
Sports Betting in Massachusetts
Lawmakers from this northeastern US state made separate bills for making both online and retail sports betting legal. In them, it is mentioned that only existing state casinos should have the permission to offer sports betting and the commission coming from it.
The First Bill
The bill SD 903 compiled by Senator, Brendan Crighton, is most definitely the most detailed and ambitious one. It stands for legislation of both retail and mobile operations and according to it…
…the state wallet would flourish.
Why? Because the sports betting gross revenue would be taxed at 12.5%, while the sports betting operators would be charged with a fee off $500.000 initially and also with a $100.000 annual fee.
Mr. Chrighton has also included a clause where the operators that are or have been in a partnership with the businesses involved with some type of illegal offshore betting…
…will not be granted a license.
The bill also includes the mentions of advertising rules, integrity requirements as well as the fines for potential law violations.
The Second Bill
The second bill is the one named SD 882 penned by Senator James Welch. This bill is much less detailed than the previous one but also includes plans to allow state casinos to operate sports betting under their roof. According to this bill…
…casinos should be separated into two categories: the largest ones and the establishments that don’t have table games and have fewer than 1.250 slot machines. In SD 882 the taxes are much, much smaller, at around 6.75%
The Third Bill
And the third and final bill drafted by Senator, Bruce Tarr, named SD 908, is not about the legislation of sports betting, but more about establishing an 11-person commission first. The commission would study the impact of legal sports betting and review economic development, consumer protection, taxation and regulatory legal structures in the state.
Yet to be Examined
The bills are still not assigned to a Senate committee, but they will be, hopefully in the near future.
Experts from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission claim that the legal sports betting in the state could generate an annual gross gaming revenue (GGR) of around $408.6 million…
…based on both retail and online betting.
If the betting gets allowed only in casinos, then the lowest GGR amount would be at around $127.4 million.
Source:
“Three sports betting bills filed in Massachusetts”, igamingbusiness.com, January 17, 2019.
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Massachusetts should really go for it. I mean some of the greatest sports team are from there, so it would be a shame if the bills don’t get the approval.