The Massachusetts Gaming Commission plans a remote Thursday morning meeting to discuss the regulatory process and timeline for implementing a potential sports wagering law the Legislature passed on Monday as formal lawmaking wrapped up for the year.
In the sports betting bill lawmakers sent to Gov. Charlie Baker, the Gaming Commission is granted large authority to implement, regulate, and enforce legal sports wagering. At the meeting, commissioners plan to cover an overview of the regulatory process, timeline, the position of “Chief of Sports Wagering,” and a review of a draft licensing application outline.
“As all proposed legislation over the course of this session has designated the commission as regulator of a potential emerging sports wagering industry, staff have been diligently preparing should such proposed legislation become law,” a commission meeting advisory said.
The Gaming Commission will largely dictate the timeline for when people can start placing bets on sports in Massachusetts though companies and casinos looking to facilitate wagers will need to work through a licensing process, where fees reach into the millions.
After 23-hour-plus House and Senate sessions that stretched from noon Sunday to Monday morning, legislators handed Gov. Charlie Baker a bill that legalized both in-person and online sports wagering, including on some college games.
Baker, who has previously expressed support for legal sports betting in Massachusetts, has until Aug. 11 to take action on the bill. A Baker spokesperson said Monday that the “governor will carefully review the final bill on his desk.”
Both state Sens. Michael Rodrigues and Eric Lesser, who helped negotiate a compromise sports betting bill with their House counterparts, said they hope wagering is up and running in time for the start of football season in the fall.
In an interview with MassLive on Monday, Lesser said a timeline for getting the new industry going is in the hands of the Gaming Commission.
“They are prepared. They’ve been following the debate very closely,” the Longmeadow Democrat said. “We’ve been in close touch with them throughout the process. They are familiar with all the different contours and the different ways that the legislation could have ended up so they’re prepared to get to work to begin implementation. So I do think that it’ll be, you know, hopefully, this fall.”
Talking to the Zolak & Bertrand show on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Lesser said Thursday that he “expect[s] and hope[s]” that Gov. Charlie Baker will sign the betting bill this week (the governor has until Aug. 11) and then it will be up to the Mass. Gaming Commission to write regulations and begin issuing betting licenses.
“And they’ve told us in the past that it’ll take about 90 days for them to do that. We’ve been actively kind of talking to them, and they’ve been following along, so they should be basically up to speed on all the different components,” Lesser said. “So you’re talking about maybe October that the whole thing could be up and running. So you know, pretty soon, and definitely for the fall football season.”
The state’s casinos have already identified and built out spaces for sports books, and Lesser agreed Tuesday with co-host Marc Bertrand that those facilities could be among the first to get up and running, given that they are already known to the Gaming Commission.
“The Gaming Commission is going to be able to give provisional licenses, and I think definitely the known players will have some level of advantage, right, because they kind of know the process, they’ve been through background checks for the brick and mortars at least back in 2011,” the senator, who has previously said he is not a bettor, said. “So they might be able to get that up and running quick.”
Materials from the State House News Service were used in this report.
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