Legal Betting
Two years ago, the New England Patriots were preparing to play the Kansas City Chiefs for the chance to go to the Super Bowl and Sen. Brendan Crighton was putting the finishing touches on a legislative proposal to legalize sports betting in Massachusetts.
The wait for Michigan online sports betting, casino gaming and real-money poker is in its final days. The date and initial operator list for Michigan’s long-awaited online gaming launch will be announced by Jan. 18 at the latest, said Michigan Gaming Control Board Executive Director Richard Kalm at a meeting Tuesday. In 1996, the first online betting site accepted its first wager. Since then, online gaming and sporting events have enjoyed a pleasant union with only some minor hiccups along the way. From wagers as basic as picking the outcome of the Super Bowl, to more complex live bets, the internet is a magical place home to numerous legal betting sites offering great odds.
Fast-forward to today and the Patriots are at home on the couch, but Crighton is right where he was in mid-January 2019, again hoping this will be the year the Legislature acts to pull sports betting out from the shadows.
Crighton is preparing to refile his sports betting proposal as soon as Tuesday with a few updates, including a higher tax rate and a significant increase in licensing fees that he said will generate needed revenue for Massachusetts before a wager is even placed.
The Lynn Democrat said he believes there will be an appetite in the Senate to consider the topic this session, despite Senate leadership slow-walking the issue for much of the past two years. He hopes his bill can provide some early direction for the debate.
“Sports betting is alive and well in Massachusetts, but unfortunately we’re letting money go down the drain to the black market and states that have legalized,” Crighton said. “I think we have a real opportunity here to generate some revenue at a time we’re facing a lot of uncertainty.”
And he may be right.
Sen. Eric Lesser, who last session co-chaired the committee that studied sports betting, plans to file his own bill in the coming weeks. While he didn’t think the economic development bill was the right vehicle – the House had included a legalization measure in its version of that bill – Lesser told the NewsService that he personally believes “the time has come” for Massachusetts to join its neighbors and legalize sports betting.
Lesser, a Longmeadow Democrat, said his position was only reinforced when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this month that he supports an expansion of sports betting into mobile sites.
In 2019, when Crighton filed his sports betting bill, the activity was legal in eight states.
Now, sports betting is operational in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Three more states have laws signed and on the books, and in three additional states voters approved legal sports betting in November, and legislators must now set up a regulatory framework, according to ESPN.
Crighton was among the first legislators to offer a framework for legal sports betting in Massachusetts after the Supreme Court in 2018 opened the door for states outside of Nevada to enter the sports betting market.
His proposal was followed by others, including a bill filed By Gov. Charlie Baker.
Crighton’s newest bill would create an opportunity for the state‘s two casinos in Everett and Springfield, the slots parlor in Plainville, horse-racing license holders and mobile platforms like the Boston-based DraftKings to host in-person and online sport betting.
Should thoroughbred racing return to Massachusetts, a new track would also be eligible to join the industry, which would be regulated and overseen by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.
Prospective license holders would have to pay a $10 million licensing fee, which is up from a high of $1 million in Crighton’s original bill, and the tax rate would be increased to 15 percent. Crighton originally proposed to tax wagers at 12.5 percent.
“We believe this will still allow for sports betting providers to be competitive against the black market,” Crighton said.
As with his original bill, Crighton is proposing to allow wagers on professional and college sports, but not on collegiate teams from universities located in Massachusetts.
Some other bills filed last session, including Gov. Baker’s, proposed to exclude college sports from any new betting framework, but Baker recently told the NewsService he would accept a framework that included betting on college sports because it’s already happening in neighbor states.
“If we want people to leave their illegal marketplace and come into a regulated one we need to keep that attraction available to them,” Crighton said.
Legal Betting Websites
The senator’s bill also excludes any type of “integrity fee” for the professional sports leagues or venues that host games on which wagers are placed.
Senate members of the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies last session abstained from a vote to advance a sports betting bill drafted by the committee, which was co-chaired with Lesser by Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante. Senate leaders then ignored a sports wagering proposal tacked on by the House to a major economic development bill in July.
It’s unknown who will chair that committee this session, but Crighton believes the Senate will be in a better position to consider his bill and the issue in general now that the Legislature had better adapted to working through the COVID-190 pandemic.
“After COVID hit, everyone’s focus was on the immediate public health crisis. And that focus really continued up until a few weeks ago. I do think we would have had a debate in other times had we not been dealing with that and I’m confident this session the Senate will be taking a serious look at this and there will be an appetite for debate,” Crighton said.
House Speaker Ron Mariano blamed the Senate for the failure to legalize sports betting during the last session, saying on the last night of formal sessions, “If I could, we’d have a deal.”
Mariano, a Quincy Democrat, said it was a “shame” that DraftKings founder Jason Robbins had to go to New Hampshire to find a market for sports betting, and promised to return to the issue early in the new session, which began on Jan. 6.
(Copyright (c) 2020 State House News Service.
When the Supreme Court ended PASPA in May 2018, most thought it would take a few years for legal sports betting to be embraced across most of the US.
It looks like that inflection point is already here.
Legal US sports betting is available in 21 jurisdictions so far with more on the way. The last to launch was Virginia, which arrived in time for the Super Bowl.
It’s not just about legalizing either. Multiple states, including New York and Oregon, have sports betting bills that would amend how wagering operates in their states.
Here are efforts in seven other states that are worth keeping an eye on:
Maryland should get legal sports betting this year
Many are eagerly awaiting sports betting legislation out of Maryland after voters approved sports betting last November.
We’re still waiting to see legislation that would legalize MD sports betting, but SB 24 is associated.
Sen. Chris West wants the Maryland State Fair and Agricultural Society to also get a license so it can offer betting at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.
Mississippi trying again for mobile
Legal Betting In New York
Mississippi sports betting is alive and well, but only in retail sportsbooks. Mobile betting is technically allowed but is geofenced to a casino’s property.
Full mobile MS sports betting legislation has failed for years but there are three bills trying again this year. None of the bills look to materially change the market.
Sen. Scott DeLano‘s SB 2396 is short and sweet. It would allow each casino operator to offer one online sportsbook each.
Sen. Philip Moran‘s SB 2732 and Rep. Jay McKnight’s HB 1042 tweak the existing legislation to include online betting throughout the state. Moran’s bill also expands betting options to include esports and the Olympics.
Nebraska has three proposals for sports betting
There are multiple bills that would legalize sports betting in Nebraska after residents approved casinos through a referendum last November.
Sen. Justin Wayne is again trying to legalize his Games of Skill Act through LB 545, which would allow both sports betting and certain poker games online. All games of skill would have revenue taxed at 25%.
Sen. Tom Briese wants to legalize sports betting at casino racetracks throughout the state in LB 560. He wants to charge $1 million as a one-time fee to offer betting, which wouldn’t include betting on colleges in Nebraska. The bill would create the Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission, which would set the tax rate.
Mobile betting would be allowed, though it would be geofenced to the casino properties in “Mississippi mobile” fashion.
The third attempt, LR 26, is a referendum that would allow Nebraska voters whether sports betting should be legal or not.
New Hampshire could add retail sportsbooks
New Hampshire is the land of DraftKings Sportsbook after the state gave DK a monopoly outside of lottery-based betting from Intralot, which has yet to launch.
The state limited physical NH sports betting locations to 10, but there are a few bills that would change that.
HB 330 removes the 10-license cap and allows live betting at retail sportsbooks. HB 181 would let more towns and municipalities vote on whether citizens want a retail sportsbook there and HB 354 cleans up the language of the ballot question.
New Mexico could see gaming expanded at racinos
New Mexico already has sports betting at various tribal casinos but could see that expanded.
HB 101 would legalize sports betting and table games at the state’s five racetracks. Those tracks are already racinos – they operate slot machines and various table games, but those tables are automated games.
The legislation includes online sports betting, which means the state’s tribal casinos could offer betting apps as well. State law allows for six racinos, so naturally, there are six licenses available for both sports betting and table games.
Sportsbooks would pay a $10,000 application fee with an annual $5,000 renewal fee. Sports betting revenue would be taxed at 10%.
North Dakota sports betting could also go online
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians might have influenced this North Dakota online betting bill a bit.
The Chippewa announced last year they would team up with IGT to launch sports betting at their casinos. HB 1448 would take that a step further and allow gaming tribes to launch online casino and sports betting.
A Senate companion isn’t available on the website, though HB 1448 also lists Sen. Richard Marcellais as a sponsor. Marcellais was previously the chairman of the Chippewa.
Washington wants to include cardrooms, racetracks
Legal Betting In Massachusetts
Last year, legislators passed a bill to legalize sports betting in Washington state, but it wasn’t complete. The legislature picked the proposal that limited the market the most: no online betting and only at tribal casinos.
Legal Betting Age
SB 5212 aims to change that. Cardrooms and racetracks around the state would be allowed to offer sports betting with online betting also legalized.
Legal Betting
Each licensed gaming operator would pay $100,000 for a betting license and would get one skin each. Sports betting revenue would be taxed at 10%.