Governor Charlie Baker says that sports betting is unlikely to be approved into law this year, despite the fact that there is a lot of talk of passing such a bill by lawmakers.
Baker told the Boston Herald, “I think it would be very hard for us to go from zero to 100 mph in the course of 40 days when there’s so much other stuff in front of the Legislature.” He added, “I do know we are meeting with a lot of the professional sports organizations and a lot of the knowledgeable people in this space, and I fully expect the Legislature will do the same thing.”
That doesn’t mean that legislators won’t be plenty busy doing the requisite research so that they can file a bill when the new legislative session begins in 2019, he said.
The newspaper intimated that Baker might be meeting with lobbyists of major sports leagues, including the NBA, MLB and PGA that have been bending lawmakers’ ears to get an “integrity fee” included in any sports betting bill. The leagues contend that they will have to spend more money to guard against players or coaches taking actions that might improperly influence the outcome of games.
Steven Panagiotakos, a former chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and one of the lobbyists, told the Globe, “They’re looking for a royalty fee. The game is going to be used as the basis for the bets. They’re also looking for their data. The official data of the league would be used.” He added, “They think there will be more pressure on them to expend more resources on oversight of the game.”
DraftKings, the largest operator of daily fantasy sports in the U.S., is also lobbying heavily for sports betting, which it wants to add to offer.
The Bay State’s tech sector sees positive possibilities from sports betting. Mike Gallagher, vice president of policy and governmental affairs for the Massachusetts High Technology Council, told the Globe, “We definitely see some opportunity for Massachusetts-based companies or even companies that are yet to exist to benefit from sports wagering, all those things, cybersecurity, AI, data analytics. Those all underpin this business beyond the actual wagering and the casinos.”
He said his group expects to be working with “policymakers,” noting that related services are likely to be generated, either companies offering sports betting, or companies offering services for players wanting an advantage over other players.
Josh Walker, president of Sports Innovation Lab, agrees. “Fantasy sports isn’t the only benefactor of this opportunity. Broadly, fan engagement, which spans all sorts of things, will benefit from this,” he said. “You have a real strong ripple effect.”
Walker said the state’s savvy in tech matters will serve it well in protecting consumers, including such developments as combining wagering with streaming video. “Everybody that understands how to protect transactions and do so in real time in conjunction with real time media, that’s the strength of our local economy, it’s security, it’s payments, it’s financial services,” he said.
James Chisholm, a spokesman for DraftKings, commented last week, “If something isn’t going to be passed by the end of this session, there’s no reason to wait until next year to do the work.” He added, “Certainly there’s no reason to wait until next July to pass something. There’s lots of work that can be done now to set Massachusetts up.”
He added, “A lot of the focus is on central operators, like DraftKings or casinos, but the industry around sports betting is far more varied. It’s not just the operators but the technology beyond that.” He also commented, “There’s no reason Massachusetts shouldn’t be the country’s sports tech hub.”
Rep. Joseph Wagner, chairman of the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, has said he has already begun work on sports betting legislation.
Although Massachusetts’s licensed casinos that are coming online will probably fight for a monopoly on sports betting, many others will argue for allowing wagering on platforms, Smartphones and online.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission earlier this year commissioned a study that concluded that the state could realize as much as $61.3 million in taxes from sports betting.
