Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is pressuring lawmakers to vote on his proposed sports betting bill before summer.
The call comes as DraftKings opened its new Boston headquarters. The homegrown tech firm operates two sports betting operations in other states, and would like to do so in the Bay State.
Baker would like to see that too, along with the new jobs and new tax revenues that would follow. He reiterated that after cutting the ribbon for DraftKings’s new facility. The governor declared, “Our preferred option would be that this is something the Legislature takes up before they break for the summer, which will probably be somewhere around August,” he said. “That would be the timeline we think makes sense, because that would land before the start of the next NFL season.”
DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said that sports betting already takes place in the shadows in states that haven’t legalized it. “People still do it. There’s a $150 billion annual betting market that exists on the black market in the U.S. That just shows people want it, so why not create a safe, legal environment, bring in tax dollars for the state, and create great jobs and opportunities for employers like us?”
Baker’s bill, filed in January, isn’t the only sports bill being considered. Several others are also in play.
