While most states have moved quickly to legalize sports betting and capitalize on this lucrative betting market, Massachusetts has been very cautious with its sports betting legalization push.
There have been discussions about potential sports betting ever since the Supreme Court repealed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 in May 2018. There are currently 19 sports betting bills that the Economic Development Committee has to review.
State legislators and stakeholders in favour of legalizing sports betting in the state told the Joint Committee on Economic Development that Massachusetts has lost out on billions of dollars by not legalizing sports betting. The Committee was told that the illegal sports betting market in Massachusetts was thriving and neighbouring states that had legalized betting were profiting by getting bettors from Massachusetts to visit their sportsbooks and bet.
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New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut which are neighbouring states have some form of sports betting legalized while Massachusetts has none. Rep. Brad Hill from Ipswich pointed out that DraftKings which is one of the biggest sportsbooks in America gets 30 percent of its New Hampshire betting revenue from bettors in Massachusetts.
DraftKings has its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts even though it does not run sports betting in the state. CEO Jason Robins said that they were very keen to create more jobs and expand operations in Massachusetts but could only do so if Massachusetts decided to legalize sports betting.
Robins told the Commission that it was important for them to act soon and not delay sports betting legalization any longer as the state was missing out on a millions of dollars in sports betting taxes.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) has taken a neutral stance to the issue of sports betting legalization but said they were making preparations to be ready to roll out sports betting, should a sports betting bill get approved.
While the push to legalize sports betting in Massachusetts continues to get stronger, there are anti-gambling opponents who are dead set against sports betting legalization. One such organisation is Stop Predatory Gambling who told the Committee that legalized betting would allow the state to continue to exploit its residents.
Stop Predatory Gambling head Susan Tucker said that between legalized gambling and the state lottery, residents are losing $2 billion of their personal wealth to the state each year and legalizing sports betting would further boost this number to $10 billion each year.
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