Advocates: Out-of-state, illegal markets scooping up wagers
While Massachusetts lawmakers have been slow-walking proposals to legalize sports betting here over the last three years, the revenue and jobs that the activity could provide has passed Massachusetts by as legal sports betting proliferates around the country and in nearby states, supporters told the Joint Committee on Economic Development on Thursday.
“In my mind, this decision is not dissimilar to discussions that were had in the past on cannabis ... this is something that’s already happening in our state illegally or it’s something that residents of our state are just going just over the border and taking care of and are participating in,” Plainville Select Board Chair Brian Kelly, whose town borders Rhode Island, said. “And it’s nothing but a loss to our communities and our state in terms of revenue and job opportunities.”
Up north, near the New Hampshire border, the story is the same, Ipswich Rep. Brad Hill said. For DraftKings, 30% of the company’s sports betting business in New Hampshire comes from Massachusetts residents, company officials said.
“They’re going right by our mom and pop stores, our restaurants, and they’re staying in New Hampshire. They’re shopping in New Hampshire and all that revenue, unfortunately, is going to New Hampshire, not Massachusetts,” Hill said.
While 30 states, including neighboring Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York, have authorized gamblers to place legal bets on sports in some fashion, Massachusetts has been considering whether to similarly expand gambling here since the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2018 ruled that the nearly-nationwide prohibition on sports wagering was unconstitutional and gave states the ability to legalize the activity. Meanwhile, illicit gambling continues to attract bettors in Massachusetts as well.
Massachusetts also has the DraftKings factor to consider — the daily fantasy sports-turned-sports betting giant was founded in Watertown and keeps a headquarters in Boston. In his testimony Thursday, co-founder and CEO Jason Robins told the committee that he would like to expand his company in Massachusetts, but legally cannot base certain sportsbetting employees here unless the activity is legal here.
“We are hopeful to have the opportunity to operate in every state and, in order to do so, until Massachusetts authorizes sports betting, we will continue to locate certain teams and functions outside of the Commonwealth,” he wrote in his prepared remarks. “We urge the legislature to move swiftly so that the Commonwealth can more quickly realize the economic benefits — and consumers can realize the safeguards and protections — of a robust, legal sports wagering market.”
Supporters of legalizing sports betting are vocal about it and outright opposition to the idea is much more rare. Plenty of people and groups, though, oppose some sports betting — like wagers on collegiate contests — and others focus more on ensuring measures would be in place to mitigate the social and public health impacts of legal wagering without explicitly supporting or opposing its legalization.
The overwhelming majority of the testimony heard during Thursday’s committee hearing was in support of sports betting in one form or another, though not all supporters agreed on the fine details of their preferred bills.
The first testimony from someone in direct opposition to sports betting did not come until the hearing was already five hours old.
Les Bernal, a former aide to former Massachusetts state senator and expanded gambling opponent Susan Tucker who now leads the national non-profit Stop Predatory Gambling, told the committee that commercialized sports betting “would further extend the institutionalized racism of state-sanctioned gambling and how it has reconfigured Massachusetts’s tax code to benefit whites at the expense of Black and brown people.”
Between the Massachusetts Lottery and legal casino gambling in the Bay State, players already lose $2 billion worth of personal wealth to state-sanctioned gambling each year, Bernal said.