After yet another long discussion that showed members of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to be on different pages, the agency Thursday delayed an anticipated vote on a regulation surrounding the sports betting application process.
The General Sports Wagering Application Requirements, Standards, and Procedures proposed rule deals with how operator applications would be handled, including if or how applicants would be entitled to “cure deficiencies” in applications. At different points during the meeting, commissions noted that they had spent more than an hour talking about “how operators won’t get it right,” and how not allowing for a time frame to correct deficiencies would put smaller operators at a disadvantage.
“The stakes are way too high to reject an application because of a simple human error,” Commissioner Nakisha Skinner said. She added that just because a stakeholder submits an “incomplete application,” it doesn’t mean it can’t “put its best foot forward.”
The rest of the commission ultimately agreed, at least in principle, forcing the reworking of the regulation, which will also include an extra week past the Nov. 21 deadline for applicants to submit “multi-jurisdictional personal history disclosure forms.” These disclosure forms include information helping a regulator do background checks on principals in wagering companies.