In the two months since the Massachusetts General Court legalized sports betting in New England’s most populous state, its gaming commission has met with stakeholders, wrestled with an issue created by legislative language, and held a of public meetings.
On Friday, the agency released a flow chart showing what it had accomplished since Gov. Charlie Baker signed sports wagering into law on Aug. 10. Besides the standard workload of developing regulations, including creating a licensing process, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has been trying to figure out how to best manage a bit of a mess left to it by the state legislature.
The new law allows for seven stand-alone digital wagering platforms, which means that companies like Boston-based DraftKings or rival FanDuel could operate independently and without a casino partner. But the law does not cap the number of temporary digital licenses the regulator could issue. It’s confounding and has led to lots of discussion, including a stakeholder meeting in late September, where operators said they’d never seen anything like it and were mostly not prepared to enter a market on a temporary license, only to learn months later they they are not among those approved for a permanent license.
“At a public roundtable with stakeholders from companies that filed Notice of Intent forms held on September 22, the MGC heard directly about the issue of temporary licenses,” the MGC wrote on its website Friday. “Most companies agreed that the way the law is written presents an untenable situation. Nearly universal was the desire to see a workable temporary license structure set up for those that, after meeting initial suitability, are determined to likely to receive a full license. However, without a legislative fix to this now legally binding language, the MGC has few options to modify this section of the law.”