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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
Massachusetts regulators broke new ground this
week when they hosted a range of speakers to
discuss the issue of limiting bettors. They
are the first regulator to take a look into
the issue, which, depending on who you ask,
either affects a minuscule number of people
or is a widespread tactic to assure that just
about any successful bettor can't wager. We've
got the highlights of the discussion, plus our
own thoughts on what comes next on today's
episode of iGaming Daily. Shout out to the sponsor
of iGaming Daily OptiMove, the number one CRM
marketing solution for the iGaming market. You
can get your free first month of OptiMove by
clicking the link in the description below.
Now that we've properly thanked them, I am
Jessica Wellman, editor of SBC Americas, joined
by media manager Charlie Horner. And I feel
like it's kind of weird being back in the saddle.
It's been a minute since we've done one of
these. The dream team is back. Yeah, it's been
a few weeks. They couldn't handle us. I don't
know, you know, sometimes I can't handle the
M.G.C. to do a segue on this one. Massachusetts
Gaming Commission. Charlie, you're not in the
news rotation as much anymore, but I did make
you tune back in to the meetings that just keep
on giving for this discussion on limiting betters.
Now that you've dipped your toe back in and
you kind of knew what to expect with the M.G.C.,
what was your overall impression of this meeting
and how it went? First of all, we should point
out that it's a positive that the operators
turned up. Yes, they did try this in May and
balees came. Balees came this time, by the way,
and did not say a word. They introduced themselves
and then said nothing. Ditto, Penn and ESPN
bad. Yeah, I think that's quite interesting
in itself as well that a couple of operators
joined the discussion but weren't willing to
participate. But generally I thought the discussion
was, it was really interesting to see what
the operators would actually say because clearly
from the past they would rather keep their
cards close to their chest on this and they
weren't really willing to delve into too many
specifics. Just a couple of statistics here
and there, I think BetMGM said that they only
limited around 1% of bettors in. Massachusetts,
whereas Fandl was saying that this was affecting
around 0.04% of- So, they're kind of different
statistics, not to nitpick you, but what the
statistic Corey Fox of Fandl gave was that 0.043%
of the bets on Fandl were placed at the maximum
amount that they could wager. know, the vast
majority of people, the amount that they wanted
to bet, they bet and they didn't, you know,
hit the cap. Yeah. But I thought it was quite
interesting to see how the two sides of this
debate were laying out their arguments because
it was very much the operator saying that, look,
yeah, we do limit bettors, but it's only a
very, it's a percentage of a percentage was
the phrase that was repeated quite often. It's
a really small number of bettors who are actually
huge problem, we're well within our rights
to do this. And then on the other side, you
had the regulators sort of saying, well, actually
we do get a lot of complaints from betters about
this. And then in the second half of the meeting,
there was other industry stakeholders sort of
putting the idea forward that, well, maybe
it is a bit of a problem. Maybe we do need a
little bit more transparency from the operators
on this point. And I thought as a starting point
for this. wider discussion that's inevitably
going to happen. It was intriguing. S1 05.00
Definitely. We won't subject you all to the
full three-hour discussion, but I think it would
be useful, as Charlie mentioned, to see a bit
of how people framed things. So we're going
to take a second and you're going to hear from
two people. First, you're going to hear from
Cory Fox, who was the representative from FanDuel.
Then you're going to hear from Joe Brennan Jr.,
who's the executive chair of Prime Sportsbook.
Even though he is an operator, they don't operate
in Massachusetts. And he appeared with the
group kind of arguing that limiting was a problem
representing what they were deeming like alternative
sports betting models. So check out two sides
to the same argument. If these operators in
your state are limiting and shutting down winning
players, not taking their action, what are
those players supposed to do? What is their
alternative? Because you have players that
are willingly trying to enter a regulated market,
taxed, well-regulated, visible market. And
you have the operators who are talking about
transparency and security and risk and trying
to avoid the next Jean-Tay Porter incident.
And they're standing there and they're saying,
no entry. What is that player, what is that
citizen supposed to do at that point? All right,
now I don't know where to begin on this one,
but you know what, let's stick with the operator
side of this since that's where they started.
I will say I was a little, I expected as soon
as people started introducing themselves and
you saw that nobody was from the trading room
and it was compliance and general counsels for
people that we weren't gonna get much. And
I'll be honest, I thought they offered up more
than I anticipated they would. Yes, I would
agree with that. In particular, there was a
very, very good explanation towards the beginning
of the discussion. I think he was BetMGM's deputy
general counsel. Jeremy Coleman. Yes, he gave
a really good overview of the instances when
BetMGM and by and large, all of the other operators
would. decide to limit players. And then, yeah,
considering that there were no trading team
representatives, I thought there was a pretty
decent level of detail involved. Yeah, there
was one fun moment where they were kind of like,
well, what does the trading team do? And they're
like, oh, I can't really speak to that because
I'm not on the trading team. And Eileen O'Brien,
the commissioner who never lets anything get
past her was like, I can't help but notice
no one from this group is on this call. I would
imagine that if they did have traders on the
meeting, there would be a lot of executive sessions
that there would be a diverse ensued. There
would be a lot of the lawyers just hitting the
mute button. Yeah, well, I want to go back
to what you said about Jeremy Coleman. He kind
of put it into four different categories typically
of what he says BetMGM does when it comes to
limiting players. And he said those four categories
were essentially bettors that pounced on inaccurate
lines. So, you know, for example, what happened
on Monday when Christian McCaffrey, who for
you, your rose out there that don't follow
football, like the best player in football was
a late scratch in Monday night football at
bet 365, not bet MGM. there was a line where
they did not adjust the backups yardage quickly
enough and people jumped on it and put as much
money down as humanly possible. So you can
do that, but I mean, sports betters that I know
always are aware that you're gonna be persona
non grata very quickly if you keep kind of trying
to take advantage of that, you know, it's one
thing to be, It's another to bet the farm on
something when somebody hasn't updated quickly
enough. I think that's not the most unreasonable
reason to put limits on somebody. So that was
one. They take notice in his terms, low liquidity,
high volatility markets, essentially those
extremely niche player props that if you're
putting lots of money on those props, which
are not really designed. They don't do a lot
of handle. It's more to have those for fun.
They'll start flagging your account. They'll
notice if I bet $25 every game and then suddenly
out of nowhere, I bet $1,000 on something, they're
gonna potentially raise an eyebrow. And then
the last one was syndicate betting. For those
who don't know, syndicate betting can take
a couple of different forms. There can be a
group of bettors that pool their knowledge
to all. bet using pooled funds in one account,
or it can be that, you know, you have you and
10 people on 10 different accounts, use 10 different
accounts to get half a million dollars down
on a game because none of you can get half a
million dollars down otherwise. So those are
kind of the four reasons, and I'm gonna be honest,
and maybe I sound like a sports betting chill,
these all seem fairly reasonable. to be like,
yeah, we're going to limit how much you're
allowed to bet when you do this. Yeah. And the
operators said bettors are well within their
rights to place bets on these lines where they
might have an advantage or have more knowledge.
But at the same time, they are more than entitled
to limit how much they can bet because at the
end of the day, they are commercial entities
and they've got to protect their bottom lines.
that's their argument and I must say to a certain
extent, yeah, I kind of agree with you Jess.
Yeah, I mean, if not, illegal is not the right
term, but like for sure all of these are kind
of against the syndicate betting in particular.
Some states have regulations and laws against
this, others like you're clearly violating the
terms of service that you agree to and like
yes, we all check the box and click the button
and don't pay attention to what the terms of
service is. But I'm just the type that like,
yeah, if I said that these are the rules that
I agree to, even if I didn't read them, if you
tell me I'm breaking the rules, then I'm not
gonna be that mad or upset when you tell me
I'm not allowed to do that anymore and I'm
being punished. So before we get to the con
side, I want to go into one last thing that
happened on the operator side of things, which
was the discussion around court siding. Is
this a term you heard for the first time yesterday?
No, this is something that I've been aware
of. Yeah. I'm somewhat familiar with it. For
those who are not familiar, courtsiding is
showing up at the athletic event. And again,
there's a difference. People going to the Super
Bowl might make a better two while playing or
while watching the Super Bowl inside the stadium
because they're enjoying the fun of it. The
court-citing practice that they're talking
about is someone deliberately, like, going to
the game with the intent of betting as much
as they possibly can with frequency on the outcome
of events because with the latency of TV feeds
and official data feeds, the sports book is
a couple seconds behind. So you can get off
bets before the feed gets them. Yeah, and there's
been instances of people going to these events,
taking advantage of that and being on the phone
to people in other places where they can put
bets on at mass. Yeah, because you can bet from
within the stadium, but one of the things I'm
sure they would flag is geolocating you inside
of the stadium. But if you're on the phone
with someone, you can kind of circumvent that
with relatively minimal technology. The court-siding
thing came up a lot. And to me, what was the
most fascinating part of this entire thing,
which actually wasn't even about limiting at
all, was when Eileen O'Brien was asking about
this practice, she basically said, you know,
I'm not I'm not going to paraphrase her. I'm
going to let her quote. I'm going to quote her
directly. As a regulator, one of the concerns
I have from a consumer experience and protection
point is that I would rather you fix it on
your technical end rather than cut off a customer
experience. I'll be blunt. What I hear as a
regulator is that maybe you shouldn't be offering
the product if the technology is like that
and fluctuating so much. So it sure sounds like
she thinks operators should not be offering
in-game betting, period.
from what she was saying as well. It's fascinating
and it's something that O'Brien has mentioned
in the past. I think she was saying that in
the whole building out the regs process back
in 2023, the end of 2022, this is something
that she sort of brought up at that time. But
yeah, to completely ban or stop in play betting
from being a thing. think you're going to get
much buying from the operators on that one considering
how much it's boomed over the last five years
or so. No, and all five, well four now, I think
all of these commissioners are very sharp and
very inquisitive, but I will say I think with
her on this particular issue, there's kind
of a fundamental lack of understanding that
there is no solution for this. Like, I mean,
I guess the solution would be that you geofence
out the stadium or the arena. But again, you
get on your phone and you tell somebody. Television
delays things by a few seconds for, like the
FCC mandates this. So you have the fact that
like, there will never be a direct overlap
of what someone is seeing in person and what
someone is seeing on television. And the vast
majority of people are gonna watch this on television.
So you have to kind of cater to that side of
things. Ken Fuchs of Caesars Digital also pointed
out like, states like yours mandate that we
have to use official data feeds. So like, you
can't get mad at us for using a feed that's
delayed a few seconds when you mandate that
if we want to offer this product, we have to
use this. So I don't know if she will maybe
change her tune once she hears more about it,
but there is a very cynical voice in my head
that's like, betters, you know, be careful
what you wish for because you get this meeting
and a potential granted long shot is that you
get in game betting banned in the state like
good job. I hope you're happy. So I don't think
that was their intent at all though. So let's
talk a bit about the other side. They took
a break. They came back with people from it
was an interesting group. It was like a couple
of
And then Richard Shoots, who's a consultant
that works with, um, what is American betters
voice? I keep calling it pro betters voice,
but that's not right. American betters voice,
Joe Brad in a prime sports book. And I think
that's about it. Right. Am I spacing on anybody
else? Um, no, I think that was, that was it.
That's, that's the crew of this second group.
What was there a person or an argument that
kind of stood out to you amongst the rest?
Well, first of all, I was shocked and outraged
that you weren't called up to the panel, Jess.
I thought you would have... I had to cover the
bingo card I made. I, by the way, if you don't
follow me on Twitter, to keep this entertaining,
made myself a bingo card of things to check
off as the meeting was going on. I did not make
a bingo, unfortunately. That's it. It's a crying
shame. And I thought it was... I thought actually
the argument that Joe Brennan brought forward
was interesting that where are these players
going to go and just that sort of need for
a bit of transparency and the industry is sort
of always talking about if we increase regulations
or prohibit what sort of operators can do then
this is a threat of the black market. But yeah.
I think that sort of argument was quite interesting.
I don't know if there's anything that you particularly
picked up on Jess that you thought was particularly
jarring with what the operators were saying.
Yeah, to quickly respond to the... I think people
really resonated with the clip that we played
of Joe and I hear that argument to be devil's
advocate and I did this on Twitter to some
extent and got reamed for it. So why not just
open this wound again? I've said this many
times, nobody owes you the right to make a living
as a professional sports butter. That's not
what this industry is about. That's not what
the intent of the industry is. If you can,
more power to you. However, I think Joe mentioned
a couple of times, that aspiring pros are getting
limited for RG reasons. It's not. And the debate
of the sincerity of the RG concerns is an absolutely
fair point. But I don't really care if they're
going to be pro-betters or not. I don't think
that should be factored into regulations. And
I agree that it is frustrating that people
that enjoy this and are successful at it have
limited options about where they can go. That
certainly raises an eyebrow and makes me concerned.
But I live in a state where you are not legally
really allowed to play poker in this state.
I guess sweepstakes is the closest thing to
like a legal entity. I don't. I drive across
the river and I'm very lucky I can just drive
across the river. But like I have a lot of poker
friends that are like, well, I have to play
on offshore sites because my state won't legalize
this. And I'm just like.
I hear you, I feel you, but you're working with
an illegal operator. And that's, I just, my
sympathy is not there, the way it is for some
other people. That like, I hear your frustration,
I get where it's coming from. I don't think
it justifies, you know, paying, hiring people
to borrow their accounts and circumventing the
system. Like, I don't think that, supplants
the fact that you're breaking the rules. No,
and I think we've got to sort of point out
as well that maybe not a vested interest, but
when Brennan speaks, he speaks as a representative
of Prime Sportsbook, which does sort of do a
lot of work with Sharp Betters and that's their
sort of target market. So maybe speaking for
his sort of player base there. I think it's
great that Prime and Sport Trade and some of
these others exist and want to cater to that
market, I think it's fantastic. I just don't
know, Joe spoke about, we have to keep these,
they keep these huge number of markets open
and Maynard kind of questioned, why do you
have so many markets if you can't keep on top
of them? Because the appetite is for same game
parlays. And so you need like a wide range of
markets to help make those bets happen. And,
you know, Joe's like, we don't offer that many
markets. And again, if you don't want to, that's
great. And I understand there's some exposure
to offer in all those markets. I don't think
for the average better, the resolution of operators
having to shut down hundreds of markets because
they're not allowed to limit people is what
most betters want. No. And this is something
the operators were saying as well, is that if
we, if we don't have the limits on the, those
who were more advantaged, then we have to impose
limits on those recreational bettors. And that's
not what we want to do because otherwise, again,
we have to pull the markets. And as these businesses
are primarily targeting recreational players,
that's of course not what they want to do.
It's all about providing entertainment during
sports. So yeah, it's a really, really interesting
debate, one that's really going to rumble on
in Massachusetts, I think, because... The commission
said that this is only the beginning of the
conversation. It's going to continue. Yeah,
we're running out of time, but quickly, next
steps on this. I think there will be conversations
about this, potentially more conversations.
Really, in order to actually take action, they
would need to draft some sort of regulation.
Based on the temperature of the meeting, I
would say the regulation that seems to have
the most likelihood of getting drafted and
moving forward is some sort of- process where
betters are notified your account is being
limited for X amount of time or on X amount
of markets for XYZ reason because the regulators
seem to really hone in on that. Operators were
like, I mean, they usually know. But then the
betters that spoke on the second half were like,
I don't really know when I'm being limited.
I don't bet that much. I would like to have
that opportunity to understand what happened.
So to me, that's probably the most likely end
result of this is, okay, we have to notify
you why you're being limited. I think we're
a long way off from some sort of wide sweeping
regulation that you're just not allowed to do
this. Call me cynical. No, absolutely agreed.
All right. Well, we're not going to go much
longer because we don't want to turn into an
MGC meeting, but you can read more about the
meeting itself on SBC Americas, we've got the
recap. We'll put the link to the full meeting
in the description below, and be sure to just
keep checking out all of the other sites in
the SBC network for the latest and greatest
news from around the online gambling space.