Massachusetts Sports activities Bettors Might Be Restricted to $1K a Day

• Laws in Massachusetts would restrict how a lot sports activities bettors may wager
• The restrict might be lifted if the bettor agrees to an affordability examine
• Massachusetts bettors misplaced $865 million betting final 12 months

Massachusetts lawmakers are contemplating laws that will place a sequence of shopper safety guardrails on the sports activities betting business.

A bustling Summer time Avenue in Boston’s Monetary District is pictured on Feb. 17, 2024. Sports activities bettors in Massachusetts may quickly see nice adjustments to their sportsbook accounts. (Picture: Shutterstock)

Senate Invoice 302, the Bettor Health Act, was unanimously handed by the Senate Committee on Financial Growth and Rising Applied sciences final week. The invoice is predicted to be reviewed within the Senate Committee on Methods and Means when it subsequent meets, although no date has been set.

The Bettor Well being Act comes from Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy). The invoice proposes a sweeping overhaul of the commonwealth’s sports activities betting rules, most notably limiting sports activities bettors to $1,000 in wagers per 24-hour interval or $10,000 per 30 days. To wager greater than these thresholds, a bettor would want to conform to an affordability evaluation.

Lots of the provisions in SB302 mimic the federal SAFE Wager Act, failed laws in Congress that sought to harness the nation’s piecemealed sports activities betting markets. 

How Would Affordability Evaluation Work? 

Keenan means that Massachusetts’ sportsbooks do extra to make sure that customers aren’t turning into hooked on their merchandise and playing greater than they’ll afford to lose.

Keenan desires to restrict sports activities bettors until they endure an affordability examine. SB302 particulars that the evaluation would want to find out that “the every day or month-to-month quantities wagered don’t exceed 15% of the quantity of mentioned individual has out there in a checking account.” Massachusetts has the best median family earnings within the nation at $100,000.

The Bettor Well being Act would additionally prohibit sportsbooks from promoting throughout sports activities occasions televised by broadcasts regulated by the Federal Communications Fee. That might exclude most sports activities on cable and streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Peacock.  

The invoice moreover seeks to ban in-play and proposition bets, wagers which have been linked to participant harassment on the skilled and collegiate stage and have been related to match- and game-fixing. 

Reining in ‘Unleashed’ Business

Together with the patron protections, SB302 would vastly enhance the state’s tax on gross sports activities betting income from 20% to 51%. The statute would additionally require sportsbooks to share annual stories with the commonwealth detailing anonymized participant information.

Keenan says the Bettor Well being Act would rein in an “unleashed” business.

We unleashed an business that now promotes betting on something and all the pieces conceivable and unimaginable 24 hours a day, each single day,” Keenan mentioned.

“I need to publicly apologize to those that’ve misplaced the chance to sit down and watch a sport only for the enjoyment of the sport, to those that discover themselves at nighttime areas of betting habit, and to these working by restoration, and to their households and mates. I need to apologize to those that have misplaced family members to suicide due to playing points,” the Senator mentioned.

Keenan voted in favor of the invoice handed in 2022 that licensed sports activities betting within the commonwealth.

Individuals in Massachusetts wager a file $8.5 billion on sports activities final 12 months by lawful means. Sportsbooks saved $865 million of the wagers, producing state tax income of $151.7 million.