All 3 Massachusetts sportsbooks have allowed illegal wagers on college sports teams
BOSTON - It took just days for a sports betting law that was years in the making to be violated, with illegal bets taken on college basketball games at all three of the state's casino sportsbooks.
It happened at the new Encore sportsbook, where bets were taken on the Boston College/Notre Dame women's basketball game, at MGM-Springfield with Harvard men's basketball, and at Plainridge, where nearly $7,000 was wagered on a Merrimack/Long Island University men's game.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) wants to know - how did this happen?
At their meeting on Tuesday, they were told that a major betting technology vendor "mistakenly assigned the participant school state for Merrimack College as Florida instead of Massachusetts, so that allowed Merrimack to bypass our compliance filters," according to Heather Hall, chief enforcement counsel for the MGC.
There is no Merrimack College in Florida. And some of the commissioners wondered - what happened to the rules they voted for preventing college sports betting? Betting is allowed on in-state schools when they're participating in a tournament, but "who is watching to make sure they come out of the system" afterwards, asked Commissioner Jordan Maynard.
Added Commissioner Eileen O'Brien: "This commission has an obligation to take a more active role."
Takeaway: state regulators don't have control of the sports betting system. "No, they wouldn't, and they really won't have control to be quite honest," says Father Richard McGowan of Boston College, an internationally known expert on the gambling industry. He suggests there's too much money at stake for state regulations restricting college sports betting to hold up.
"So, all the lip service about protecting the colleges was lip service?" we asked.
"I think they meant well. But I think once push came to shove on revenue and things like that, yeah, it was lip service," McGowan said.
All a bettor has to do if they want to bet legally on Merrimack or BC is go across the border to New Hampshire or Rhode Island. So, while the vow of protecting college sports was part of the deal that got sports betting approved on Beacon Hill, it's already apparent that the odds against the state keeping that promise are long.
