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assachusetts House Ways and Means committee excluded sports betting revenues from its upcoming fiscal year budget draft, signaling lawmakers’ expectations that the vertical won’t open in the next 18 months.
Despite this exclusion doesn’t mean sports betting’s 2021 legalization chances are already over, it’s the latest indication the state’s years-long impasse is no closer to resolution, as reported by Action Network.
The budget advanced through the Ways and Means Committee Thursday and now goes to a full House floor vote later this month. From there, the bill goes through the same process in the Senate, then a bicameral conference committee that resolves the two chamber’s differences and finally on to Gov. Baker’s desk. Officials can add sports betting revenue projections at any point in this months-long process, and House Speaker Ron Mariano told MassLive there’s still hope sports betting is included before the budget even passes onto the Senate.
Lawmakers have not included sports betting in any previous final budget so far, and many of the issues that tanked its inclusion remain ahead for the upcoming fiscal year that begins this summer. Even if included in the budget, lawmakers still must pass legislation laying out all the myriad regulations, licensing structures, taxes and other key aspects of a legal sports betting market.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and bipartisan members of the Democratic-controlled legislature have floated dozens of sports betting legalization bills in the three years since PASPA’s repeal, and none have gained serious traction.
The state lawmakers have had to weigh a number of growing gaming interests, starting with the nation’s most lucrative per capita state lottery and continuing with the more recent launch of full-scale commercial casino resorts. Just as casino operators fought for access in the region’s most populated state, so too have sportsbooks.
Besides the potential financial windfall, several top national sportsbook brands have additional tangible and intangible interest in Massachusetts, including DraftKings, FanDuel, Penn National, MGM, Wynn, among others.
Massachusetts has higher-than-average household incomes and education levels, both factors that positively correlate with sports betting interest. That, plus some of the nation’s most iconic and beloved professional sports teams, creates one of the most coveted potential U.S. markets.
Massachusetts’ most prominent universities oppose college betting. Though industry stakeholders argue college betting prohibitions just fuel the black market, college betting remains another contention point helping to stall the bill.