The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is in uncharted waters for a regulator, and now it is looking for help in navigating the tricky subject of sports betting operators restricting how much their customers can wager.
Key insights
- Massachusetts regulators plan to work with a data analyst and seek even more information from sportsbook operators about the wagering limits they are placing on bettors.
- It's likely going to be a long time before any regulatory action is taken, if any action is taken at all.
Members of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) met Thursday and received an update on the regulator's ongoing probe of limiting, wherein bookmakers curb how much a bettor can gamble on any given outcome.
The short version is that the regulator asked for data from Massachusetts sports betting operators in December, but the sheer amount and complicated nature of the information received means staff has even more questions and could use a little help.
Any regulatory action by the MGC on limiting will have to wait until all of the questions are answered and the data is sorted. It could be some time and there's no guarantee any action is eventually taken.
A little help here?
In the interim, commissioners gave the green light on Thursday for the regulator's staff to work with a data analyst and make a second request to operators for answers on limiting and VIP programs.
MGC chair Jordan Maynard said during Thursday’s meeting that they “look forward to learning and putting that learning into action.”
“We're proud to be the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to openly discuss limiting with the operators, and we're excited to add that interplay, in my opinion … with the VIP programs, and we're going to continue to learn on this matter,” Maynard added.
The chair’s comments underscore that the Massachusetts regulator is doing something no other state watchdog has really done, diving deep into the murky subject of limiting in a public setting.
Penny for your thoughts
The MGC’s work on limiting is also being closely watched by bettors who have been on the receiving end of those limits, some of whom contacted the MGC to voice their complaints about being subject to restrictions.
“We did get some outreach, just so the public knows, through emails,” Maynard said during a meeting last March. “And there were several folks who said, ‘Hey, I'm betting pennies when I'm putting in the bet.’ And so, what's the notification? And if you're turning off a winning wagerer, are you turning off a losing wagerer?”
The Massachusetts sports betting regulator then hosted a roundtable in May that sought to gather feedback. However, bookmakers mostly passed on the public meeting, and the ghosting by the commonwealth’s active operators irked commissioners.
In September, a more substantive hearing was held, where operators explained their practices more in-depth to commissioners.
The explanations given for limiting included that those limits only apply to a small percentage of the betting population, and for good reasons related to behavior and not how much someone wins. Limiting, the operators added, also allows sportsbooks to offer more betting markets and better odds.
The MGC followed up last December by requesting data from sportsbook operators. That request was to include information about the percentage of players who are limited, how many of the limited are winners, and how many losing players get VIP treatment (and likely higher limits).
A long-awaited, much-anticipated update coming on Thursday from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission regarding their work on sports bettor limiting: pic.twitter.com/DUFICza0dQ
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) April 8, 2025
Carrie Torrisi, the chief of the MGC’s sports wagering division, said on Thursday that the data requested was to see if it would show a correlation between limited patrons who tend to win, as well as customers who had their limits raised and tend to lose.
“That's a bit of an oversimplification, but that's generally what we've been hearing anecdotally,” Torrisi told the commission. “So we did receive submissions from all operators, and we've been reviewing that data internally.”
However, Torrisi added that it had become “quite clear” that, because of the volume and intricacy of the data submitted, the regulator could benefit from the help of a data analyst. Staff also wanted to make another request for data to help with getting answers to “specific questions” tied to limiting and VIP programs.
“We expect that this information request would lead us to future information and data requests, and that this will be an ongoing process,” Torrisi said. “The responses to this second request would not only help us to identify potential areas for regulation, but would also help us to identify what additional data points we might seek on both the patron limiting side and the VIP program side.”
