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The Massachusetts Gaming Commission held hearings Friday on in-state college sports bets accepted by two of the state’s three casinos in February, although no action was immediately taken by regulators.
Commissioners are expected to confer with MGC’s legal counsel about possible next steps — with lingering questions specifically in the case of Encore Boston Harbor casino in Everett.
The commission seemed curious about why the casino accepted unauthorized bets on regular season Boston College women’s basketball games on Feb. 12 and Feb. 19 after the casino initiated twice-daily audits of blacklisted events following a similar violation involving Boston College on Feb. 2. The Feb. 2 violation was part of a separate MGC hearing on March 14.
Massachusetts does not allow sports betting on any in-state college team except during tournament play. All Boston College games in question were regular-season games.
A separate hearing Friday was held by the MGC on self-reported violations against MGM Springfield. Those violations stem from unauthorized bets accepted by the casino on two regular season Harvard men’s basketball games held on Feb. 3 and Feb.4.
Penalties ranging from a reprimand to revocation of a casino’s sports betting license are possible under MGC rules. The commission has yet to issue a decision based on any of the hearings to date.
Massachusetts casinos have self-reported all sports betting violations heard by the commission to date.
Encore Violations Draw Additional Scrutiny
The commission spent nearly two hours discussing the Encore case Friday. MGC staff counsel Zach Mercer told the commission that GAN Sports — tech provider for Encore and WynnBET — reported to the MGC that the errors were partially “due to the submitted titles for events from feed providers and how they’re processed through their exclusion list.”
The feed provider for GAN is Genius Sports. GAN official Rob Lekites said in his testimony Friday that Boston College was on its list of excluded teams from the beginning, but that Genius had uploaded the events as “Boston College Eagles Women” which was not on the exclusion list.
“It wasn’t until after the Feb. 19 incident that we actually realized, oh, it’s because there’s a different name that nobody was aware of — Boston College Eagles Women — that was coming through from Genius into our system and ultimately to Wynn(BET) for wagering,” he said.
Mercer said “Boston College Eagles Women”, “BC”, and “BC Eagles” designations have all since been blacklisted. Additionally, GAN has given WynnBET traders the additional capability to have “additional control over posted offerings” as a precaution, he said.
Seven total unauthorized wagers on the Feb. 12 matchup between Boston College and the University of North Carolina and the Feb. 19 matchup between Boston College and the University of Louisville were reported to the MGC by Encore on Feb. 21, according to Mercer. All seven bets were placed at kiosks at Encore.
Mercer said four wagers totaling $50 on the Boston College-U of L game were discovered by a WynnBET trader (someone who sets sports event odds) on Feb. 19. A more in-depth look showed three wagers totaling $163 had been placed on the Feb. 12 UNC game. A total of $12.37 in winnings for the Feb. 12 game were redeemed at Encore’s betting counter, while winning totaling $9.09 on the Feb. 19 game was redeemed at an Encore kiosk.
Skinner Drills Deeper Into Audit Issue
Commissioner Lakisha Skinner asked the witnesses how the violation could have occurred twice after the Feb. 2 incident given Encore’s twice-daily audits. Roberts said there are two reasons: the naming issue or “naming convention” as she called it, and the time of day that the events were added to the system.
Lekites said the Feb. 19 game was added 30 minutes before game time which allowed it to escape both daily audits.
Delays in detecting the Feb. 12 wagers were largely due to the belief that the event had been excluded, Encore reported to the MGC.
Skinner said she would need more time to go through the testimony before making a decision. “We’ve heard a lot today that I need to sift through. So I will be asking for some time to do that.”
MGC Chair Cathy Judd-Stein said the commission will likely “circle around” with its legal counsel before making a final decision. She questioned why the wagers were accepted after the naming error had been flagged.
“It’s the same name that later tripped you up,” she said Friday. “And if you’re doing an audit you’d be looking for that.”
MGM Violations Stem From Harvard Games in Early February
MGM Springfield’s self-reported violations involved wagers accepted on the Feb. 3 regular season men’s basketball Harvard-Yale game and Feb. 4 men’s basketball Harvard-Brown game, Mercer said today. The violations were reported by the casino to the MGC on Feb. 10. All bets were placed at kiosks, with total winnings of $1,106.10.
MGM Springfield told the MGC that the unauthorized bets occurred because Harvard was listed on the casino’s blacklist as a Connecticut school. Yale is in Connecticut, and Harvard is in Massachusetts.
“When Massachusetts then came online to sports wagering and Massachusetts colleges were ineligible for regular season games, Harvard slipped through because of the previous inaccurate designation. This has since been corrected and Harvard has properly been categorized as a Massachusetts college,” Mercer told the commission Friday.
The casino performs a daily audit of offered wagers before opening its sportsbook, said Mercer. Its vendor, BetMGM, also regularly reviews its blacklist of collegiate teams, he said.
Four Hearings on MA Sports Betting Violations
The hearings on Friday were the most recent of four adjudicatory hearings against the state’s three casino sportsbooks since sports betting launched in Massachusetts on Jan. 31.
Two additional hearings were held on March 14. Those involved unauthorized wagers accepted by Encore on the Feb. 2 Boston College-Notre Dame women’s basketball game and wagers accepted by Plainridge Park Casino (a Penn Entertainment property) on a Feb. 2 regular season Merrimack College(MA)-Long Island University men’s basketball game.
All violations were self-reported by the casinos.
Regarding the Feb. 2 Encore violation, MGC Chief Enforcement Counsel Heather Hall told the MGC at a public hearing on Feb. 14 that Encore “reported that a staff member of GAN (platform provider) mistakenly omitted the NCAA women’s basketball from the prohibited wagers list,” lifting any system block on Massachusetts women’s school teams. Bets on the Feb. 2 Boston College game are voided, according to Hall.
Regarding PPC, Hall said unauthorized bets were due to Merrimack College’s home state of Massachusetts being improperly labeled as a Florida school. Bets on the Feb. 2 Merrimack College game accepted by PPC totaled $6,848, with $4,270 in winnings paid to customers.
