MGC Chair Concerned Over Low Responsible Gambling Tool Usage

On November 27, Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings, PSI, and WynnBet presented their sports wagering Q3 results to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) chaired by Catherine Judd-Stein. 

The four operators took the opportunity to update the regulator on their recorded revenue and various approaches to a variety of initiatives including responsible gambling (RG), lottery engagement, and diversity in sports betting.

Chair Judd-Stein raised a series of concerns as a result of the presented data on responsible gambling tools, with emphasis on the low rate of utilization among consumers in the Bay State. 

DraftKings, Asked to Improve its RG Figures 

During the meeting, DraftKings, represented by senior director of regulatory operations, Jake List, explained that less than 0.1% of their customers had actively used time limits. 

Moreover, only 2.3% of them used deposit limits while 0.13% were reported using spending limits. Wager limits were only imposed by 0.4% of all users. 

Judd-Stein expressed her dissatisfaction with the numbers, asking Draftings to take action toward improving the figures. She further added that the regulator’s director of research of RG had also shown concern over the fact that “the patrons just are not utilizing” the tools. 

The chairwoman emphasized the need to make RG tools appear to be “cool” in order to stimulate customers in the state to use them while welcoming any idea that DraftKings might wish to use to “get the folks to use these.”

List responded to the chairwoman’s observations by explaining that while they will continue to push for the destigmatization of RG tools, the small percentages presented in their report actually equated to thousands of people. 

Few Minor Betting Examples

The open meeting also saw the four licensees reporting single-digit or zero examples of minors betting. 

Commissioners wanted to know the measures taken by operators to identify these examples while tackling bad parenting practices that enable children to bet using the accounts of adults in the household.

Caesars Digital’s compliance manager, Curtis Lane Jr, emphasized that while this is a difficult task, some indicators including sudden location or IP address changes might be used as hints of these offenses occurring.

DraftKings spoke about the advanced Know Your Customer tools they rely on to establish when these offenses take place, including their geo-compliant tool that matches players’ phones to see if they are recognized from other types of things they had signed up to. This way, the operator can recognize the devices used to sign up to its platform.

MGC’s commissioner, Jordan Maynard, said he did not trust that the underage betting numbers presented by the operators were “zero or single digits” when more than 70% of the 3,527 people surveyed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association survey were too young or unable to gamble for the survey. Maynard expressed disbelief at the fact that operators are currently doing everything in their power to prevent minors from gambling.