Sports betting may lastly change into a actuality in Massachusetts as members of the Senate have till 5 p.m. Tuesday to file amendments to a protracted awaited wagering invoice up for debate Thursday.
The Senate invoice superior favorably, and all of a sudden, on Friday out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee with out opposition from its 17 members.
Twelve senators voted in favor, 4 — Sens. Barry Finegold, Patricia Jehlen, John Keenan and Ryan Fattman — reserved their rights and didn’t weigh in both for or towards, and Sen. Adam Hinds didn’t vote, in response to committee voting info made obtainable Monday afternoon.
Bettors have been eagerly awaiting Senate motion round sports activities betting for greater than a yr.
The House has twice accepted language to legalize the exercise, together with as a standalone invoice that handed 156-3 in July, however the Senate has lengthy appeared far much less within the matter.
A survey of senators final month discovered no less than 60% help for the idea and no senators mentioned they had been outright opposed.
Senate President Karen Spilka mentioned she was ready for consensus to type amongst senators earlier than bringing a sports activities betting invoice to the ground.
On Friday, when the invoice superior, Spilka mentioned, “I am pleased to see the committee has come to agreement on a strong proposal and I look forward to discussing it with my colleagues next week.”
There seem like quite a lot of important variations between the invoice the Senate will debate Thursday and the laws that simply handed the House in July, most notably the Senate invoice’s prohibition on wagers on collegiate athletics and the Senate’s larger proposed tax charges.
The faculty betting piece might be a stickler within the House.
Speaker Ronald Mariano mentioned final summer time on Bloomberg Baystate Business that leaving collegiate betting out of any invoice “probably would be” a dealbreaker for him.
“I find myself having a tough time trying to justify going through all of this to not include probably the main driver of betting in the commonwealth,” Mariano mentioned on the time.
The Gaming Commission, which each branches would put answerable for regulating sports activities betting, has flagged the House invoice’s allowance for slot machines in veterans posts across the state as one thing that may add a “lot of complexity” to its work.
Differences between the House and Senate payments would seemingly need to be ironed out by a six-person convention committee earlier than July 31.
Officials from Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University, Northeastern University, The College of the Holy Cross, Merrimack College and the University of Massachusetts (Amherst and Lowell) in 2020 urged lawmakers to go away faculty betting out of any legalization invoice.
— Colin A. Young / SHNS
Source: www.bostonherald.com”