Massachusetts regulator concerned over underage betting reports

Officials from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) have questioned if operators are doing enough to ensure underage individuals do not place bets in the Commonwealth.

At the MGC’s latest meeting, commissioner Brad Hill revealed the MGC had received information from a number of outside sources, sources which had raised concern at an MGC level that underage individuals had been using the accounts of individuals who were legally able to place bets.

Under Massachusetts law, people must be over the age of 21 to place bets at one of the state’s three licensed retail and eight online sportsbooks, with those operators legally obliged to use “commercially reasonable” efforts to prevent those underage from placing bets.

MGC’s Hill summed up the feeling of the MGC in his questioning: “’I’m able to bet. My 16-year-old knows my passwords, I allow him to go in and bet’ – which we’re being told is happening.

“We didn’t have any proof of it, but just that it was happening, can you kind of enlighten us [of] what protocols are put into place to make sure this doesn’t happen?”

Attending the meeting were representatives of Massachusetts-licensed operators DraftKings, PENN Entertainment, Caesars, and WynnBet, that each outlined similar approaches to preventing underage betting via registered account holders.

The presenting operators revealed a total of eight instances of accounts being suspended during Q3 for underage betting.

Presenting to the MGC, DraftKings confirmed it had suspended five Massachusetts-based accounts during Q3 over claims of underage wagering, with those cases either self-reported by users themselves or with some corroboratory element to support a belief that underage wagering took place.

Speaking on behalf of DraftKings, senior director of regulatory operations Jake List confirmed the Boston-headquartered firm’s KYC checks included extensive identity verification as well as geocompliance tools to check whether the device used to place bets is consistent with regular account usage.

“I would reiterate what one of the commissioners stated, that ultimately, it is difficult to police bad parenting. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of controls in place for this,” List said in the meeting.

Testifying to the MGC on behalf of PENN Entertainment, senior director of compliance Adam Kates confirmed that since PENN had switched its former Barstool Sportsbook to in-house developed technology in July 2023, the firm had required new account holders to upload both a government-issued ID and a real-time selfie.

“It’s not a situation where you can upload a picture of anybody; it [PENN’s verification system] will actually open the camera on your phone, you’ll take a selfie, and our vendor will actually match your face to the to the face on that ID,” Kates explained.

“So, this is a really good control for us to make sure that we know who we’re dealing with, and that the person who’s actually registering for the account is the person who should hold the account. 

“How this fits into the underage spectrum is we find that it’s a lot harder for a teenager to use their parent’s information and just open up an account. By adding the ID and selfie piece, you have to be holding the ID and the phone in order to open up an account,” he stressed.

After the presentations were concluded, Hill suggested he was “very comfortable” with the checks put in place by operators but asserted the issue would remain high on the MGC agenda over the coming 12 months.

“I just think it’s something that we need to continue to keep an eye on and work with our operators to ensure that this is a priority for them,” Hill said.

“I think, over the next few weeks, few months, and you know, into a new year, this issue is going to come up in regard to how we can get this information out to our high school students, college students who aren’t of age, things of that sort,” he concluded.

Hill’s sentiments were echoed by fellow MGC commissioner Jordan Maynard, who called for an all-inclusive-style strategy in which parents and account holders are educated about the need for vigilance in preventing underage betting.