Legal US Poker Sites – This week the Massachusetts Gaming Commission addressed two issues that may very well shape the future of the state’s gambling industry.
First, the Chairman of the Gaming Commission directly addressed the possibility of online betting coming to Massachusetts. The panel also looked at the viability of a relatively new plan put forward by a partnership between East Boston’s Suffolk Downs racetrack and Mohegan Sun.
Let’s start off with a look at the future for iGaming in the Bay State.
This week the Milford Daily News ran a story that got quite a bit of traction in the online gambling media, in which the head of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Stephen Crosby, remarked that the state remains focused on its efforts to launch a land-based casino industry, a project that it intends to focus on before talk of regulating online betting is going to be on the table.
“We also have taken the position that Massachusetts shouldn’t do anything in online gambling until our bricks-and-mortar people are selected because they ought to be at the table when we do this. You can’t expect somebody to give us $85 million and then spend a billion to build a facility and change the rules of the game on them a year or two down the road,” Crosby said.
Massachusetts is in the end stages of selecting operators for the land-based casinos it approved two years ago in 2011. Despite efforts earlier this year on the part of both the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the State Senate to insert provisions for real money online wagering into the state budget – both of which failed – Crosby’s comments this week make it clear that bettors in Massachusetts shouldn’t dream of sitting down at a virtual poker table or casino game anytime soon.
Casino operating licenses are expected to be issued in the spring of 2014, with the license for the state’s sole slots-only parlor anticipated even sooner, in January, though Crosby stated that it will still be years – possibly as far away as 2016 – until the new casinos in Massachusetts are open for business.
