 Thanks so much. And we're ready to go. Good. Thanks. Good morning. This is a convening of the Massachusetts Game and Commission. We are holding this meeting virtually, so I will do our roll call with a good morning to Commissioner O'Brien. Good morning. I am here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Oh, we couldn't quite hear you, Commissioner Hill. Jesse, you're now, and then Commissioner Skinner. I'm in here. Okay, great. Now that was clear. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Thank you and good morning, Commissioner Maynard. Good morning. Okay, we're going to start off today is November 16th. It is our public meeting number 488. We're going to have an agenda-setting meeting next Monday, so we will convene again before the holiday. But I did want to note that this is the month of gratitude, and I want to give a special thank you to the entire team for its commitment to excellence and to all of you who honor and respect the roles and responsibilities of your fellow colleagues and, of course, of the commissioners. We are very thankful. In particular, I want to give a nod to our HR team. Under the leadership of our chief people and diversity officer Dave Maltrew, they are working hard to make sure that we have a culture that always expresses its gratitude. And yesterday, there was a good example of that as we had a Thanksgiving celebration. And so a special shout out to Annie Missouri, who brings lots of sunlight and a big smile with all the work that she does. And it's those efforts that reel up. There goes Katrina with the hands up, who that makes them working as a commission and as an agency. Even though we do it virtually a lot in hybrid nature, it's really, really special when we can all get together like we did yesterday. So thanks to Dave and team. We really appreciate it. A second note that I wanted to make really for the benefit of the public, as opposed to the last was really a benefit for all of us internally. You know, I think each commissioner is reminded pretty regularly that we have stood up a regulatory framework that's demanding on our licensees, but it clearly is aligned with the values that have guided us since August 1st of 2022. And we prioritize integrity and consumer protections and of course, responsible gaming. And with that comes a burden for our licensees. And they are working every day to comply with those regulations that demand that commitment to those values. And they're responsive and they cooperate with that. We also have an unregulated market that doesn't provide those consumer protections to individuals in Massachusetts. And if those folks are playing on an unregulated platform, they don't get any of the benefits on responsible gaming that we've worked so hard to cultivate and enforce. They don't get the benefits of the consumer protections. And they don't get the benefits of the regulated market that each operator is providing, the assurance around their bets being honored and being there while it's being preserved, the cybersecurity that they all provide. And so just this is a day to even give a little gratitude for the legislation for providing a legalized market under 23N for all of you who have worked so hard to stand up that regulated industry and for the operators that are licensed in Massachusetts who are working hard to fulfill the vision of law and our expectations. So just a reminder to folks, our sports books are of course located in the non-color Boston Harbor, MGM Springfield, and Plainwood Park casino facilities. And those are the retail and they are fully licensed. You can place a bat in person and you can get help at the windows to understand your bets. With each casino, they're permitted to have two what we call tethered licenses of the three licenses to have two tethered online operators and partners and one has one. So that MGM is that MGM Springfield, Caesars Sports Book, and WinBat are our encode Boston Harbor, Fanatics, Betting and Gaming, and Penn Sports and Interactive are with Plainwood Park Casino. Those are the online, those are the platforms that are licensed through our casinos. Again, Bet, MGM, Caesars, Fanatics, PSI, now branded as ESPN Bet and WinBat. Those are legal platforms and then we have five that are independent online licensees, three of which are operating now and that is Better, DraftKings, and Vandal. Those are three legal platforms. So if you have a loved one who's betting on something other than the ones that are on our website, under our sports betting page, they're listed clearly with some explanation. They're betting on something that is illegal and doesn't provide the protections that we're working so hard to give. So just a reminder and I think a healthy reminder as we move into the future. So thanks everyone. You have a big amount of chair before you move on. I just want to base on that comment. If I forget if you could remind me during Commissioner's updates to bring something up that circles back to what you just talked about. Okay, excellent. Everybody make a note of that. It's a long day. Yeah. Thanks, Commissioner Bryan. All right. So again, we're starting public meeting number 488. I'm going to turn now to business at hand. Thanks for the time in our minutes. Commissioner Maynard. Thank you, Madam Chair. And speaking of long days, these three meetings were long days. So I didn't know if the group wants to take them separately if they want to put them together. Madam Chair and Commissioner Maynard, I have just a slight edit to the March 2nd minutes. So if we need to address that by taking a vote on these individually, then we can do that otherwise. Let's do them separately. I think let's do that, Commissioner Maynard. Good idea. All right. Thank you. Madam Chair, I move that the Commission approve the minutes from the February 28th, 2023 public meeting that are included in the Commissioner's packet subject to any necessary corrections for type graphical errors or other non-material matters. Second. Thanks, Commissioner Skinner. Okay. Any edits? Minor, big? Okay. Commissioner? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. Vote yes. Five, zero. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Commission approve the minutes from the March 1st, 2023 public meeting that are included in the Commissioner's packet subject to any necessary corrections for type graphical errors or other non-material matters. Second. Okay. Are there edits? Is this the one where Commissioner Skinner has edits or? March 2nd. Okay. So on that, I just have a couple on the remaining, this one and the next one, but they're really typographical. So Commissioner Maynard, I can just circle back to you on, it's just missing words, your things that aren't supposed to be there. Nothing substitute. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Bryan. Happy to address that. Okay. Any, any precise edits that you want to share? All right. Oh, it was just, yeah. Aye. No. Aye. I think I understand, it's always subject to a typo and we do appreciate when people catch those. So thank you. Commissioner Bryan has voted yes. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. And Commissioner Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. So 5-0 on that subject to those changes. Thank you. And Madam Chair, I move finally that the commission approved the minutes from the March 2nd, 2023 public meeting that are included in the Commissioner's packet subject to any necessary corrections for typographical errors or other non-material matters. So I'll jump in now. On page 31 of the packets, page 2 of the set, second paragraph from the bottom. I believe that comment is attributed to me and it shouldn't be. I saw that, is that the one where it says he rather than she? Yeah. And a couple. I'm guessing that might be Commissioner Hill. Do you have a memory of that, Commissioner Hill? It said, commissioner someone stated that his opinion has not changed since the prior meeting that he would prefer a waiver for both forms of agreement. And if I went back and looked at the earlier ones, it seems like that would be consistent in the deal. Should we? So I don't know how I missed that when I was reading the minutes, but I did, but that was me. That's you. And that's everybody else's look at Judy's pie. Just. Morning. I need to flip that one right away. So sorry. Okay. So we're, we're in agreement that that was Commissioner Hill, everyone. Yeah. My point, Commissioner Hill, my brain read that as Commissioner Hill stated that his opinion when I read it. So I had seen that as well. Commissioner Skinner, uh, thank you for raising it. Is there anything else? That's it for me. Okay. So with that, um, Commissioner Maynard, do you want to make a, do you want to withdraw your motion? Do we need to withdraw your motion or just say subject to our friendly amendment? What do we do here? Can we have a friendly amendment? Commissioner Skinner, could you move for the amendment to change your last name? Sure. Um, I, I, I move to change Commissioner Skinner in the second to last paragraph at the top, the first sentence actually second to last paragraph of page two of the March 2nd, 2023 minutes to read instead. Thank you so much. Do I have a second with that friendly amendment? Second. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. All right. Any further discussion on the seven minutes? They did remind us of, um, that very, very busy time and we appreciate those minutes. They're complex. Thank you very much. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. Five zero. Okay. Excellent. Thank you, Judy. Thanks. Thank you, Judy. I'm going to move right into the administrative update. Good morning, Todd. Good morning, Madam Chair, good morning commissioners, uh, and to our whole team and all who are joining us here today, um, I'll jump right in as, as we know, of course, any organization that's active in the digital world needs an information security plan. We are such an organization. In fact, of course, we are required by law to have such a plan and we do and have for many years and our plan itself, which is overseen by our chief information officer was recently updated. So we're here today to make you aware of the status of the commission's ISP. Uh, to do that, I'll turn to our chief information officer, Katrina Jagrib Gomes, and our information and network security manager, Kevin Gavro, to discuss this. Uh, just one note before doing so, of course, some of the information in our plans is sensitive. So the documents are not being shared publicly here. And certainly there are some things that we should also not discuss, um, in this forum. But with that, um, as a backdrop, I'll turn things over to Kevin and to Katrina. Uh, good morning to both of you. The floor is yours. Good morning. Thank you. Interim Executive Director Grossman. Good morning, Madam Chair and fellow commissioners. Good morning, Chief. So pursuant to 201 CMR 17, which implements the provisions of MGL chapter 93H, any entity that owns or licenses personal information about a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts must establish minimum standards to be net to safeguard that personal information. As such, 201 CMR 17 requires that Massachusetts Gaming Commission develops, implements and maintains a comprehensive written information security program or commonly known as WISP. These policies are similar to the submissions from our licensees that are also reviewed annually by the ITS division for compliance. We are also required by the comptroller's office to annually attest to having these policies in place via the internal controls questionnaire. Our intention after today is to make the policies available via the newly designed ITS intranet for access by all MGC staff. I will now hand it over to Kevin Gavro, our information and network security manager for a deeper explanation of the information security policies. Good morning, Madam Chair, fellow commissioners. Information security policies or ISPs are a set of rules and procedures that ensure the commission's digital security and protection. ISPs in conjunction with the implementation from IT also protect sensitive information and make sure only authorized individuals can access it. While the ISP is established and maintained by the IT team, the included rules and guidelines apply to all members of the commission. Information security policies provide the foundation for how we build our security program. They help to provide a roadmap for how we operate the commission's security program and they also help to articulate that we have done the due diligence of creating a comprehensive security program. The objective of the information security policies are to enable organizational strategy for the protection of customer data and material non-public information, comply with applicable laws, regulations, contractual obligations, establish a governance structure to effectively and efficiently manage information security risks, manage identified security risks to an acceptable level through design, implementation, and maintenance risk remediation plans, establish a culture of accountability and increase the level of awareness to all personnel in order to meet information security requirements and to establish responsibility and accountability for information security policies and governance across the commission. We initially adopted the executive office of technology services and securities information security policies also known as EOTS which all executive agencies follow. We have since rebranded and made minor modifications to language to reflect the needs of the commission. These policies will be updated at least annually for following any significant change to industry standards for the commission's infrastructure using EOTS policies, the National Institute for Standard and Technology, and the Center for Internet Security as guidelines. At this time, I'll dive into a few examples of standards covering the ISPs. Passwords. As we all know, passwords at the MGC have specific complexity requirements. Those requirements are detailed in the access management standard which focuses on account lifecycle, granting, modifying, and revoking access privileges to protect assets from unauthorized access. Typically, access privileges are provisioned using the least privilege access principle. Asset inventory. A thorough inventory through an information security classification system which is found in the asset management standard allows ITS to better implement and standardize security controls to protect endpoints and mobile devices from malware and information leakage. Another example, security controls contained in the physical and environmental security standard manage access to information assets and facilities with safeguards to protect against environmental hazards and unauthorized access. We are open to answer any questions or if there are none, I will hand it over to Interim Executive Director Grossman. Questions commissioners for Kevin or Chief Group Gomes? Kevin, I just want to thank you and your team for the work that you do regularly, particularly we rely so much on your entire team and we also know the good work that Kevin's submission is doing. These issues around cyber security and IT security are only getting more and more complicated and I feel confident based on really your everyday guidance that we get that you are staying well ahead of the curve on those complexities while educated. You're getting your training and in turn you're keeping us aware and training. I just want to extend my appreciation for the training that you give us. Thank you. Thank you. Kevin and Katrina, well done. Madam Chair and commissioners, that's all we have for you today. Okay, excellent. Thank you, Todd. All right. I'm returning to our legal team. That's you again, Todd. We're in a different hat but you've got, I see Ying is on board and I know that Director Vandalinen will be joining. There we go. Good morning. Good morning, Ms. Wang. How are you? Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. The legal division is bringing forward suggested amendments to 205-CMR-152 for your review. These are amendments to the involuntary exclusion list. They specifically relate to court-ordered exclusion as set out in the statute. This is the first time you're seeing this draft and we're going to ask you at the end if you're comfortable with moving this version through the promulgation process. So if you give me one moment, I'll pull up the statute. So before diving in, it's important to note that under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 23K, there are three types of exclusion. There's involuntary exclusion, there's voluntary self-exclusion, and then there's a lesser known form of exclusion called court-ordered exclusion, which we're here to talk about today. This is a mechanism for an immediate family member or guardian to petition the district court in writing for an order of exclusion from gaming establishments. For someone they have reason to believe is a problem gambler. We need to make sure our regulations accommodate that and I'm prepared to walk you through the proposed changes section by section. I also wanted to note I'm joined today by Mark VanderLinden, a Director of the Research and Responsible Gaming Division, and Heather Hall, Interim Director and Chief Enforcement Council of the IEP, who can also answer any other questions you may have about court-ordered exclusion. So if you turn to page 39 of your meeting packet, I also have it open here as well. You will find a red-line version of the regulation with our proposed amendments. First in the section titles, we propose adding the words exclusion before list in 152.02 and 152.04 for clarity purposes. We also propose changing the title to 152.05 to make it clear that this section refers to court-ordered exclusion. Then in 152.01 scope and authority, we propose adding a citation to the statute about court-ordered exclusion, which you can see here in red. Does anyone have any questions so far? Thank you. Great. And then turning to 152.02 maintenance and distribution of exclusion lists, the Commission shall maintain the list of persons to be excluded from gaming and sports wagering as set forth in this regulation, and the name and year of birth of each person on the exclusion list shall be posted on the Commission's website, except for the individuals on the court-ordered exclusion list pursuant to Massachusetts General Law chapter 23K section 45I. I think what's important to note here is that list of excluded persons is a defined term under Massachusetts General Law chapter 23K. The list of individuals on the involuntary exclusion list and the court-ordered exclusion list will make up the list of excluded persons. However, we are proposing by regulation not to include the category of court-ordered exclusion individuals on the website, given that this list refers to individuals with a health issue. Does anyone have any questions about that particular section? Thanks. And then moving down to 152.05, page 41 of your packet, we also propose amendments to 152.05 about court-ordered exclusion. This section specifies that upon receipt of notice from a district court that an individual has been prohibited from gaming and gaming establishments at the Bureau shall place the name of the individual on the exclusion list. That same list of court-ordered exclusion shall be maintained by the Bureau and shared with the gaming licensees. And then finally, the Bureau shall not remove the name of an individual from the court-ordered exclusion list until ordered to do so by a court of competent jurisdiction. So, Madam Chair, when I had my briefing with legal on this one, this reg only deals with what is the statutory obligation that we have as a commission in ultimately the Bureau to act in accordance with the district court order. I did raise the question hypothetically of if we got any sort of order or request from another court probate a condition of probation in the criminal context. It's not this reg that would speak to that, but I did want to throw out that legal and we might want to think about how we, the commission and the Bureau, respond if there's a request outside of an order from district court, because I don't think it's the only way that may come in front of us. So, that's a discussion for another day, but I did want to throw out that I had had that conversation with legal. Thank you. I mean, other comments are, well, I want to update the commission that I reach out to the Trial Court Administrator, Tom Amerseno, and Commissioner Skinner reached out to a content that occurs in the district court. Of course, we're both looking at trial court. I think there is perhaps an expanded court procedure, perhaps you're alluding to that, Commissioner Bryan, that certainly an individual could appeal if their name was placed and not by a family member pursuant to the process. I think those would be procedures that the courts will deal with. Mr. Amerseno got back to us and Commissioner Skinner saw the response well that they had a chance to review this and they had no comments at this time. I indicated that we wanted to just make sure they were aware because this is unique to Massachusetts, and Mark may want to address that. And just having our conversation today, and Director Vanderlin's work and the response for gaming space may make folks once more aware of this option. And so we wanted to make sure the courts were prepared should there be more activity. It's been reported that they know of no requests pursuant to the statutory conduct at this time. Commissioner Skinner, did you want to raise anything else on that? I just want to note that the Trial Court has been extremely cooperative with the Commission in trying to work together on developing sort of a process by which we can be informed. We the Commission as to what steps or processes and procedures the Trial Court is putting into place or will put into place relative to these regulatory amendments. My contact who is the Director of Court Services for the Trial Court overall was very responsive as well. She happened to put us in touch with the Deputy Court Administrator for the District Court, and I understand that discussions will proceed with that individual just in terms of, again, the Commission gaining an understanding as to how we can inform stakeholders about that option. So, Mark, I'm sure will keep us posted on how those discussions are going. Right. And I've mentioned to you, this is also an opportunity perhaps for her to, and I know that they have a full lot of attorneys to assist in this to be able to reach out perhaps to the bar organization so they understand this is an option for families. Mark, if you want to add anything? Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Commissioners. You know, I think our number one priority from research and responsible gaming is to just make sure that family members who want to seek relief, want to seek help for themselves and for their loved one can do so as easily as possible. And we can get them the information as clear and straightforward as possible. So I think that that does require us to, you know, work closely with the Court to really understand the process, how to communicate it, how to communicate their orders to individuals that would be interested in this. This is also the work of the GPAC Addiction Services Subcommittee. This was an early priority that they identified connecting, you know, this type of often for exclusion with information about them and about gambling harm as it relates to family members and other resources that may be available. Back to you, Yang. What do you need from us today? With that, that concludes our presentation, and I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have. And we have included a small business impact statement in your packet if you'd like to vote to begin the promulgation process. And this is standard to not emergency correction. Correct. Thanks. Commissioners, are you prepared to move? Excellent work. Thank you very much, Yang. Certainly, I can offer a motion if you're ready for it, Madam Chair. Thanks. I move that the Commission approve the small business impact statement in the draft of 205-CMR 152 as including the commissioners packet and discussed here today and further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with Secretary of the Commonwealth to begin the regulation promulgation process. Second. Thanks, Commissioner Maynard. All right. Any further discussion on this important initiative? And we just very much appreciate Yang's leadership here. Thank you so much. Commissioner Ryan. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. And I vote yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. We're going to now move on. Sorry. I've put my budget. We're going to move on next to the Racing Regulation. And who's leading this? Good morning, Paul. Good morning, commissioners. So this morning, we're putting 205-CMR 200 before you for an emergency vote. 205-CMR 200, as you know, governs the licensing process for racetracks, including the contents, sequencing and review of applications and the suitability process. This was before you all in mid-October for an initial review after which we put it out for an abbreviated public comment period. We received public comments from Council to Base State Racing LLC and from Paul Umbrella, the Executive Director of the New England Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association. And we're grateful for those comments. We've made a few changes in response, and that's been planning to walk you through today. So the overarching theme of Base State's comments was a concern that the racing license application review process would be rigidly centered around the October 1st date in the statute and incorporated into the regulations. That is not what we envisioned, and so where we could offer amendments that might give more clarity and comfort to applicants without creating actual logistical problems for the commission or where we could introduce more flexibility into the process we did. So first, Base State Racing expressed concerns about the rigidity of the timelines for the receipt of scoping surveys, BEDs, MJPHDs, and mess ups. As a reminder, the draft regulation requires operators who need to submit those forms to attest that if they haven't gotten those, that they understand that if they haven't gotten those forms in by a certain date in the spring and summer, that it may not leave the commission enough time to adequately review the suitability of the applicant and the commission may deny the application accordingly. Those timelines were not meant to be rigid and applicants can always supply materials earlier. Instead, they're designed to protect the commission against the worst case scenario where the applicant waits until the last minute to provide materials for an initial suitability review and then expects the commission to move heaven and earth between October 1st and November 15th to process the application. What is slightly rigid is that the IEB needs time with the scoping survey before they can tell the applicant exactly which affiliated entities or people need to submit a BED, MJPHD, or mess up. But we do recognize that some of those entities or people will be obvious and it may be helpful for us and for the applicant. The applicant can start submitting paperwork for the obvious people while the IEB is still processing the scoping survey. For example, we can put in an educated guest that the CEO of a racing operation is going to have to submit an MJPHD and a mess up. So what we did on page 53 of your packet is allow submissions for anticipated rather than designated qualifiers with the permission of the IEB so that the IEB can still manage the process and then on the following page of your packet allow the change tweak the sequencing of submissions provision so that with the permission of the Bureau applicants can submit qualifier materials on a per qualifier basis rather than as a whole. Our hope is that this will encourage applicants to be proactive both in the preparation of their materials and submission of their materials and in talking to the IEB about the staging and the sequencing of their applications and how we can make their lives easier and how they can make our lives easier. So the next change that we recommend is to 205CMR2035 which is going to be on page 58 of your packet. Both Base State Racing and DNHBPA expressed concerns that again the timeline was rigidly organized around the October 1st statutory deadline and the commission would not start processing applications until after October 1st. We added language to make very clear what we always envisioned which was that the commission could start processing applications as soon as they were complete when it was when appropriate to do so. The last request that both Base State and the NHBPA made that we did not accept was to set a rigid deadline upon receipt of a complete application for the processing of that application. I think both organizations asked for a 45-day timeline based on the 45 days between October 1st and November 15th. We think adopting that change would be counter to the general principles of flexibility and dealing with situations as they come that are embodied in the rest of this regulation. We and there's a risk that adopting a rigid deadline could disadvantage an applicant who has a more who has a more complex application that takes longer or could disappear or otherwise throw roadblocks and complications in the process. What that said not adopting a rigid application processing deadline in the regulation does not mean that the commission can't do its best to accommodate the needs of particular applicants when those needs are communicated to the commission. And if Base State racing as I gather from their communications as I gather from their comment letter is going to need to have a license in hand to meet a certain construction or financing deadline I trust that they will communicate that timeline to the commission and the commission we can do what is appropriate with that information. So those are all of our those are all of our edits to the regulation and our remaining responses to the comments. I'm happy to answer any questions on those or on any other part of the regulation. Questions commissioners can you just help me I want to make sure that we are being responsive to that clarity that they may need to be able to put financing in place. The solution I'm hearing you say is that they can come to the commission to make that request. Yes I think if an applicant informs the commission well in advance that they need you know they would need to have a license in hand by April 1st I'm making I'm making up this date I have no idea what their timing is if they say you know we need our license in hand by April 1st the commission the IEB can have a conversation with the applicant about when materials would need to come in in order to make that even feasible and then if appropriate you can you five can decide to do your best to accommodate that to accommodate that request. So that's a conversation that the applicant would have with the bureau? It depends on I think what stage of the process they're what stage of the process they initiate that conversation at. There's a question of staging the materials required for suitability review and there's question of staging and reviewing the rest of the application and I can't predict exactly how that conversation would shape out I don't know when they're going to be able to start organizing their materials. But broadly I think it's a conversation with the commission because the commission are going to be the ultimate deciders on the license application but because a major portion of the sequencing and staging of the application materials has to be done in conversation with the bureau I think the bureau will be a party to that conversation as well. Does our regulation say that? Not really. So because I'm I'm very I am very empathetic for both parties to be clear. The if it is in April 1st they put it together let's say December of the the new year and they need it April 1st and they're having conversations with IEB about suitability. I know that that's a lot of work for IEB and yet they may have a real business need. So I guess my thought would be IEB you don't need to bear that burden yourself and you should come to the commission for us to talk it through. It could be that there's a decision to provide additional resources to get that suitability study done or we just explained that it's not reasonable but I think it is I could imagine because we're operating with a year one year window always on these that could come up. Commissions I don't know if you have any thoughts on it. I'll set then. Any other questions for Paul? Heather do you want to chime in? Thank you chair. I don't have any thoughts on this at the moment. I know that IEB work closely with A&K as well as our internal legal folks so I think we're in a comfortable place with it. Yeah and you understand my point I assume where there could be a real business pressure against you know and the commission could really help you if there's that that point of pressure. Absolutely and we would keep the lines of communication flowing to the commission. Yeah come up with something. Okay Okay commissioners are you prepared to move? This is excellent work, long time coming and so important really starting to provide clarity to this regulatory process and we thank Fully Hoag and Mr. Umbrella for their comments. I have a motion. Madam chair. Yes please. I would move that the commission approve the small business impact statement and the draft of 205CMR 2.00 as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today and further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth to begin the regulation promulgation process. Is this by emergency or regular? Emergency. Yeah I thought it was so can we move and then is there separate emergency language potentially? Maybe there could be a friendly amendment to the to Commissioner Hill's motion that it be done by emergency. Thanks Caitlin. Friendly amendment. And that language is sufficient right that it be done pursuant to the emergency regulation process. Okay so I would make that friendly amendment Commissioner Hill. Thank you the record reflects that with that amendment. I yield Commissioner Maynard. I didn't I didn't see Commissioner thank you so Commissioner Skinner seconded with a friendly amendment. Oh no. Commissioner Maynard actually. Oh I'm sorry. I did the amendment he did the second. I was concentrating on your face Commissioner Bryan and this Commissioner Maynard. Thank you so much. We have a second from him Commissioner Bryan. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. I vote yes. Excellent. All right. Madam Chair. Yes. I wanted to let you know I seem to be having some intermittent connectivity issues and so if I freeze or get disconnected that is why and I'll be right back on. Okay and Commissioner Skinner so far so good for us I think so thank you. Okay now we're going to turn to item number five. I just way think team has really been working with our legal team of course on the data privacy regulation and the waivers that have been outstanding so I'm going to turn to Director Band and you can make your opening statements and introduce everyone. Thank you so much. Yes. Yes. Madam Chair today we have two items before you the first one being the data privacy waiver requests and that will be presented by our business manager Crystal Bochumann and the second one would be a request for a void of a wager and that will be by the interim operations manager Andrew Steffen. We have parts of the legal team as well on the first section with Crystal. Crystal I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. So we're returning to the discussion about the data privacy regulation 205CMR 257 which operators previously submitted waivers for and the commission decided on November 17th 2023 as a uniform waiver date so with that data approaching tomorrow we've received the updated waivers the requests and the implementation details we'd requested for operators to come into compliance with the regulation. Sorry it's super bright the waiver requests are they're all within the packet and we've included a few charts that have complete that we compile just to assist with providing an overview and dates at a glance the general requests which have come in are focused on 2502 and 2505 specifically as well as 2503034 and 250705 so as such the sportswear during team and the legal council have identified that it it might make the most sense for us to walk through each regulation section as opposed to reviewing each waiver request from the operator and Mina has offered to help guide us through the regulations to provide some context in that we can offer an overview of our analysis and some potential considerations for the commissioners on waiver timelines is that um how you'd like to proceed. Thank you crystal for that and and that makes great sense just one point of procedure we have reserved on the agenda possibility of going into executive session if that's the case for the public we will return to this public session but we will need to get started to learn in fact that's the case thanks so much morning Mina good morning madam chair and commissioners so as as crystal pointed out there there's a lot of overlapping requests here and it made sense to us I think as you'll see as we as we go through to focus on this by section and really a couple of key issues come out as themes throughout the the waiver requests and and sort of once once we start talking about them you'll see there's some that kind of flow from each other and decisions on one waiver may affect the others the so I will just ask for your patience and certainly interrupt me if you need to because we may be skipping back and forth a little bit between the documents more than where we're typically doing as the the sort of key chart that I'm going to be working off of as a starting point it starts on page 180 of your packet towards the end of the the data privacy sections and then we also will be spending a good amount of time at pages 83 onward which is where the reg languages but I'll try my best to describe the language so we're not going you know we're not jumping around too much so without further ado the the first key section that got some requests and I know I was a source of some questions for clarification that was provided by the sportsway during division and legal team is 2507021 250702 is the section titled data use and retention it relates to the obligations and permissible uses of data and retention of data by the operator themselves so we're not talking about third parties yet just talking about the operators themselves and and you know their their employees etc the key question that came up and this came up in the comments beforehand and we had had broadened it a bit in the during the regular the rulemaking process is the section starts with a sportsway during the operator shall only use confidential information and personally identifiable information and quote as necessary to operate a sports waging area sports waging facility or sports waging platform or to comply with 23 and 205 cm or any other applicable law regulation court order etc to detect security incidents against malicious behavior and there's a sort of litany of sort of legal pieces to them most of the much of the questions of many of the questions we've gotten the waivers had to do with what exactly necessary to operate might mean I'm going to try to take these up into two sections one is for data use and retention and first sharing with third parties the clarification that I think sports waging provided and that we we agree with this reading is that necessary to operate really does have a pretty broad meaning it is everything that one that an operator has to do to provide the product that they're providing to patrons in a safe way to be able to ensure that the folks who are using it are have their are not subject to fraud that the operator itself or the commonwealth isn't being opened up to fraud or the use of fraudulent accounts certainly would include any of the anti-money laundering provisions or protections that folks have so it is a fairly broad piece and the reason it matters in the reg is that outside of that necessary to operate is where operators would need to seek consent for use of data in our discussion that operators about this it does seem to be that most of the concerns about where necessary to operate might spill into something that needs consent really actually get into the sharing with third parties because it is hard to it's almost there's a lot of there's going to be a lot of variety and discretion operator to operator on what's really necessary for them depending on how they structure their platform how they structure their operations how they run their security apparatus etc so it's a fairly we think it's a fairly broad definition it actually allows a lot of usage of data with proper protections so given that clarification i think some operators have phrased this their request some operators said okay why don't we have that clarification we're kind of good to move forward with this section others have asked for a for time to properly scope their compliance especially in thinking about the section i'll talk about next the the consents for you know additional uses the the ones that are related specifically to 2507021 are a request from fanatics to extend through may 2024 and one section three sorry draft kings as asked for both o1 and o2 through july 1 2024 and caesars through june 30th so effectively the same one day apart this is one where you know the commission could decide if it were if it were inclined to grant these waivers to grant all of them to a certain date or to grant them to the dates asked fanatics is suggesting it can be about a month and a half two months ahead of the draft kings and caesars dates but all roughly late spring early end of spring as the as the dates for the waiver and i think this is this is sort of to adjust for the information that came out of the process the first waiver process that we just got there so mina can i ask you i know that the the data privacy group from the ag's office was involved in the round table and some of the conversations about the wording and the timing did we consult with them at all in terms of the reasonableness of the timing request i'll defer to attorney monahan on that i know we have consulted we have made them aware of they have the information on the waiver request i'm not sure about that particular question okay no i we did not discuss the particular deadlines on the request mina i i have to i i haven't reconciled all the dates um right but generally what you're saying if you were to adopt a universal waiver between mid spring the date that was asked for this particular section is actually closer to late spring uh fanatics was mary and draft kings and caesars were june 30th and july 1st so um really ended the beginning of summer yeah thanks i did i was sort of like did not try to do all these things right there's a lot to there's a lot of different dates and that's that's why the issue and and are the other operators are requesting as well is it these three who are asking for extension so yeah um commissioner brian uh that question leads me to ask if i if i could i would actually like to talk about 250 202 two because more operators are asking about that side of the same thing and i think they're related in an important way um so 250 202 uh two is uh some paragraph two is has to do with the patron consent the opt-in consent um and i as as you heard during the comment process there was some concern about an opt-in versus opt-out um some regular some of the operators having thought about what they believe what they now understand to be necessary to operate being broad enough no longer feel like they need to do really any consents or very limited consensus so they're not too particularly worried about it the operators that have um um there are other operators who have asked for waivers on that deadline and in in actuality i think that's actually the more active piece of the work that needs to be done the first section is really about what necessary to operate means so they're tied together but for the outside of that necessary to operate the consent the folks asking for waivers that consent uh include fanatics draft kings and caesars the three that we talked about uh also fan duel and better um the requests for draft kings and caesars they're really asking for the same date so given what they know about necessary to operate they want to also be able to have until june 30th and july 1st um we'll call it june 30th for this purpose just for ease end of june um to also be able to do the to put together the technology for the opt-in consents um fan duel uh did not ask for a waiver from the first section they you know the interpretive section they're only asking for a waiver on the consents uh to october 2024 um um and better is asking for one uh through march 2024 so again a little bit there are other operators have not asked for a waiver from that particular section from my understanding from at least one of the conversations or and reading through some of the packets some of that is based on an assumption that they they feel comfortable within their own legal departments and security departments that everything they're doing will be within the confines of necessary to operate for this purpose the third party is a separate conversation but for the purposes of what they use in store themselves i'm going to say the 1024 um way outside my comfort zone you know i see everyone is landing in that spring about six months from now for a lot of the other stuff but for what it's worth um that october date seems like an outlier okay and the october was for two section two and uh the other one was for one just to really understand their landscape the first one uh that got us in shoe but the event who wants to understand that landscape they're not so worried about the implementation it's kind of a combined effort and any explanation for uh to address commissioner brian's concern of why why um october might be more reasonable than it seems um chris i don't know if uh this is particularly in duals request i think that would be and they i think they are available if you wanted to address that question specifically to them we had asked the operators to be available i'm just looking at their request i can't remember what they do we have in their written request i mean of course none of the operators know what at the time knew what other operator dates were coming in so they wouldn't necessarily address why they would take longer than someone else so that's sort of the exact purpose we asked them to be here to address that um and i think andrew is on but yeah and it's not so much a point of comparison it might be unique to them chris so that's what i'm thinking right i thought it was a particular issue because it doesn't have to be a universal um we tend to fight that operation you know madame madam chair i'm sorry fish and health um i think i'm hearing we have someone from fan dual here can we ask them that question yeah hi andrew good morning good morning here um the question is about the time yes i did how are you i'm good i'm good thank you very much and i want to thank the commission for giving us the opportunity to answer the questions today related to our uh waiver request uh so we we lined it out in the text of the waiver request itself we expect to commence development on the solution in q4 2023 our our estimate that we presented was that it would take 20 to 24 weeks to develop the solution about four to six weeks for testing of the solution and one to two months uh of the rollout of the solution in order to gain release note approvals and connect the consent mechanisms with our internal systems for operational purposes so that that's the kind of timeline that we gave which got us to uh around that october one date we do understand that other operators have provided in their request today that they'd be able to do it earlier um this is what we think is a reasonable timeline uh and so that's that's where we we get i'd be more than happy to answer any specific questions that i can about uh about each of these steps thank you questions or andrew thank you for being here today uh i appreciate the clarification on that um i'm not inclined to go out that far given that the other players in this sort of area can do it a little um actually substantially faster and so my question is how does this work if what you get is a weaver consistent with them with the other operators and the opportunity to come in in the spring if you are in fact finding that you need the other time well i think that i'd have to consult with our tech teams on that but my my gut reaction would be that we would endeavor to create the opt-in mechanism as quickly as possible and then the only the question i think would be probably on the testing and rollout of the solution is that that would probably be the area that would have to be truncated if necessary to to to get it in place in time so the question then becomes a question of how uh the necessarily the reliability of the solution that we tested the solution to our in our particular standards fully in a way that we feel fully confident that it's integrated and not going to be buggy when it is implemented director band do you want to weigh in on that actually if i could madam chair before we go into that respond to that that it seems to me you could shorten the schedule give an update without necessarily truncating the reliability and the testing and so just for what it's worked before we move on to uh director band i'm inclined while i hear you you guys have been in the industry longer than even some of the licensees who aren't asking for that period of time and so um i know you have a lot on your plate but i'm just leaning toward going to that June date obviously with the understanding you could come in in the spring to say you know it is in fact going to take us more time it seems it's such a important area that i'm going out almost a year seems too far for me and then i don't know Bruce if you want to chime in now i i was actually going to make the same suggestion that commissioner brian made is that give them the shorter time period and then have them come back they if they reach the solution or still need more time on it that kind of makes sense yeah and we would appreciate that i think it's it's it's a that would be a fair i think compromise for us to go forward you know with with a expected date and then be come back to the commission that you know end of q1 next year say here's where you know as for our quarterly updates that we expect to provide the commission and say here's where we're at here's where we think we can get it can we have we've been able to speed it up to get it by the time or what will be done by by June 1 you know or by July 1 whatever the date is madame chair yes question so through you to commissioner o brian i think i heard you say june 1st is that satisfactory to you it would be to me but i want to make sure i think amina was collapsing the two sections that there could there's some overlap for certain operators but that they might work for the end of june um there are i think there's three dates five 24 6 30 and 7 1 were the three dates that are various opera but out there as markers there's even a march date too right so some might be able to be earlier for the oh too right and of course some haven't asked for waivers at all so the presumed right they're also i mean what's your suggestion in terms of how best to make this helpful for the sports wagering team to monitor and enforce and then also make sure we we give the operators my sense to make sure that there's proper integrity uh so um madame chair i do think there is some advantage from what i understand from conversations with director band and business director uh poochman that there is a a consistency would be helpful um so if they're not looking for for different dates obviously earlier compliance is welcome but uh consistency would be helpful um so if and and because oh one and oh two are so closely tied together um it does seem to make sense that that's sort of where the rubber meets the road for for permission oh one uh is is in the consensus oh two is to tie those together uh and june uh june 30th uh as a deadline may make sense for that reason i i think the date is more of your uh policy piece i will say one thing just to be clear about is that the um the the problem that comes up if those deadlines aren't met for an operator is not necessarily that they have to roll out untested data or untested platforms it's if they don't get a further waiver it would be that they couldn't use the uh can use data that requires consent uh uh with for those purposes other than those necessary purposes which again based on the input from some of the operators that didn't ask for a waiver could be either a null set or a very small set of uses so that's that's why i'd be you know just thinking that it's it's not a matter of asking operators to put up untested platforms it's just making sure that they know which data they need them for that's right so it feels as though we should be somewhat comforted by the fact that on understanding more clearly what necessary to operate means that they aren't that they actually are are not sharing data in a way that's not with our expectations right now generally you've got a sense of that Mina um generally yes madam chair i just want to make one important edit to what you said you said sharing data and again i just want to use using it for now we get to share i think there's other issues because and because i do think there may be more um concern about the practicality of the sharing it was a mistake on my part yes i understand but i mean the comfort level is now seems that that's a good the exercise has been helpful um in that they be removed the landscape that's great okay so commissioners should we well actually i'm going to turn to katelyn who keeps us organized on these types of things could be could be um are you keeping record of each of these and then we're going to follow at the end or how public how would we go about this request so i'm keeping um track of what you're saying so just to summarize what we've just talked about the waivers for 257.021 and 257.022 would be through June 30th for fanatics draft king caesars fan duel and better um i think it could be helpful to take these up one by one as we go through um just because we're going to there's a lot right but we could also wait till the end but i think it might be helpful to do it one by one once you've settled on a on a timeline and so we would look at this as a particular single waiver would respect uh 202 subsection one and 202 subsection two yes that's what i would recommend okay so questions if we don't have any other questions with respect to this discussion i would call it and ask for a motion. Madam chair no questions um but i would like to offer comment i think what what has been proposed in terms of the compromise is a reasonable one um and i support it um but i have a specific request to uh not just fan duel but all of the operators that we're going to be reviewing waiver requests for today and that is uh to the extent possible um the the expectation is that operators are adjusting their business priorities um to ensure that you know they are meeting uh these deadlines in terms of the waiver uh expiration um Mina i appreciate that you framed sort of the consequence of not um meeting those deadlines it put things in a little bit more context for me so um i'm supportive of what's being offered here today as i said thank you. Madam chair just um i while we were talking i did receive a note from better with a question to clarify um that if it's if it's appropriate it's it's regarding oh two so i don't know if you would like me to wait till after the vote or perhaps talk about it now just in case it affects anybody's thinking i i think um it would be helpful and they've reached out um and yeah so so the question is um what would happen to existing patrons that sign up before the implementation will they be considered opted in or out or will require dedicated consent from them um as the rag is written uh my interpretation of of the written rag is that it would cover existing patrons because again we're talking about the necessary uses of the data not the you know not the overall sign up so if there are uses that perhaps have been um undertaken so far uh that would now require consent i think there's obviously that i would leave it to the individual operators of how they seek that consent and whether they do a separate platform for one or the other but as as i think um all of us who are consumers in other contexts know it's not unusual to get an updated privacy policy an updated privacy request to be told your software is now different than it might be have been five months ago and here's some some new information we're asking you about hopefully that's helpful where's the baron are you prepared to move no i was saying he just gave a thank you in the chat so i'm assuming that was helpful i didn't see that that's right mr maynard i i do have a question just on um so 257.021 bandool did not have an issue with that it looks like they were requesting just two but yet draft kings and caesars had two different dates for 01 and 02 i'm just trying to make sure that if we use a uniform date um that we're not actually incentivizing vandal to to not move forward with 0.021 i'm just trying to think here about how we're you know we're parsing this out i want to make sure that we're not missing something here no my apologies you're you're right my apologies i should you're you're absolutely right i should have broken that i guess into two different motions so one should be for 01 and then one should be for 02.2 um i miss that there wasn't that that joint request for one of them sorry this this one's complicated commission apologies but these motions are going to test us today i have a question for the search warranty too when you talk about keys for you as a unit having consistency is it is it consistency within each reg right to say okay date x will apply to 02.1 date y will apply to 02.2 does that satisfy the consistency that you said you guys might find helpful see if we were to take that mean it um sure sure everything's so complicated um right yeah yes i'm of the mind appreciated where i want to be reasonable but i also don't want to needlessly pump something out if we can clear it off understandably and of course we've looked at that um and i and i guess the answer is obviously we will do what whatever you you guys decide um the the way that we had asked for these requests was to come in with a working plan so that's why these dates are all over the map because we didn't want just one uniform date however since they are key components to a plan it's actually we'd still have to figure out what we do on our end to determine compliance with that component and by that aspect it's really going to be level of reporting which we had asked how they would be doing that and we'll look into the reporting um and then of course working with um the our experts internally and externally to make sure uh we know how to look at this so uh as some of this is in which Mina is saying goes hand in hand and also the decisions that are made today will impact whether they can move even quicker perhaps um these it really i'm not sure matters whether they're entirely different dates or they're all uniform so there are pieces i know we're moving toward in a few minutes where they they will make more sense that we have them set a particular date or set apart from these two um i don't know Mina if you want to add to that but really we can sure sure i'm reading a chat sorry no i apologize i madame chair i'm getting i'm yet another operator asking a question that you had and i would actually just invite them to if through you to speak to the commission there may be more uh more useful and more appropriate yes yes better yes good morning how are you nice to see you i see you as well thanks for the opportunity to speak um i i did just want to point out you know when we approach the waiver request um we addressed it as uh the the rule in its entirety so point two um in its entirety i think the clarification on the necessary to operate has been very helpful um i can take that back to my team but just wanted to be clear that um what we what we represented on on our waiver request is that we would be in compliance with the entirety of 250 702 um within 18 months and what we'd spelled out uh was kind of how we think fanatics is in a unique place and that we're in a limited number of markets that don't have you know we we've not been subject to as wide an array of uh data privacy required legal requirements as some of our competitors and we're also in a moment where um we're attempting to launch in uh you know the rest of the country we're we're only in five markets currently so um had tried to spell out in our waiver request why our lead time might be a bit longer but just wanted to clarify it sounds like it was being represented that we had said we could comply by May of of 24 um and that's not what was in our waiver request and my colleges because i i thought it was Alan sir said from better it's out sniffing fanatics i just want to make sure that we hear that's fanatics so that's that's really helpful to know um so universe of that sense necessarily then well i think um we this is why i asked the question around the dates because they i feel like we're going to have to do tranches where it's sort of the we'll have a date this is where i'm coming from we have a date that seems to fall with most that have asked for extensions and even fanatics at that point would come back at that point with an update and ideally even a more sort of informed at that point request for an extension so if we're going to do universal that's sort of where i'm thinking we do this because it seems like people may be coming in as they implement with all sorts of different challenges and dates i think the challenge right now for me is i think i understood mr smith saying that they're they looked at it as a date for their entire as opposed to pieces and i'm not sure if perhaps other operators did the same thing um we i i think there's there's some value in commissioner scanners there's a lot of value in commissioner skinner's point and i it's that you know we do want we want the operators they understand this is very critical to massachusetts and and it's in their interest to get the systems going full compliance because this is our the expectation but i worry about if we have so many different or compliance on all of these separate issues that's going to be hard for our team um and so that's what i was thinking do we pick one that seems to coalesce around sort of an agreed upon at least step forward on these and i don't know if june 30th is that date and then we calendar this so that it comes back in front of us a good maybe six weeks to two months prior where our team is getting updates on if anyone needs longer fully recognizing that you have certain licenses like fanatics who've already indicated that they will likely be coming back at that point and asking for more time yeah i guess i'm just wondering how many are in that category i don't know if we have a sense of that yeah so madam chair i that the requests that came in um there were a couple of operators uh for that covered um sections more broadly uh fanatics did ask and i apologize i think i may have just made a mistake on the on the written timeline that was in front of me that for this 18 months so that's 20 they were they asked for all of 20 257 02 the entire day of 257 02 um other than that they fanatics also did that with other provisions so we'll get to later so i'll try to mark those as we go um the uh folks at mgm springfield asked for 257 generally um the whole reg uh through may 15 2024 so we decided to take this up in pieces first because i think they're uh it does include this but they were talking about the contract sections i believe in particular um part of the issue here i think that's complicating this um is the level of granularity did differ but those were those were really the two major outliers that i as i mentioned um the other thing that differed between requests is whether folks um only asked for waivers from the kind of moving language of the statute of the regs excuse me versus the um standards um so what they have to do versus what the stat what the regs mean and so you're seeing that for instance in the in the distinction between accepting what 257 01 means what's necessary versus implementation i'm actually putting the consent platforms you'll see it again with the contracts piece on the data sharing what i might suggest is is to commissioner brian's point having for 257 01 um for the folks who did ask for that which would include fanatics um um a june third a june 30th deadline for for 257 01 for fanatics draft kings and caesars who all requested i'm understanding fanatics asked for more keeping that same deadline for now for the consents since um and adding to that fan dual who also had that request and better who had that had the march one request um um gets you to seeing if the consent platforms can be worked out some of the other items if you look at fanatics um submittal that they put under the the reasons for 257 02 taking 18 months include not just the collects and management system but uh you know for instance building a new user experience flow for collecting cents implementing tools and guardrails to prevent defined data elements from being used for nonessential features it's not really clear from the letter which of those can happen before june or not and i that gives them seven more months to get there um and i it sounds like there's an understanding that that may not be it because of their unique situation with other jurisdictions i'm sorry matt chariot i didn't hear the first part of that very well we're looking at 01 is fanatics draft kings and caesars and then 02 those three cost fan dual and better i thought included better as well i did i did yeah better i'd ask for a mark yeah sorry better i'd include after march 1 2024 okay i'm sorry i couldn't hear better being repeated okay so it sounds as though i'm not hearing that all five are going to be back on june 30th looking for more time that june 30th is realistic for the collective good of those five the others are all set is that fair based on the representations as i understand them from the waivers and yeah and of course the others that we didn't ask for waivers at all appeared to be awesome and um you know mr smith you know you're hearing very clearly that the commission would be um receptive to uh um your input and request for a further waiver and mr ursa good morning good morning chair good morning everyone uh just a small pass for myself like uh if waivers would be granted we would just prefer to have the same date if that was for everyone include ourselves okay excellent so june 30 sounds like the date commissioners but call the question do we have a motion madame chair would you like um attorney monahana right to just state the question and would that help is it is it almost motion because i think we're what the push up we're gonna need to so yeah actually you say that that through me so yes i'm gonna need you to say that um kaitlyn do you want to do the honors or do i sure give me a second um okay all right bear with me guys so the motion would be i move that in accordance with 205 cmr 202.03 subsection two the commission issued the following waivers as further detailed in the materials in the commissioner's packet and as discussed here today as granting the waivers meets the requirements specified in 205 cmr 102.03 subsection four and is consistent with the purposes of gl chapter 23n from the requirements outlined in 250 205 cmr 257.02 subsection one two fanatics draftings and caesars through june 30th 2024 that's the first motion do i have a so moved so moved if we can do it that way second all right any further question michelle bryan hi christian hill hi christian skinner hi christian maynard i hate to be the fly in the ointment here but didn't better just ask for the same date for both one and two i thought i thought we just did one only two we just did and we just did a one yeah five can fly still be an ointment just wondering and um i vote yes five zero we're always worried about i never put animal made her sayings ever well i was worried about when we reference animals i worry okay all right so we got scared as i know all of his uh all of his sounds i don't think you do just when you think you do he's got another one right okay now we'll go go to the next one all right so the motion would be i move that in accordance with 205 cmr 202.03 subsection two the commission issued the following waivers as further detailed in the materials in the commissioner's packet and is discussed here today as granting the waivers meets the requirement specified in 205 cmr 202.03 subsection four and is consistent with the purposes of gl chapter 23n from the requirements outlined in 205 cmr 257.02 subsection two two fanatics draft kings caesars fan duel and better through june 30th 2024. Don't move. Second. Second. Commissioner Maynard. Uh Commissioner O'Brien had it. Sorry couldn't see. Commissioner O'Brien seconded. Any further discussion? Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. The nine belt yes five zero all right let's turn to the next one. All right um I just want to make sure we we got draft kings okay so um there was one more section of before we get to 257.03 we just have one more section for now of ho do we actually have another one coming up later? Only draft kings requested this waiver this is the 257.02 subsection three. This particular section is still within the data use and retention section. This is a section that has to do with the prohibition on the use of data to promote individual bats under certain circumstances and the the the rag just to start there first lists a number of ways in which data may not be used so this is not about consent or not or no consent it's about what how the data can be used that sports waging operator may not use to promote individual bats basically based on a period of dormancy wagers made with predicted social connections or outcomes communications with third parties other than the operator income you know actually predicted income medical status other backgrounds etc information etc the there were some questions that came up about this in the clarifications including in particular what dormancy means and I think there was some comfort after discussions with sports wagering the operators and us that the dormancy was never intended I think I said this during regs but just to re-emphasize was never intended to mean you know the you signed up to receive to to you know during football season and you seem to bet only on Patriots games so we're not going to bother you bother you during the summer baseball season we'll wait till the NFL starts back up and that's when you might get a promotion that's fine that's not dormancy that's you know sort of which products you want to engage with the dormancy is really somebody who seems to have let their account go or may a deposit and let it go that targeting promotions for that purpose would not be allowed after that clarification only DraftKings has still requested a waiver explicitly of course fanatics waiver does cover this as well that they asked for for the 18 months for all of this the basis of DraftKings waiver request in 03 3 is a suggestion that they will need additional time they ask until 023 excuse me is until December 1 2024 so 13 months or 12 and a half months from now to update internal tooling databases and promotional campaigns develop employee training etc and engage in comprehensive auditing of promotional activities and to run new geolocation based flags so they're saying the technology that they need to build out to ensure they're complying with this may take them till December 1 2024 I hear that I'm so sorry I hear that only DraftKings has asked for that director and does that and if there is fanatics by extension to ask them for the whole right but yes oh that fanatics already has through June 30th based on the last motion do they all have through June 30th based on last motion on 02 no this is on the don't see it it does strike me that that could require a good deal of technical or to ensure compliance on that are we that's the realm to the unique right right across the country it is a unique reg in the sense of what it prohibits or it's a you know it's certainly more explicit about what it prohibits it is a do not do as opposed to what you must do so I think that is I don't know if other entities took yeah I can't speak for all the other operators but after the clarification of what dormancy means I think several seem seemed worried about this issue more before that was clarified I think it would certainly put you know if you were to grant this waiver it would mean that one entity you know could continue to market for this way and no one else could so it would be a year it would be one you might have to figure out if you kind of respond to grant to others if you're going to grant it because they'll be the only ones allowed to do a particular kind of marketing that others could or at least not not be required to prevent it until right then I the point is I'm not sure if anybody's engaging in this yet or not we're going to talk about the reporting side of this in a little bit that's that's one of the other issues but after the clarification the only one who's persisted in asking for a waiver was draft correct on this again specifically specifics yeah so the request does include purpose of auditing you know and making sure that there's some compliance and training all of which I know we value it's just too far out for me I'm flummoxed by why they're the only ones who persisted in the request after clarification and then the years to me would seem to be excessive even with the request so I would need to understand more from draft kings you know what was not satisfying or still deficient in the clarification and or why that time period again I'm much more inclined to give shorter extensions with updates than going out that far on these I just want to thank the legal team including Mina and Annie for the clarifications I thought they were very well done so we've got somebody from Fandle who Andrew is charming but I have a hard time meeting chats I'm looking at faces and boxes so Andrew why don't you come on and hi yes thank you I just wanted to state from Fandle's perspective is that it would be have very significant commercial impacts to allow such a waiver for one operator versus and not the other operators right right and and it's not because the other operators missed it right that's really my question um right you know that's mine too because we you know we want to we don't we don't want to set anyone up for failure you know we want compliance so that that's really the the genesis of my concern not because I necessarily think it should be pushed out there's um uh David good morning David Crestwood from draft kings thank you you want to turn on your video David thanks here we come there we are all right there we are I can't see myself so I was a German spring you can see you great um I'm not sure what the distinction is and why we're the only ones to ask for this we scoped this with those clarifications in mind and that did give our team um peace of minds that this is something we could have accomplished immediately um you know as we stated the waiver we would likely have to build the CRN or customer relationship management system just for Massachusetts outside of our normal marketing automation process we don't have our existing services to operate on a per jurisdiction level and what you know one of the things we may gather from this and I'm just not sure because we don't know the comparison is that our platform may operate significantly differently from other operators and maybe a platform issue um I understand that you know we're not seeking a competitive competitive advantage here I think that maybe what would make sense here if you're open to it is a shorter way so we can talk about it in detail we would want to discuss the particulars of our platform and program um likely in an executive session but it would have to be an executive session without other operators present because there's a lot of detailed proprietary information that would be required to be discussed and then what we would want obviously is a significant presence of drafting technical personnel to make sure that we are explaining this clearly we can answer any question I will say we cannot guarantee an executive session on that I'm not sure that it would meet the requirements of an executive session I just want to be clear about that as the conversation proceeds the rationale being that it would be um competitively disadvantageous for them to go into detail about their platform I assume right we don't have an exception for that in sports wagering the 6i exception only extends as far as the application extends so once we get into operations um that aren't part of the application process we don't have that exception anymore I just I'm I'm just going to pause for a second I just want to look at something so Mr. Trustwood the language that is on the agenda because the commission anticipates what it may need to meet an executive session in conjunction with the above-reference operator may be requested by the general laws to discuss the deployment of security devices or strategies with respect there too in particular with respect to use of data for sports wagering operations I understand why there could be confusion because there are times where the competitive disadvantage is an appropriate exemption I don't know if you want to reflect on that you know so but it would be deployment of security devices or strategies and that's uh council grows know what we're limited to yes as Caitlyn just mentioned of course there are exemptions that deal with cyber issues which is wholly different from trade secrets or competitively sensitive information which is limited in the case of sports wagering to just the application process the law just does not afford the commission the same flexibility that it does on the casino side and this is a manifestation of that issue that we've discussed in the past well and it doesn't extend here in terms of the application this isn't covered as you know to Caitlyn's point Todd I mean this doesn't this is not really the application so I think our concern then would be discussing some of the particulars of this in this forum would put us at a significant competitive disadvantage I mean it's opening up our proprietary platform to the world which is something that would be challenging for us to do I think maybe what we could do is to extend the waiver on this provision for a short time so that we can have a more detailed conversation at the staff level maybe get some additional clarification come back with something that everyone is comfortable with maybe a series of tiered waivers on particular provisions here or some kind of status update because you know different complying with different parts of this may take slightly different amounts of time for an additional clarification I'm sure Brian now that's what I was thinking I mean because right now Mr. Pressford has not you basically don't know the answer right for why you came in versus the other licensees and it could be that you don't need it it could be that you just don't know what the details are and how to trunch out the rag in terms of there might be different dates for different parts and so I'm also hearing about the fundamental fairness of not giving I have two concerns with going out too far one is the fundamental fairness to the others who are apparently complying and then the other is just wanting the rag to be implemented as soon as possible and so it seems to me like we need to get a short and I would say blanket waiver because I don't want to put anyone at a disadvantage competitively and then have draft kings come back in in a very in very short order and I'm talking like 30 days 45 days to come back in and say whether you need it and if so why and be more specific with dates yeah I think that's that's what I'm asking for would be you know to have those clarifying conversations and a universal like I said this is not about a competitive advantage for us about making sure that we are able to be in compliance and if there's something that's different about our platform than other operators well you know we we don't know because we don't know what the other operators platforms are you know the way they're built we're all we're not working from the same play right no stupid I wasn't implying you were angling to get a competitive disadvantage that we don't want to unwittingly you know do something we would probably extend it out universally we're thinking to be fair um to commissioner bryan's point so no no very well said commissioner bryan thanks uh yeah yes so I'm very sympathetic to um what mr winchill indicated in terms of being at a competitive disadvantage and I'm sure other operators feel the same way um the the I'm struggling though um the fact that we haven't gotten any other um any requests uh from any other operator on this particular subsection indicates that everyone else is complying um our will be in compliance effective tomorrow is that is that accurate am I understanding that in the right way and so issuing or granting a universal waiver you know commissioner bryan suggested 30 days 45 days I mean I think I just I struggle with you know kind of the implication of that in that where the majority all but one of the operators are in compliance they're now getting sort of an extension of an extension to continue to do exactly what we are asking them not to do or what they're what we've said that they cannot do under the regulation so I just I want to be careful there and I want to make sure that we do keep all of the operators on a level playing field but I would like the date to be um a very short extension um because again everyone else is ready to move on this particular subsection and so I'm I'm wary about altering that at this point Mr. Prespa to be fair you know I want to reiterate we aren't the only ones fanatics also asking their waiver for a 12 month period explicitly which isn't clearly represented in the chart but is represented in their waiver so I don't know if they have someone who wants to discuss that as well or or have an opinion but we're we're not totally on an island here this we know and do we uh on as as far as I can tell and there's there's a couple of things here fanatics did I mentioned at the outset of this a fanatics did ask for the waiver for 18 months for this whole section and so that would cover this but it's I don't believe that they made the granular points that DraftKings has sought to make about 03 02 03 um yeah we'll stop there so I mean I was looking at the calendar in terms of dates too and we have meetings on the 30th December 7th December 14th but mindful that there's a holiday in there and there's a holiday weekend in there so two weeks out would put you right after Thanksgiving the 7th would be three weeks out on the 14th would be a month from today essentially the next holiday meeting and because you know we would be very nimble to have a special meeting except for the fact that the holidays get very tricky uh what would be a reasonable amount of time I would suggest the question be pointed to Mr. Prestwood in terms of getting the answers that needs to be able to fully communicate with perhaps our sports wager and division as to what realistically the time frame might be for implementation of this particular subsection Madam Chair if or Mr. Prestwood answers that if it's okay with you Commissioner Skinner can I just ask one clarifying question because I I may be stuck on this as I'm reviewing it there is actually nothing to implement in this section versus a prohibition and I understand that it seems to me that the concern is that that DraftKings is stating is that they cannot guarantee that they comply with this section and I just want to be clear about it because we're not asking them in this section to build a single thing we're just asking them not to target people based on these following categories so that's that's a that's a distinction I think that may have mattered to other operators as well and I apologize Commissioner Skinner but just as Mr. Prestwood answers I would like to make sure yeah and and I do understand that but just based off of Mr. Prestwood's indications there's a system that needs to be built essentially in order to comply with this subsection and so I think the request from Commissioner O'Brien or a statement made by Commissioner O'Brien was that you know it was her impression that Mr. Prestwood just didn't have the answers to the some of the questions today so my question is really around that particular piece what is a reasonable in your assessment timeframe for you to get back to us with some of the specific information requested by Commissioner O'Brien? I think we could put together a meeting with staff in short order with with all of the relevant folks to discuss the details of the issues here that you know I we've done all the scoping so we have all of the information we just we can ask additional clarifying questions and then in those conversations provide additional detail that may provide some color things that we're not comfortable sharing you know openly. So I I'm sorry so so I think the dates that Commissioner O'Brien set forth I think the earliest is November 30th. I think December 14th would probably be a fairer date. I would make that suggestion because the Commissioner Skinner our team is you know Thanksgiving is in between so for our team to work with Dr. King, so the 14th would be probably better. Does that suit your Commissioner Skinner? I'm just thinking about it. It does. Yeah I yeah I don't want to impose any you know additional you know issues for our staff and so that's precisely why I'm asking the question is what is reasonable and I certainly intended to pose that same question to our internal team. I'll throw this out Mr. Presswood is that you know to Mina's point it is a prohibition and there's a part of me that just says why hasn't this happened where it's kind of needed to you know you're advertising promotional folks that this is how it's going to be and then in terms of all the building that needs to happen and I and I noted this I really appreciate your focus on training and the audit but this went into effect you know a while ago and so perhaps that's why you know the others haven't don't have the same challenge. I do understand that Drapkins and Vandal may have more complexities and so I think I'd love to hear that on the 14th and to understand I hear you saying you don't want to really speak about in the public forum. I'd love it if our legal team could work with Drapkins and Vandal to see if there's any way to provide that level of comfort that is absolute in compliance with the open meeting law and then to the extent to the extent you know there's no avenue then we're a little stuck we're at a crossroad and you provide the information that can be most compelling for our decision-making. Councillor Grossman the only thing I was thinking is I feel as though we did look at data use and data sharing in the application but that doesn't extend here. No I mean that was information specifically shared as part of the application process this is regulatory compliance which I think I would view as a different creature. Sometimes there are connections that can be made this one feels like it might be a bridge too far and that's why we've treated it this way. So I think the broad answer to the question and what may make us different you know as I mentioned is that we don't parse any of these things by jurisdiction because no other jurisdiction opposes these kinds of requirements and so what it requires for us is to build something specifically from Massachusetts that exempts these requirements in order to comply. I suppose the alternative would be to shut down all of our marketing across the entire platform which I think is you know would put us at a significant commercial disadvantage nationwide and so what we I don't even do that to be frank I think you know the December 14th date gives us time to find time with staff we have a lot of this information already but I would want our really detailed technical folks to be part of that meeting so they could discuss it more clearly you know and I know who all these people are because we went through a very detailed scoping process so I think if we could get a waiver until that time intend to have the meeting somewhere you know between now and you know early December and then so we could come back with something that either we don't request a waiver we request a very short waiver or you know we just outlined what we're able to do clearly in a future meeting I think that would be helpful for us. That's very helpful and I do appreciate I think I mentioned that this is probably a unique requirement for really living in the country. Mr. Skinner. Yeah Mr. Presswood I appreciate you reiterating that I heard you when you mentioned it the very first time and I think it is you know it is it is complicated and so certainly we're not I don't think that you know we want to impede you know your ability to compete in the market by suggesting that you not market in any jurisdiction. I do think it's important though for us to understand what is feasible in terms of solutions short of building an entirely new system and so to our team Crystal, Bruce and Andrew I don't know if it makes sense to invite our consultants, GLI to the conversation just from the technical perspective in terms of trying to understand if there are other if there's another remedy here that can be applied so that we don't have to think about a long-term extension of this the applicability of the regulation to just one operator or any of the operators. Thank you very much Mr. Skinner. I assure you that we also don't want to rebuild the entire infrastructure based on this so you know we're in the same boat there. I think you know it's it also seems likely that maybe operators have different interpretations and understanding of the language even after the clarification so having those detailed conversations on our end I think would be helpful in narrowing the scope here and I also think that as I mentioned earlier in this conversation I know that the data privacy group in the AG's office has people there that are also very knowledgeable about implementation etc so I don't know if GLI is necessary but I think maybe a conversation with the AG's office people might help shed some light on some of this but to me that that date you know gives up 30 days it accommodates the realities on the ground for everyone over the next 30 days. Just a housekeeping to circle back next agenda if we could maybe do that meeting a little earlier because I might have a conflict later in the day so. Okay I think I'm going to call the question unless there's any further clarification that's needed I'm hearing that we're going to roll this discussion over to December 14th and we'll need any motion for that Caitlin. Is that correct? All right let's go. So the motion would be I move that in accordance with 205CMR 202.03 subsection 2 the commission issued the following waivers as further detailed in the materials in the commissioner's packet and as discussed here today as granting the waivers meets the requirements specified in 205CMR 102.03 subsection 4 and is consistent with the purposes of GL chapter 23N. From the requirements outlined in 205CMR 257.02 subsection 3 to all sports wagering operators through December 15th 2023. So moved. Thank you back in. Thanks for just getting any for the discussion and it's all right. Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Kiln? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. 5-0. Thank you. Madam Chair? Yes. But I have clarity around the waiver date for 257.022. Was that also June 30th? No. Yes. 021 and 022 are both June 30th. 030th for both. Yeah. Thank you. The second pertains to five entities. Do you have those five entities, Mr. Skinner? That pertains to yes, fan fanatics, draft King Caesar's fan doing better. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we're all set on 03. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. And so we will move on. If I could, the next one that actually shows up. I just need a five minute break or I can hop off briefly and come back if we're not ready. Let's think about her timing here. I just have to hop off. So sorry. Okay. We'll continue then. Go ahead. Okay. Sure. Madam Chair, there is a, 257.025 is one of the requested waivers. However, it's kind of on a different topic. So I'm going to actually go to 257.03 and then return to 257.025. That's okay. 257.03 is the data sharing provisions. They mirror the 257.02 data use and storage provisions, but they are about sharing that data with third parties. There were two questions that, sort of two sets of questions that came up around these. The first had to do again with the definition of what's necessary and the same issue of what exactly is necessary to operate sportsbook or sports wagering platform. The second I think is a practical concern that, because now we're talking about dealings with vendors and third parties that updating and contracts that may not have automatic update language or amendment language to reflect regulatory compliance would maybe require some time. So there, I will want to take these together. So this is really the bulk of these are addressed at all of 257.03. Some were phrased as only looking at 257.031, which is a definition of what's necessary to share. Some were phrased at only looking at 033. But I think in this case it may actually be cleaner to treat it as the entirety of the section because this is about coming into compliance with how folks deal with their third parties. With respect to the necessary piece, the clarification we provided earlier, I think helped address some of the issues where things were still a little bit more complicated is third parties within or without a company. I think there's general understanding that a party, let's say an operator has a marketing-affiliate relationship with let's say the Hilton or Marriott hotels and for folks who might be interested in one form of entertainment might be interested in another, they might share that data. I think everyone seems to acknowledge and agree that that's third party sharing that would require consent or opting in to be able to do that and otherwise would be prohibited. The less clear, and I think on the other end of the spectrum, if you have a security vendor whose job is to help monitor your IT systems and make sure that there aren't fraud accounts being set up or that they're being flagged and data needs to be shared with them that that's absolutely necessary and that's sort of an obvious one. The marketing person at your, you know, you have a marketing affiliate who is sort of solely contracted to do marketing for your operator is necessary to operate. I think that's also clear. Where it gets a little more complicated is integrated products under the same umbrella to go back to the umbrella issues from a couple of months ago. If you are providing a promotion, if you need to provide information or if you want to provide the data about a patron to the marketing arm, not for the sports wagering side of fanatics let's say. I'll just use them as an example because it's more obvious but for the sportswear portion is that sharing with a third party or is that covered by O2? And I think the issue there is that I think reading the regulation, our reading of it and our intent in drafting it was those would not be operations necessary to operate a sportsbook. They're sort of additional parts that may have been added to a particular company but they're not necessary to operate the sports wagering operations as contrasted with the marketing for the sports wagering operation itself or the security features. So that's where some of this confusion came in. Having put that information out to the operators as best we could in the clarifications, we had a couple of the requests as I said were really for different parts of O3 but they really get at the same issues. These ranged in timing. FanDuel asked I believe for February 1, 2024 and I certainly if I get any of these wrong I would appreciate your correction. Fanatics had this out I believe at least through November 2024. Caesars in June, wind bed in October, DraftKings July 1, bed MGM. Basically the string of them without going through every single one is between February of 2024 for compliance all the way through. I think FanDuel's was the furthest out is October 2025 and that that one to be fair there had more to do with the contracts updating all the contracts. They were just worried about getting you know just every single vendor and getting. So there's a lot of variety on that. There's also just to note it the DraftKings asked for a similar waiver to December 1, 2024 of a related provision 225705K which has to do with the monitoring of contracts and I understood the rationale there to be the same as Mr. Press would just explain that it's sort of for the ability to have systems in place to ensure compliance as opposed to the provision itself. But again stated broadly compliance states are a little bit mixed on this one. We think that there's a reason that that's the case. It's really because the nature of what's being done in-house versus through third parties really does differ from operator to operator. So we can talk about different options to deal with that. If you were looking for uniformity this may be one where you have to do a sort of the tranches of doing it for everybody until a particular date and then you're seeing where folks stand at that date because there are going to be differences among companies. Was there any opportunity that you didn't ask for a waiver? That's a good question. I don't see better on here but I'm not sure if that was I just I don't want to misspeak for somebody but I just don't see better on the list. Our operation is much smaller so for us it's much easier to be able to comply with this one. Thank you for that. PSI is not on this either. PSI is also not on this. PSI is not. They're not retired. Only PSI and better than better. Mina is this 257.03 just one through three that we're talking about? We're dealing with number four is a separate issue. We're just 257.133. Yeah we'll deal with four separately. My apologies. Thank you. No I've probably stepped out for that so just wanted clarity. One, two, three. Yeah so this is. The outlier is set right now February 2024 even December 2024. I understand that. In fact actually all the way there is one all the way out to October 2025. Oh I actually got October 25th. October 2025. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you for that. That varied. My mind wasn't even thinking that year yet. Okay and I missed that so that would be. Handle Andrew. Yes sorry just want to leave me on. Yeah no it's thank you. It's just want to clarify and I think Mina had started the clarification. The October 2025 date is for the contract piece only. The other pieces are it was requested till February 2024. I know and I'll just suggest this because I happen to see this in MTM's waiver request. There could be clarification that could be provided to us if if the interpretation is that the regulation on the contract language is only for contracts entered after the effective date. We could comply much quicker. We were looking at it as getting that contract language into all of our existing contracts which we would want that October 2025 dates as those contracts come through renewal we would have that language added. So I guess that's a question. Yeah and that's the same issue for drought case. Is that what you said Mina? That their December date is maybe based on the same issue as Vandal. It's they they went a little they they raised a slightly different point which is the sort of the monitoring technology to be able to get all of that from what's shared as well. So but but yes I think they also a lot of folks raised that particular issue and so that certainly you know it's a question of you know I think it's just a logistical question of how soon can somebody get a contract reopened and if they were trying to or when contracts come up for or if we're only asking for this for contracts as they come up for a renewal new contracts etc. So what do we do to address Andrew's question based on his viewing of that MGM's? I don't know I think it was MGM's right there. Yeah I think there's a policy question for the commission Madam Chair and I could raise the two sides of it if I could. One is I understand certainly the concern from operators that it does take to detangle on a contract right folks may or may not agree to it and so some reasonable time period to at least try to address that is there to state the argument on the other side not saying you know I advocate one or the other the this is a certainly a highly regulated industry and from day one has been highly regulated and what the reg requires is that before data is shared that there are agreements in place about how data is protected and in other contexts it's not you know an addendum to a contract to say now that we are sharing this data or that this new regulatory requirement came in we have to comply with it before we share additional data so if if the commission could could take that view as well and I think both are reasonable one sort of intermediate between the two maybe to make clear to give some time period that's less than the full year or longer to let's you know perhaps consistent with the consent deadline to keep those on the same track the June 30th deadline and and have calendered a time to talk about how this process is going with other vendors and so on and then the commission in the meantime if you want we could consider if the reg itself needs updating to to exempt you could exempt it in two different ways I think exempting full contracts runs a risk of if I've signed a five-year contract on the day that the that the operators got their license which was you know I think by all accounts before this reg was really germinating but it was it was contemplated there might be more regs coming then you you might be exempting too much but you could apply it to data shared after the date of the reg itself and so it's really about when the data is shared and how it's protected as opposed to when the contract is signed and that gets folks ability to try to change practices over time again I you know we want to be flexible and understand that there are third parties out there this is not entirely in the operators control but this you know a lot of in the comment process the flip side in the comment process a lot a lot of mention was made of potential statewide data privacy regulations and I think you'd be encountering the same problem there so so so and I think the other question is sort of the specificity if if the language where I think a lot of operators probably already have data security language in their contracts and it's maybe making sure that it aligns or is sufficient under the the reg that we have maybe the other challenge we have a before I turn to um just going channel handle we do have comments coming in from that mgm throughout chat and still have part of the public discussion so for that mgm do we have somebody who can chime in thank you it's nice to see you thank you chair um I my guess is that most of the operators are already operating with um data protection addendums data privacy addendums security addendums pieces in our contracts where we share data that cover the same themes that you've asked for that we require information security standards we require um you know that operators or that our vendors not use the data in ways that I think you guys would agree are things that are outside the scope of a normal use but what we don't have are some of the specifics that you've asked for and I put one in the chat one is that employee training include criminal and civil penalties I'm happy to put that in our data privacy addendum going forward I don't disagree that it's a good practice to have that in there but to go back to our vendors maybe if you do small things or do things nationwide and say hey we need to negotiate for these little things that only apply to eight you know eight to ten operators I think it would be um like a disproportionate impact based on what's already in our addendums or and I speak on behalf of that mgm obviously but I negotiate I've been outside count negotiating these and the themes are the same as in other privacy laws so um based on added value for me it would be best if this could be any contracts were going forward and we have put it in our our addendum so that it will be negotiated going forward but sort of going back and trying to revisit having vendors who maybe won't engage with us on the same with the same power that we would have when we were saying hey listen this is it we're going to negotiate with you or we'll go to another vendor if it's an ongoing relationship I'm not sure that it would be very easy for us to sort of say never mind you can't we can't use you anymore in the middle of our you know year or two year commitment thank you Andrew hi yes just following on to that we have the same opinion is that you know our existing contracts do have language related to uh data security but they might not have the exact provisions because in three there's a in this section there's a lot of specific language that needs to be addressed in the contract and so we each individual contract may that we have previously entered and two might not have everything covered that is that is listed out in this subsection and so that that's what our concern is and echo the concern that Alexis brought forward that not all vendors that we work with are the same and the amount of leverage that we have to force someone to the negotiating table for a state-specific requirement may be different for for small certain vendors but for heavily integrated tech vendors that that we have across all our platforms it it it may take longer or they may not want to address these until the contract is up for renegotiation Andrew and Alexis what would be a narrow solution rather than just a late date I mean is there something you can help us with so I think what it would be would and I'll defer to Alexis to weigh in on on her behalf but I think her language from the from their waiver where it would be we get the waiver for until x state you know short time frame maybe and then anything entered into after that date would have to have all of the to address all the items in this in the section so I have a question in terms of that I my concern with only doing that is you could go years without actually getting full compliance with the intent of the reg and you have saw at least two operators who are fully compliant apparently right now um and I would assume there's portions of these contract that talks about regulatory compliance and the need to go back with some of these vendors and so I don't know if it's such a hard and fast we can't negotiate and is it more you know this is the right change we've been given till x we have to go forward so the idea of I was going to ask Todd Rosemann this too and Caitlyn is you know can the waivers we can condition the waivers to say you can have this time period however efforts have to be made to like not not giving you this blanket um okay just when it's renewed go ahead and renew it but actually making the efforts to go back and look at these because it could be that I'm assuming there's also sort of a dendym language or language in there that talks about we have to be compliant if a reg came in and this weren't just Massachusetts I'm assuming there's language in those contracts that it would allow you to say we have to do this because we're not compliant anymore otherwise so I have a little more questions about um a waiver being short term but then also language in terms of efforts made um to make sure this is implemented sooner than just when it comes up for renewal Alexis I think that's absolutely fair the commissioner um I think we suggested um sort of a phase in any new contracts starting tomorrow have to like any contracts that are initiated not some in the middle of a contract that's like ready for signature then any new contract meets the template um you know there might be uh you might want to think most of our contracts may be up for renewal in a year so uh you know a year and then sorry and then by February even if contract is being negotiated for six months if it's not going to get signed until February it has to be in there we'll certainly make efforts to update contracts that are ongoing that aren't going to create massive problems for our business that like needs to run things you can do that and then maybe maybe the something that would not be uh it would still be a significant amount of work but if you say maybe a year and then everything would include this specific language but I do you know I do want to make sure you know this is very important to us and this is not um we just do feel that the language we have covers the themes so we don't feel like our vendor contract is deficient in that there shouldn't there doesn't need to be training this is really more clarification so we can I think probably if we can ask for the end of next year if the contract is not going to get renewed if it's not up to renewal then we have to make that additional effort or if it's going to automatically renew we have to make that additional effort so that by the end of the next calendar year any contract that touches massachusetts should have this specific language in it yeah I don't love the really long dates I mean I was envisioning something more like you guys come back to have a better sense go for the problem in terms of and problem I say in terms of scope of the task right in terms of how many of these are really still out there for you guys to be negotiated and get out for 13 14 months yeah my apology I just wanted to come in and clearly point out that an agreement with Alexis that we do believe were generally on the themes covered in our contracts right now and I'd like to point out in 250703 sub 2 which uh I don't believe we are request we're not requesting to the same level be waived there's a requirement that if we are sharing the PII with a third party that we have to engage in commercially reasonable procedures to protect the confidentiality of that information we're not so we are not asking for a waiver from protecting the confidentiality of information that we share with the third party we're solely asking for the waiver that the contract language that is specifically identified in 250703 that we have an extended period of time to have that specific language appended to the contracts okay so maybe I and this is to our team is that very particularized language um that mr. Winchell just stated is that something because that's a much more narrow waiver request than sort of don't make the the reg section apply that's I thought that's right yeah a little reference if drafting also talk about so that technical compliance too in a different subsection but elect before we go to Mina is there a request I think my request is aligned with what Andrew said we are using commercially reasonable efforts to protect data that we did not ask for a waiver on we've only asked for a waiver of the specific language in section 3 that is different than other states have required in the past so we we use these we require these I work on them every single day to make sure that these commercially reasonable efforts are here generally not that difficult to negotiate because our vendors are very familiar with privacy laws at this point this would be just a I use I think I put in the chat an example you know everyone lead training on privacy that's part of that's a very normal thing you guys have asked that the employee training include criminal and civil penalties so now I have to go to a vendor and say your employee training you might have to change and and that's a bigger a bigger lift if especially if we're going back in in time to look at older vendors too to try to deal with those things so we're taking commercially reasonable we're making them take these steps already and we don't treat Massachusetts differently than treat Colorado data we don't say oh never mind you don't have to care about the data protect the data because Massachusetts patrons we we're very we're relatively universal in our contracts that every all the protections need to apply all the data they get regardless of what state the patrons from Mina yeah no I appreciate that explanation from Alexis I I think I'm hearing a couple of different things that may be helpful it really does seem to be that the concern is around the language in you know specificity of specificity of the language in three and I think just even in this conversation there are examples of things that I can imagine an operator asking a vendor to do an event or a backing ad and and then they may have to come back to the commission so one way you could address this I think if you gave a reasonable time for folks to get to their contractors with the sort of commercially reasonable efforts or good effort good faith efforts to amend update contracts etc then the other thing that may be worth the commission considering going forward is if you want to add in a mechanism here for approving of of you know approving of compliance if the contract form is substantially in compliance but there are good reasons shown not to get there I'll use you know Alexis as an example I read three the four which is a leg as we're talking about as as requiring the employers to have training that makes folks aware of the civil and criminal penalties but not to impose them themselves however I can see a vendor saying this is too much I can't do that I don't want to get somebody legal advice I'm not going to do it and they're at a standstill that MGM could then come back to to the commission and maybe this is something that's you know just more like the way internal controls are handled to say we have them doing all of the things we know what they're doing with the data we know what they're doing to restrict it but they're not agreeing to particular language in the contract or they're telling us you know their state law is not allowing them is not going to allow them to put that in there so that may be a way to handle that as a regulatory fix and in the meantime folks can kind of help us see what the what what contract sticking points are coming out. I see Commissioner Rainer, Commissioner Skinner are you kind of shaking your head to I can't tell? I wasn't but I am in full agreement that there needs to be a reasonable time for operators to renegotiate their contracts so 257.033 I'm completely amenable to she did raise this time I'll turn to Commissioner Maynard, Commissioner Skinner if you can hear if you have frozen but I'm just in the interest of having Commissioner Maynard chime in and then you'll be through Commissioner Maynard. I'm just no I I think Commissioner Skinner is back on and this is going where I was going. Yeah so so I think that's a no brainer the 257 I'm getting a notice that it's unstable so hopefully you can hear you can hear me if you can't see me. So I'm bored with an extension for 257.033 but I think we should probably spend a little bit more time talking about 257.031 because I think that to me is a different request all together and it speaks to the actual sharing of the data so I'll just say that and I think if Commissioner Maynard wants to talk about 033 then I'll yield to him. Let's be able to 033 because we kind of got some a solution here and I'd like to narrow get that narrow solution in and then we'll expand as required to make sure that that's the um I want to know to our presenting issues okay. Commissioner Maynard. No I I think that I like where the conversation is going on the solve and the fix I'm always looking for the solve and the fix I hear what Alexis is saying which I appreciate I appreciate. I've expressed it over and over again that I think the soft belly when it comes to data breaches is not through companies themselves but through vendors and third parties where they're not as secure as the actual principles and we see that over and over again and in various examples so I do want it to be done I do want it to be negotiated I think that we have the best operators in the world and that they're very smart and that they're very good negotiators when it comes to their vendors and then they're going to get it done but I'm also I understand why it's going to take some time to hit the contracts as they cycle through but I really just want that check in point as Commissioner O'Brien has has emphasized over and over that you know we at least know where we are where we're going and and where you need to go. So we're looking at some kind of an amendment for thank you for some kind of an amendment that says that the operators will take all these more commercial commercial reasonable staffs to amend their contracts with that to reflect the requirements for subsection three but that entering any new contracts they will be needing to be fully compliant right is that that is certainly one possibility I think giving some time for the process to start will help us refine that a little bit more but I agree yeah that and so what's the time what what would be the recommended timeframe for there's the immediate which is tomorrow and then um so it's partially reasonable that that that is in a timeframe that's they're going to be engaged in it I suppose we could have our team do some informal check-ins or audits of whatever right compared to my officers. I apologize that made me misunderstood if you're talking about an amendment to the waiver that they could they continue on that process as a condition of the waiver then yes that would go along with the waiver today I will let me talk about 031 for just one second because I think it might help by the time without moving off of 033. Okay thank you. Yes I know the concern is not to. I'm trying to move it along thank you. So the 031 issues are similar to the 021 issues of what is it need to be necessary to operate and what you did there is gave you know tied the time for the consent technology to be the same as for the you know making sure the scoping is right. I would actually keep all from my perspective I think it might make sense to have all those dates kind of be together so it's all June 30th 2024 for 031 and 033 that actually keeps in place 032 which is the provision that Mr. Winshell mentioned you know they're still are ready you know have to have some commercially reasonable efforts there are two entities I believe Fanatics and Fandle that ask for a waiver from all of 033 without distinguishing between them. I'm not sure frankly what to do with that because I think this conversation I don't think reach that point in this conversation because 02 does have substantive protections and it sounds like folks are otherwise complying with already so. Madam Chair question for Mina. Yes please. Mina you laid out policy decision that needs to be made relative to I thought both 031 and 033. Could you if there's time and with the Chair's permission could you just review a one applicable to 031 again? Sure the 031 it's not so much a policy decision it's just interpretation of the of it now of how far necessary to operate it should be interpreted and I the clarification has been given to date by in in the form of the correspondence with the Sports Wage and Division and Legal is that necessary to operate does include running the business of the sports book including marketing for and I keep using sports book but it's sports book operating platform etc the Sports Wage and Operation including the marketing etc if you need to share with the third party to conduct some ancillary business whether that's a third party that is entirely separate like the you know Marriott example I mentioned or a affiliated entity that's part of the same organization we would consider that third party so that's one that's the issue of interpretation. Commissioner Skinner I also mentioned the policy issue of what data it applies to whether it's all data going forward regardless of the contract or not one in two and I think Mr. Rachel gets at this which don't require contract amendment do you know would apply to all data whether it's been shared before or not it's it's how the data is protected it's really about the legal legally enforceable mechanisms that the operators can then put into place for that for that and that's the contracts and that's where three comes in thank you so granting the waiver extension for 2507031 would allow operators to continue to share data with third parties um even when it's not necessary to operate their business correct but they were doing that right now yeah they're doing that and they would still have to take commercially reasonable measures to protect it but it wouldn't but they would be allowed to do it without a without the opt-in that's really the other piece of this is yeah the consent piece of it is that's the other reason to match the consent deadline that you're ready provided in 02 and the connection to the waivers that we granted earlier in this meeting could you just review that one more time um sure so the connections are that um in there's a similar question first um with the definition of what's necessary to operate so that's as folks are figuring that out um there is also a connection you know the fact of consent and and how it's being used could end up being a way for to address some of the issues and so that's why it might make the same deadline I think to the point Mr uh I'm sorry I apologize I think it was it was DraftKings I was making this point that's right um Steve uh yes I'm sorry yeah the point that he was making earlier uh the monitoring and sort of back end compliance would be the same for are we getting consent the right way and are we getting um and are we are our patron or excuse me our vendors etc are getting consent the right way so that's why they match up is is it sort of all at the same time Mr. Smith uh yeah it's just just wanted to add um you know I think similar to DraftKings earlier I I don't I would hesitate to get into too many details here but uh you know as you can imagine that this might affect fanatics in a way that it that doesn't hit other operators as hard um um we you know have uh there there are a lot of ways our our business um works uh with our affiliate businesses um and so would uh you know some of that was just closed in our application process um both on a technological uh perspective and of course marketing as well so um I do think there's some some layers to this for for fanatics and would want to um would want to hesitate to get into the the details of that uh for competitive reasons but just wanted to raise that concern Mina what is your recommendation um my recommendation is to if you're in client to provide a waiver for reasonable time which it sounds like that's where the commission is is to provide a waiver of 257 205 CMR 257 03 one and three let's start there one and three until June 30th again you know subject to the subject to the condition that the commission expects um operators in the in the case of 257 03 3 to take good faith commercially reasonable efforts to amend existing contracts to come into compliance and to implement the requirements of 03 in new contracts between now and June um and that so that that's the recommendation for what the motion would say and then I would separately recommend uh not sure that the legal team um and sports wager and continue to think about whether the language of the rag uh could include a safety belt to address after that okay but that's what I wanted so that could be considered along the way okay exactly so by the time we get to June we might have already built something in that you don't need more waivers they're sort of built into the process yeah okay uh commissioners uh I'm going to turn to Caitlin to see uh we would be ready to move with her suggestion as to a motion to accommodate what sounds like a a problem that we have solved for seems reasonable and fair okay I'm in that position to author I'll be good yes I would totally just to give you a couple more minutes I appreciate that um we'll start with 257.03 subsection one so the motion would be I move that in accordance with 205 cmr 202.03 subsection two the commission issued the following waivers as further detailed in the materials in the commissioners packet and as discussed here today is granting the waivers meets the requirements specified in 205 cmr 102.03 subsection four and is consistent with the purposes of gl chapter 23n from the requirements outlined in 205 cmr 257.03 subsection one to fan duel fanatics caesars win bet and draft kings through june 30th 2024 so moved oh wait a minute so moved and then we can have a second discussion I'm taking I'm taking my son moved back madam okay we've heard the proposed motion uh commissioner bryan um I guess I was anticipating also having language in there I mean I had that language in 033 but I could come buying the motions so I know that it's not necessarily the contract language wouldn't necessarily be in there but I thought the commercially reasonable efforts to comply requirement was still going to be in there that's a three right I thought it's to both I thought that we were going to try them not have them um sharing it for purposes other than as necessary I'll defer to Mina on where that language should be I think I think that might make sense commissioner bryan 02 would already capture some of that but it I think the point is everybody is doing their best to comply with with both of these uh between now and then but understanding that there are implementation hiccups and that there may be some some grace given during that right so I don't know if there's an objection to putting in they will make notwithstanding this waiver licensees will make commercially reasonable efforts to comply with someone yep I can redo that in one second right right question is I know that PSI and better have not made this request can we make it universal just in the instant that they wake up tomorrow morning and say oh can we send it is that all right is that fair maddie did you move from we do that or didn't move but um I think we've made it universal so far we have in the past as well when only one or two operators have not um asked just in case they evaluate they don't have to come in later for another waiver which would just set them up at the same point yeah after today's described that they may say something is that is that fair is that problem um madam chair let's um kaitlyn has something to add different on this I think it may be a good idea and actually may may simplify both of these the other reason you may want to do that is again because of the different ways different departments legal departments I think approach the waivers not everybody who asks for a three waiver asks for an a one waiver at vice versa so since we are tying them together more closely it may just make sense to do it as a universal so could someone clarify madam chair I'm sorry could I just make clarification as why a universal waiver makes sense here but not for for instance 250702 1 2702 2 etc I I think the distinction I would make uh commissioner skinner is that because this is now touching third parties and and I actually has more um implementation wrinkles that reach beyond the operators themselves many of the um opera or what I understand the reason that many operators who didn't ask for a waiver under 250702 the reason they didn't ask for a waiver was because they felt like they would not need to use data in a way that went outside what's necessary so they weren't even worried really about consent or not they were feeling good about it whereas here this is we I think we all acknowledge that uh even even the smallest operators or the ones that do the most in house are going to need some uh third party contact and it may be frankly from my perspective it may be less confusing for the vendor industry as well if especially if they're dealing with multiple operators if they know that they're all under the same rule and that's true for 250702 subsection three oh three subsection three are you asking this is my point about oh two oh um is it true for oh two three as well oh is it true for oh yeah oh two three yeah issue two um two operators I would advocate that particularly for oh three we're combined we are not combining or we are combining oh one and oh three but with respect to the contracting issue I would suggest that while there are two that that identified making on me that uh given this third party affiliate challenges arise that we just extend the time but we appreciate them not asking for a waiver certainly um but given today's discussion right and then I don't know about I I'm sorry I I I think Nina was trying to answer my question um I don't just um on process I'm still also perplexed about the combination of oh one oh three and if we can simplify things I welcome it please yeah my question pertains specifically to 250702 subsection three just in terms of you know universal waiver versus just two specific operators this is that okay yeah commissioners can I I guess two reasons one very candid ones I think at that point we hadn't evolved to this point the conversation but I think the the real distinction is still the same that it's not clear that all operators will need to put any consent mechanisms out there or to design them uh or the uh because not all of them envision that they might need that feature um I if that becomes something that somebody decides they may be able to come back but there was wider spread concern I would say about the contract issue that came up in 250703 than there was in 250702 two uh especially after the clarifications in about oh two one well and I think um commissioner schiller was also asking about oh two subsection three which one of the issues in the air was frankly fairness for all the operators if one operator was allowed to continue to advertise in a way that the other operators weren't allowed to that wouldn't be fair and so that's why it was extended to all for a short time right commissioners can in my apologies I was thinking of oh two not oh three when I answered that question Caitlyn's right oh three three was the one where you gave a oh two three ah 25702 three um is the one that uh based on DraftKings comments you gave a very limited universal extension to December to figure out something so that's okay that's so that is universal my apologies yeah so my notes are wrong because I had that only as being applicable to fanatics in DraftKings but so we did we did call it a universal waiver for that to your point commissioners came that you've had breaks you know we were concerned about the yeah all right good thank you okay thank you yeah and so now my question ahead commissioner mater I know I just want to point out to Mina's point I do think that at least me and a couple other commissioners are thinking about I don't think it was that it hadn't progressed to that point of conversation I'm trying to take a scalpel and get as much of this implemented as I possibly can and to the operators that want to do it I want them to do it um without incentivizing you know stopping so I'm definitely thinking about each one very differently as far as should it be universal or not universal and I think I think a lot of others are too yeah and so far we kind of got three options going because of that um Christian Maynard very well said um and that's why I paused asking should we you know put any other two let's do you know I'll do respect that they did not ask for um so my question is again the uh treatment of subsection one and subsection three do we move them together um to get the good big commercially reasonable efforts um I had thought that applied to just subsection three commissioner bryan otherwise so where are we on that I have it as two motions right now I can update it so that it both it sounds like consensus is around them being real for all sports wagering operators but I think it'll be a little bit more clean if we do it as two so just to preface before I read the whole thing um I have 257.031 being a waiver through June 30th 2024 for all sports wagering operators and notwithstanding the waiver licensees will make all commercially reasonable efforts to comply with 205CMR 257.031 and then separately we'd have 257.033 that would also be a waiver through June 30th 2024 that would be for all making my notes as I go all sports wagering operators um one second and notwithstanding the waiver all new contracts must conform with the requirements of 205CMR 257.033 and operators must make all commercially reasonable efforts to conform existing and ongoing contracts with 205CMR 257.033 I've got a question from Alexis thank you um just a request for a clarification new contracts being newly and it like we've got contracts that are in all parts of the world right like we've got contracts that are ready to get signed we've got contracts that are um you know have been heavily negotiated maybe we have one or two different things to do and we've got contracts that are relatively new that adding new provisions now will not create it could we please just this a request that it's not new contracts that are signed we're going to say new contracts that are signed maybe January 1st just to give a little time to not throw ranches and things that are basically already done we could still use commercially reasonable things in but I I want to just be clear about what the contract I guess um this regulation went into effect when uh September 1st and then it's been we've had the waiver the blanket the all the industry's had the blanket waiver until tomorrow it's our legal team on this what were you thinking when you thought about new contracts being up in the chaplain I was thinking of you know if it's signed tomorrow it includes this but I understand um Alexis's point so it would it's a it's a it's a policy question for the commission whether you want it given in light of the fact that the reg has been in place with a waiver whether you think tomorrow is the appropriate time to start implementing this language or whether you'd like to give a short window um at which point after I don't know December 1st all contracts have to you know comply something along those lines Mina what are you thinking I I agree with Caitlin on that I think it's a little bit of a judgment call frankly at the end of the day I think this is going to be a matter more of enforcement discretion than waivers of if we know a commercially reasonable effort to try to get a new contract um you know I really depends on the vendor um whether they would pick up the phone and say we'll add this language now or not I just think I'm sorry I guess um if you could just hold for one minute can you just center I think I lost you though I'm I'm I'm on the phone um and I I got disconnected from hd meeting and so my question is really when you're ready if if Caitlin could just repeat what she said because I missed it in its entirety sure so that's good and then also if you could give us maybe like a bracket of language to address Alexis this as another option and I don't have to sure thanks sure I'll try um so Commissioner Skinner what I had said is to respond to Miss Coco's point um there are two options the commission could could take they the first option would be to say you know the reg has been in place albeit with a waiver for a while now and so starting tomorrow all new contracts need to have the language that is required um the second option would be to say we understand that there may be some contracts that are close to finalization and it would be harder to get that language in so we'll say that all contracts must conform with the requirements as of a date certain December 1st something like that to give a little bit of wiggle room um I think those are the two options and then I would do the language accordingly so point of clarification Miss Coco are you saying January 1 of 24 would suffice as a date in terms of from that date forward and he is so you're talking about a month six weeks at most I I think I could do that with my legal team not tar and feathering me I hate to say this but there's a difference between tar and feathering and like we just can't put the brakes on a negotiation so well I think six weeks right from today about or well I I think for new contracts signed January 1st that won't be such a business disruption that with especially with the holidays coming up I know a lot of to get done before then giving before Christmas um and and I think if we said all new contracts that apply signed January 1st or after but I'm not going to sit and not put it in there if there if there's room to put it in we will put it in because we still will need to go back based on the language of the waiver by June and hey we really put this in I just don't want to grow mention something that's going to get signed tomorrow I have to coordinate with the local team coordinate with the team um just to give us a little bit of of grace to to sort of not create are we um amenable to request or is there a big desire to hold it for tomorrow I just need to see I need to take the temperature here okay I think it's reasonable yeah good commissioner Maynard are you okay I think it's reasonable I just want to be clear that we have to weigh business interests versus public safety interests and I will feel really upset at myself if there's a breach or something that happens and this date and this date or when it happens so you know yes we're very we're very business friendly here but we're also number one public safety and so I I want it done I just want it done I want to integrate it as much as you possibly can do it and any waiver that we grant I want it to be so narrow in your day-to-day operations that this isn't a problem I don't I don't I don't want that risk commissioner Maynard have another suggestion or are we okay with January one I don't like yes or no questions madam chair I I'm just asking right now I'm sorry to your point I think we have the good big commercially reasonable steps to I think help address your concern I think all of us share your concern we're balancing you know we're balancing practicalities here not necessarily in the public I don't think any of us including probably our operators are are wanting to put the public's interests at risk so I just wonder we've got tomorrow or we've got January one I'm hearing those two options do you have another alternative it wasn't yes or no if I'm sorry if I suggest that I guess I just want to there's something else I've said what I've said okay commissioner Skinner I don't have you on camera do you have a feeling about January first tomorrow yeah I'm on I'm on the other side of this I think it's okay if I'm in the minority but I my feeling is that this should take effect immediately tomorrow in terms of the contract not yet signed because um this regulation has been out there and you know it's a wonder to me why the negotiations haven't included this language thus far so my I would be in favor of making this effective tomorrow in terms of you know just not extending the waiver on that particular question thank you very helpful commissioner um and then Nina as a lawyer here is that do do do we because I I that's why I asked when did it go in effect but I also don't want to be unreasonable because I'm I'm trying to I'm kind of in commissioner Skinner's camp you know it's spent out there unless they really thought they were going to retreat which we haven't really shown that inclination how what's the practicalities here in terms of your lawyer big firm um you feel do you feel the pain of electus in the way that we don't want to be on the phone so that's well those may be different questions um madam chair I'm I'm in addition to all of them counsel work on this but I I do a lot of transactional and contract work with in-regulated industries and so I certainly understand the concern and then it might take time I do think legally you have the right to insist on this you know you you provided an initiative you provided remember this came in the normal course this actually started with comments way back in the summer you provided waivers you're here so the policy decision of whether to go or not I think that the position commissioner Skinner just mentioned is is perfectly appropriate legally and again the the circumstance of what you do if if there isn't compliance is something that I would say you have to reserve for a later time um in your enforcement discretion what if we make it but um started before the our adoption I guess my comment on that again just from the practicalities of being in in contracts is I can tell you that I just asked about a project that technically a client had asked me about in 20 in April 2022 and I haven't really done much but they haven't asked me to do much since then uh is that the date when it started or when it pops up again in a month and and the principles are ready to talk and start I don't mean to suggest that the operators are going to play games with it but I do think it just gets even more confusing and what we're talking about here is a further extension of of compliance on the contractual terms while asking folks to in good faith to use commercially reasonable efforts to going forward and that's that seems um that seems doable on your end again that's that's for you all to decide whether how far to push that but I don't see any legal barrier to do that and just from my two senses somebody who negotiates agree that's here in there okay so Madam Chair if I could I'm not usually the one who's airing the side of giving more time to licensees um I find myself there in an effort to move this forward and I want them implementing um and I think to steal Commissioner Hill's intent and sentiments I think if you move it up to say 1215 or 1214 as the kickoff date you are acknowledging the reality on the ground right now you are acknowledging the reality on the calendar of the holidays you are making it quickly and they are agreeing to use commercially reasonable efforts and so to the extent that that can be done and rewritten prior to say 1215 um I think it you know avoids mutiny potentially inside an in-house and outside council doing these contracts but I think it also makes it clear that we want this done effective as soon as possible you said the 15th can we do the 14th just the day because we have the main day rather than January 1 that seems a bit compromised how does everybody feel about that Commissioner Skinner I know um I heard you clearly but you can also choose to vote the other way how do you feel about yeah you have consensus so I just you know I I think I've not moved from my earlier position okay I think I've got consensus Commissioner Maynard I don't know if you shifted or not okay Commissioner Maynard yeah are you thinking like I'm looking at your question I'm thinking Commissioner Hill is still okay with Alexis's request for more time we're doing a little bit more consistency with December 14th Commissioner Brian that's your position I'm I'm happy to go with that because again I'm thinking why you know why wait you know Commissioner Skinner's point but on the other hand I bet that I'm not really appreciating the intricacies of the contract contracting process although probably I've done enough of that in my legal career to make my head spin as well so Commissioner Maynard I mean I I'm also appreciating putting it to Commissioner Skinner's point doing it and then to Mina's point we can weigh it on any enforcement action on the back end right we can choose to do something or not do something um if something does pop up so that's the that's I'm that's why I'm weighing eight we've got consensus I'll I'll vote in the positive for the 14th okay great then with that Caitlin I turn to you that was helpful hopefully it gives some relief for those contracting complexities all right we'll give us a try so we're starting with 257.031 so the motion would be I moved it in accordance with 205 CMR 202.03 subsection 2 the commission issued the following waivers as further detailed in the materials in the commissioner's packet and as discussed here today as granting the waivers meets the requirements specified in 205 CMR 102.034 and is consistent with the purposes of GL chapter 23 and from the requirements outlined in 205 CMR 257.03 subsection 1 to all sports wagering operators through June 30th 2024 and notwithstanding the waiver licensees will make all commercially commercially commercially reasonable efforts to comply with 205 CMR 257.03 subsection 1 so moved any further discussion or recommended edits second oops my apologies thank you commercial help any edits any recommendations Mina does it matter that you've used good faith in front of commercially reasonable does that matter to you um it's a little redundant but I think it's okay in this case it's it's both to add the faith I think it's fine as is okay now for the comments commissioner bryan I I commissioner skinner I and commissioner maynard I and I vote yes and uh commissioner skinner um you're on and off but we can hear you clearly so that's important here though all right um it is now um oh chair should we do the next motion the final motion oh my apologies yeah thank you sorry thank you so much right one last motion uh for now I moved it in accordance with 205 CMR 202.03 subsection 2 the commission issue the following waivers is further detailed in the materials in the commissioner's packet and as discussed here today as granting the waivers meets the requirements specified in 205 CMR 102.03 subsection 4 and is consistent with the purposes of general law chapter 23 m from the requirements outlined in 205 CMR 257.03 subsection 3 to all sports wagering operators through June 30th 2024 and notwithstanding this waiver all contracts entered into as of December 14th 2023 must conform with the requirements of 205 CMR 257.03 subsection 3 and operators must make all commercially re commercially reasonable efforts to conform existing and ongoing contracts with 205 CMR 257.033 so moved second any questions or edits as to that motion commissioner brian hi commissioner hill hi commissioner skinner hi commissioner maynard fine and I vote yes fine zero now um we are at 1240 um I like I've lost track Mina where we might be here sorry madam chair so there is one more motion I think just as a cleanup that I would suggest um that was only backwards no just on this one um if you recall I mentioned the outside 257 05 K only I was going to mention that really honoring vendors but to answer your question after this we still have those were the two biggest conversations we do I think uh we'll see how it goes uh we do have a couple of uh individual sections of the rag that also had waiver requests but I I'm assuming folks will want to break before that um I meant to mention the K um draft king's particular request so how do we incorporate that doing amend um our men our last motion Caitlyn I I would suggest separate it's it's I think it's a separate motion but I think it's to whichever date we just set for the full compliance on three I think 30th yeah okay if you wouldn't give me one second to get myself set here my apologies Caitlyn no it's fine I thought I was walking doing that I can give you the preview if you want madam chair would that work for that would be helpful thanks so assuming we'll take a break after this is I think where you were getting out we have um outside parties too and then we have a for a hearing at three so in my thought our time frame here okay so what we have left is uh there's a question uh and set up this a discussion on 250 7025 this is a responsible gaming reporting portion of the reg um we our recommendation may help move that one fairly quickly but that's that's one there's a question about the encryption provision uh there's and then that's that's two the second one the third one is 250 704 there were a couple of requests with respect to consent would withdraw withdrawal of consent and then there are just this is more in the cleanup side I'm not sure if this will actually need waivers or not after all said and done several folks uh noted I think depending on how they approached it we're careful to know that they may need to also delay when they provide updated internal controls regulations that reflect this I think that one I again I have a proposal hopefully we don't you know won't you know by then you won't need a lot of conversation yeah may I ask one question on the 257.05 k waiver does that need any of the conditional language at the end or is it good as a straight motion I think uh Caitlyn that one is it's actually 257.051 k right um an active oversight on a compliance I I think either ways I think it's probably fine as is this is about having an active or um compliance monitoring system so it probably should I guess include the commercially reasonable if you're doing that for the rest okay is it 05.1 k that's what you said yeah 05.1 k okay sorry everyone just give me one second 257.051 k I think I'm ready okay all right I move that in accordance with 205 cmr 202.03 subsection two the commission issued the following waivers as further detailed in the materials in the commissioner's packet and as discussed here today as granting the waivers meets the requirements specified in 205 cmr 102.03 subsection four and consistent with the purposes of general law chapter 23 in from the requirements outlined in 205 cmr 257.05 subsection one k to draft kings through June 30th 2024 and notwithstanding the waiver all contracts entered into as of December 14th 2023 must conform with the requirements of 205 cmr 257.051 k and opt the operator must make all commercially reasonable efforts to conform existing and ongoing contracts with 205 cmr 257.051 k any questions regarding Caitlyn's just from the amendment I think contracts there should say practices because this isn't just about contracts or okay yeah actually contracts and practices because it's okay but with that friendly amendment I have no other thing well because there hasn't been a motion we could just say as we could say the proposed motion that Caitlyn and Mina have made one could say some moves with respect to language well I have a question madam chair okay commissioner scary yes please we'll see if you are again what was going to say we'll see if my system holds out long enough for it um um this waiver is uh with respect to draft kings only and and because it deals with contracts should it be reversal just given the prior waiver extensions um I find it hard to believe that there that this provision has already been negotiated in the contracts um yeah but not it's not so much it's a contract provision and I guess here here's and madam chair perhaps I I don't want to belabor this point because this is actually this is the point related to the internal controls and everything else 257.05 requires development and implementation of a comprehensive data privacy and security policies and this is one's particular provision of those policies is active oversight and auditing of compliance by vendors uh I this is probably not enough of a level of formality but I I I suppose my thinking on this and would be the comment I was going to make on the 238 piece is if the commission can provide the sentiment if before we get to a formal vote the sentiment that all of these are having the policies in place for the things as they are required and as they become required um then that kind of takes care of itself it's it's a policy about what's required so I'm not sure only one entity asked about this so this is kind of to Commissioner Maynard's point if others are willing to put it in a policy now that they'll do it later a waiver might not be necessary on the flip side if I say today in my policy I will make sure to find every vendor three million dollars um if they don't do this it doesn't mean anything if I don't have to actually do that in my contracts until June 30th so it's sort of a I'm not sure there's a need for any of the waiver frankly on on these if maybe the better point is that the guidance from the commission is that policy should be updated as within the deadlines to reflect the substantive parts I'm not sure but that's that's maybe this one is more tied to 238 so in that sense it's one suggestion and but I guess that's my that is my spiel I was going to give about 238 so maybe folks can mull that over and with with the benefit of calories or something we can talk it talk it over but that's that's really the point a lot of these I understand you know careful lawyering from from the different operators about this but the reality is if you're giving time for folks to implement necessarily they're also going to be updating their systems as they go their policies and systems as they go out their computer systems all right so I think we need to pause and have a lunch break I want I think we have to be clear that there are many items on our agenda that we actually have to get to today for vote I think I'm I'm right on that I'm rolling them over I know at least what's waiting when we've got to get through this I think have some community with that you know there's Joe hanging in there he's got the two entities ready to do their report but also to the co-votes that we need to get to that's not lost on us so Tory hearing and I'm going to turn to Heather should we put a light on you know we may be running late and the party should understand that and I don't think that presents a problem legally just I don't want to be rude so but we need to have a lunch break this has been very productive and complex I want to just thank all the participants who come in to help us understand their their viewpoints so thank you commissioners um but time is that it's 10 of 1 1 1 20 for lunch and half an hour so I'm going to do it for you that works okay thanks commissioners and everybody else is nodding thank you you're all set with that okay excellent thanks everybody we'll return at 120 love that cap so he's no fool he doesn't go out very much right because he's so old and I went to just eat my sandwich out in the front and he raced right out went under the porch far far far side he's deaf as a stump and so I was trying to bribe him with treats and he of course doesn't even know I'm there so I'm like you know taking these bang in the ground to get him to notice me to finally get him back in but I had that I'm like well if he doesn't come back in I gotta stay out here get the cannon love our pets how's your dog doing he's doing much better he's on a medicine he's on a medicine for old dogs and so far it's been working oh good yeah Kathy can attest he was he was barking up a storm yesterday because we had a guy fixing my wood stove and he was all over it oh good wondering I think we've got everybody and I think we're still alive correct so yep we are still live I just took the the screen down thanks Dave all right so this is a the gaining commission we're back after productive morning starting bright and early at 9 30 and before the meeting virtually so I'll do a roll call commissioner Brian good afternoon just me and myself I am here and uh commissioner hill good afternoon I'm here thank you good afternoon commissioner Skinner good afternoon and good afternoon commissioner Maynard good afternoon so I was just going slow because I'm not sure I seen mean of that afternoon I'm sorry I didn't turn my camera on but I'm here there you are thank you okay um oh my goodness where did we leave off me we're in the middle of 5a for the purpose of our agenda and we're discussing a whole bunch of flavors that were were affected by our yeah let me if I could I gave a little bit of a preview of what's left let me do that again in sort of a 22nd form there's there's a couple of substantive issues left namely encryption and rather than name the the regs let's name the issue first encryption about the reporting relate to responsible gaming consent and consent withdrawal those are really the three that are left as substantive issues there is then a handful of related internal controls or policies and procedures internal controls required by 238 or policies and procedures required under 250 705 itself and that's where we left off was talking about those during the break Caitlyn and I had a brief conversation and I apologize I don't think I articulated this well before but the point I was getting to is it may make sense especially if we're going to be taking up some of these issues again on the 14th to rather than entertain waivers on the internal controls and the portions of 250 705 that have to do with how operators are documenting compliance I think it's maybe more of an issue of clarification first to see if waivers are actually needed to say that operators should assume that their policies will eventually need to be in compliance with the whole rule as some of it may end up being amended or not we talked about that but the whole rule and that for the purposes of commission while you're looking for policies and procedures or internal controls that reflect what they are required to do as of the time they're required to do it so between now and June 30th the requirements will continue to develop so I think there's an understanding that the internal controls that are there now may not be the same as what's submitted later and that there may be a lag in submitting additional ones because the reason you you accepted some of the waivers based on the discussion earlier was that now that there's been further regulatory clarification more scoping and sort of figuring out well what does this mean for our organization for each operator is necessary and from my perspective and Caitlin's at least our our thought or our recommendation is that that guidance you know if you agree with what I just said that guidance may be sufficient for now and it certainly tells the sportsway during division and legal what to do with sort of with in progress internal controls rather than kind of getting too too caught up in the in the form over the substance that yeah well this section says you have to comply with you have to show us how you're complying with this other section but it's circular if you don't yet have to comply with the substantive section does that make sense really I'm joking what I am hearing though is that what I'm hearing is that right now may help the regulators understand the waivers not necessary but that would revisit this on December 14th for further clarification that would not put them out of compliance would the regulation being in effect tomorrow without a waiver is that correct correct I mean you know someone could make the case for technical non-compliance but it is you know a policy that I think the commission has made clear it understands there's evolution to be had and and how folks are how operators are going to be handling these issues and so it may not you know expecting it all to be documented before they've done that work or finished doing that work may not make sense either Crystal and Bruce does that help up to you and that's with respect to which which particular this would be with respect to the portions of 238 for which waivers were asked yeah our request excuse me and then 250705 I guess 250705 is data program responsibilities it includes a whole bunch of things the only so there were some requests for 250705 generally and some for for K I think specifically I think the point to make would simply be whether you take a vote or express it in some way that this is the sentiment of the commission is there should be a data security policy a data private security policies but they should reflect requirements as as they exist at the time and understanding that they may need to be updated as you move forward commissioners questions for me on this proposal I'm wondering if this give him the green light and that's what you're doing the green light to messages which we're doing here publicly as well and that if there's further clarifications that are needed that they would be roll over to 714 Crystal are you leaning in Crystal no sorry I just realized when I'm unmuted but I was just going to chime in when you asked earlier whether it works for sports waitering and we've talked with Mina and others about this so we were prepared okay excellent questions for Mina commissioners and for the sports waitering division you haven't had any I don't see any operator raising their hand here okay if I'm not hearing any objections to that plan I don't think we need a formal vote am I right yeah I don't think we need a formal vote at you it makes sense to me that based on the consensus here the operators will understand that as basically as the regulations are going into effect they may need to be updating their related ICs or other data policies right so there that that's done now Mina do you have another really good plan I hope so I'd like this to be reflected in my average of minutes per per section if possible in case anyone's keeping that stat 250 205 205 CMR 257 025 is the next place we'll go so this is this has to do with the um responsible gaming um reporting back piece of this and and let me just go back to the section so this section um had been inserted here this is about data use and retention um as an affirmative ask that sports waiting operators collect um and then the word right now says aggregate we'll talk about that a second patrons confidential and personally identifiable information to analyze the behavior and uh for purpose of identifying developing programs and interventions to promote responsible gaming and support problem gamblers this was sort of the positive use of data that we talked about a lot during the implementation process that will be reporting every six months of the commission on compliance with that section um a couple of questions came up including during the roundtable I think first there was this question about shall collect and aggregate and there was a question about the word aggregate um actually from the commission's uh expert on on it uh who's assisting director van der linden on this I think there was a misunderstanding of what the aggregate here is meant to do this is not intended to limit a sports wagering operator from using individualized data um to target uh help to someone who needs it for instance um if I'm you know if I'm engaging in in very risky bets over and over I have a show a pattern of it I keep raising my limits every hour etc and that there's an algorithm that captures that by all means this wouldn't be a problem for it the reason for the word aggregate was really meant because this is coming as a report to the commission the a way for the operators to provide you data without making you know putting it into the public records or or in a way having the commission end up with one off pieces of information I've come to understand a little bit further though that even that may end up limiting what the responsible gaming team at the commission may want to be able to do they may need to see particular data at some point so one thing that I know that the legal team in sports wagering have talked about is that we do we do intend to propose a clarification to this language in the next couple of months and perhaps just simple as removing aggregate but the the point of it it would still remain that it's it's kind of an animized data is what we were really talking about as opposed to only statistical raw data that's that's that's what the point really was for the aggregation that being said the questions from operators around this that came up were draft kings had asked for a January 1 waiver fan duel through July Caesars through June 30th kind of the same end of June for July 1st plane rich actually had asked through January 1 2025 to do the first reporting and there was a general the general ask really had to do I think with clarifying a little bit more about what is the commission looking for in the reporting out and also because of this aggregation issue you know concern about how it's done our suggestion since the reporting period for this was set to be on a six month period anyway is that and several entities have asked for six months and because we're clarifying it further is for the commission to give the operators until June 30th for the first report to be provided under this section and in the meantime for the responsible gaming team and legal and sports wagering to work out a more detailed ask pursuant to this reg of what kind of information you're looking for and in the form you're looking for it for that first report in June and you know again that shouldn't limit folks from using efforts to already do this work of trying to reach people who need help and my view is that's actually already captured to the extent an operator wants to do this and they that's easily considered within necessary to operate a sportsbook or sports operate wagering operation so it's already covered by 250702 and 3 and that would be to June 30th as well yes and although not and that's although not everyone asked for that this is a reporting that's come into the commission and I from what I understand you know I think the responsible gaming team would like to have a little to provide more direction to operators on what they're looking for so rather than have reports come in piecemeal from people counting six months from today versus that if you just make this one I think this one may make sense to be universal I want to anticipate that question any questions for Mina on this I see mark is here waiting in the commissioners with respect to what Mina's proposed do you have any concerns let me can hear from Mark I'm seeing no from Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Maynard no, Commissioner O'Brien no and Commissioner Skinner no Mark are we off that yeah if I um if I can just add something here um the commission has begun work looking at identifying a risky player behavior and an appropriate response and that would rest largely on our operators having some system in place to do that so this relates back to the RFI the commission released and form still sorting through the responses to that and so um you know I think that one I still have a lot to learn in this space but as I've read this regulation and I consulted with Dr. Michael Wall the term aggregate did concern both of us um specifically as it relates to responsible gaming initiatives and programs excellent thank you and Dr. Wall was very helpful that day so we appreciate it all right uh do you should we have a vote on this or is this enough of a consensus clear that we I guess we do have to have one because it isn't giving up a way for correct Caitlin yeah I would suggest to vote on this one okay um want to give us some help if you're ready I will and let me just ask Mina for one question the waiver would be through June 30th 2024 for the first report to be fried to the commission right specifically correct I think that I yes in the meantime it's really more of a direction to start implementing these procedures is really not much to enforce otherwise on that great okay in that case the motion would be I move that in accordance with 205 CMR 202.03 subsection 2 the commission issued the following waivers as further detailed in the materials in the commissioners packet and as discussed here today as granting the waivers meets the requirements specified in 205 CMR 102.03 subsection 4 and is consistent with the purposes of general law chapter 23m from the requirements excuse me from the requirements outlined in 205 CMR 257.02 subsection 5 to all all sports wagering operators a waiver through June 30th 2024 for the first report to be provided to the commission that motion in mind do I have a some vote some vote thank you do I have a second do I have discussion second thank you commissioner skinner is there any discussion okay commissioner brian hi christian hill hi commissioner skinner I'm an eye madam chair and just fyi I'm off camera but fully engaged I'm just trying to reduce the strain on my network I apologize when you did say I correct I did thank you so much and mr. Maynard I okay and I thought yes five zero thanks um thank you and and really uh it's it's I'm so glad it was an uh an iterative discussion among our folks here with marx team everything so thank you thank you madam chair um so moving on we have we have two left uh 257034 this is the portion of 25703 we haven't talked about yet it's that's to do with encryption the this one um if the uh some of the representatives the operators are still here this may they may have more to add about how uh what exactly the the issue is but to state it as as we understand it this provision was requiring the encryption or hashing uh which is really one way encryption as I understand it too uh of all patron confidential information or bi personal information uh there are a couple of questions that came around this that I think we clarified one is what if it's already in the public domain um you know in that case it's really this and what if it's on the patron's uh device but not with the with the operator and the short answer to all of that is it the clarification provided is that this is about what's within the cut care custody and control of the operator um and by extension vendors that they share it with etc it's really to limit access as opposed to limit use of the data to limit access to the appropriate people um after that clarification I think we got fewer uh waiver requests that we might have otherwise gotten however there were still a couple of questions that came up namely from um uh DraftKings and Ben MGM um and uh I'll use Ben MGM's comment which I think reflects sentiment that we heard elsewhere which is that the particular use of that particular technology encryption um may not make sense in all cases and so they were looking for either uh a permanent waiver or a waiver uh if I understood correctly they were looking for a permanent waiver DraftKings was looking for either end of 2024 or mid 2025 or permanently depending on you know which part of this um the issue that I think is coming up may be another one that is capable of being resolved less so by um trying to come up with the date by which all this can happen but by adding language to the reg that allows for more of a performance based standard where if operators can can demonstrate that they have other methods in place that are as protective and that encryption or hashing may not make sense yet um that that may be sufficient so that was one approach that sports wagering and legal talked about as resolving this that would be another thing that could come back for a regulatory change along with the change to aggregate um so perhaps a shorter waiver might be appropriate while we consider that uh talk through it again with GLI and and and commissions IT and the AG's office's IT teams as Commissioner Brian suggested earlier I will say this these questions some of these questions came up during the comment period we did take some of those comments and hashing was one one addition from there um and I don't know if these are there may be more conversation between more technically minded folks needed to try to make sure everyone's speaking the same language because I think the concern some of the concerns the way they're stated seem to reflect a belief that data will be encrypted so much that it can't be used but this is really about encryption when it's traveling from one entity to another um and so that the wrong people people who aren't authorized to see the data should see the data as opposed to then it being decrypted by the third party that is authorized to see so this one struck us based on the waiver requests is requiring a little bit more clarification and thus maybe a short waiver until uh whether that's three months six months to try to get at that so not December 14th I think longer than December 14th because I think we're anticipating uh potentially a regulatory change and to the extent that there even if there isn't one it's just a clarification it's more of an implementation issue than a um simple that's helpful um and they and in looking at the request is there any guidance on the shorter time frame that you're thinking of I I'm not sure if I follow the question oh no I guess I I don't I haven't gone through the the dates that requested between the two I see guidance from their time I know it's a different ask but I'm just yeah um the shortest time frame um on this one that was specifically asked was December 2024 um that was but I think and I you know here this is that my this was draft king's more part of you know the ask of it's good to do all the implementation at once um but I now that I know that that's not going to help me um so um to get the rag language in place and underway is to make it June 30th again because you did say six months or shouldn't be not that I I think this you know what the the question um but you know the I I don't want to overstep as a I'm not an IT expert but I do think the issue here is what what the operators have represented to us is that they do have lots of they have measures in place now you didn't waive 205 cmr uh 257 032 which requires continuing to have reasonable measures in place um so there will be protections in place whether this particular protections in place in the meantime is the only thing you'd be waiving so for that reason I can I can see a reasonable decision to go out to June 30th but you know I I think this one we've had the hardest time figuring out exactly the implementation timeline um you know for what how much more would be needed and again because some of the ask is about permanent waiver I think part of the issue is that some feel that there may be more effective methods that they can show us are more effective than than follow this one right and I guess I heard that that's what made me think you were going to have discussions early on I guess then the way the right could offer that kind of relate right if they're able to demonstrate it's effective the offer commissioners you have a timeframe in mind Christian Ryan Christian Hill I was thinking three months like the end of February issue yeah Crystal Bruce what do you think Crystal okay with me I mean it's we it doesn't really impact us either way so we'll comfort you all up I think if this if this implicates sort of amendments I think that's fine end of February okay um because we would have the amendment done by that time right well it's a good question um we it's unlikely that we would have it completely done like through the full promulgation process unless we did it by emergency um so I think we could we could do we could get through the first step of the amendment process and then if we had to extend the waiver we could extend the waiver depending on what the right looks like if that makes sense I want to do March 1st or last day of February March 1st I'm not sure if it's February 28th or February 29th it's a 29th so maybe March 1st yeah I didn't want to say that but couldn't I decide um all right so um March 1st and then we'll see where we are in our regulatory piece but they've asked them you know if it if it can be safer that we would yield to that of course Caitlin this would be universal with that where would it be for the two Caitlin my recommendation on this one would be a universal um only because if the reg is going to change then that may cause if it's going to encourage people to look at some of the technologies or um you know other companies are using instead that may be worth giving that additional time great any questions pressure push us there are you all set do you have any um questions for comments no questions okay turn to um a recommended or proposed motion Caitlin here we go the proposed motion would be I moved it in accordance with 205 cmr 202.03 subsection 2 the commission issue the following waivers is further detailed in the materials in the commissioner's packet and as discussed here today as granting the waivers meets the requirements specified in 205 cmr 102.03 subsection 4 it is consistent with the purposes of gl chapter 23 and from the requirements outlined in 205 cmr 257.03 subsection 4 to all sports wagering operators through March 1st 2024 so moved thank you second thanks commissioner all right commissioner bryant hi hi so madam chair the last one uh on my list if i'm keeping track appropriately here is um 257.04 this is regarding patron access this was another one we're depending on the operator we got different levels of granularity about which part they were asking for a waiver from some uh fan duel and fanatics both mentioned all of 04 uh bed mgm um and uh asked about 1d which is really the um the imposition of additional restrictions on the use of data um and caesars asked for that as well um and then better asked actually for 1a through c so there are sort of a couple of different concerns at play here one is the the more technical implementation one similar to the opt in there was a just asked for more time to be able to design uh the privacy notices information you know opt-outs etc based on clarifications that have been provided so far by the commission um the other concern was a more fundamental one that had been raised that there was a concern about over promising to patrons what can what can be done with their data or having too many different options for meaning that this sort of some some people read the reg I think as as giving a patron the ability to say well I don't mind if you market my stuff to this entity but not that entity requiring that level of of granularity uh in our clarifications and conversations I think we tried to clarify that one the patrons and I know that this was something the commission discussed when you implemented the reg that that if the operator believes it is necessary to hold on to data and a patron's asking for it to be deleted that the operator can still hold on to it because especially if it's for fraud or or safety issues or security issues um to in terms of the options offered um you know this it does not need to be entirely directed by the patron it's sort of giving options of you know you may have opted into all third-party marketing and it's out and it's really up to the operators how granular they want to get into it all of that being said because of the different clarifications I think this is another one where the dates differed there was really from March 1 2024 from better who focused more on the implementation piece uh Caesars fanatics and FanDuel were June November and October respectively so between June and October of next year BetMGM focused on the provision that had to do with sort of the access control and for them it was more of a permanent issue as opposed to an implementation issue and I think it was again this sort of they're they're not comfortable with how the language is written for the purposes of making sure people can fairly expect that their data they that not all requests with respect to data may be met um our suggestion as this has to do with the implementation piece uh is that you set a date that if you are going to grant waivers uh that this one probably does make sense to tie back for the individuals who did ask because they're asking about specific implementation pieces and that should be for a date um no no later certainly than the opt-in dates because I would imagine they get rolled out together you opt in probably through the same methods you opt out with respect to MGM's question we certainly can look at clarifying this further when we come back um with some of the other issues we mentioned um I think we may just have slight different well not slight I think we have um that we might have you know a narrower interpretation of what patrons may be required to be permitted to do then that MGM may be worrying about but I understand where they're well I understand what they're saying I'm just not sure we read their language the same way I think the best approach would be to walk through each particular one right uh each particular ask me yeah that's what you're thinking we I think so I will say FanDuel and Fanatics ask us for the whole of 257.04 yeah um although I'm not sure um you know for instance 257.04 also requires providing a written request that grants or denies a request um and gets at issues of um when data could could be erased all of that so I'm not sure if they're asking I'm not sure if that's what they at least with respect to FanDuel's I understand Fanatics to be part of that larger question about implementation of the whole program I might make one suggestion cognizant of timing and that we have an adjudicatory hearing too um it would be possible to give a waiver until we could roll this section to the next meeting or something like that give the waiver until that time and then take it back up if this is going to be a lengthy discussion about each particular request commissioners we're rolling this over to December 14th or do we continue on what we do have we do have another sports wagering matter we do have our two community mitigation foundation items that we have to vote on we have two presentations on the other hand the adjudication the adjudicatory hearing could be pressed back up I'm sure so what we want to do I would have no problem rolling this over to the 14th madam chair okay folks agree with commissioner hill commissioner thinner I got a thumbs up from the other credit I'm good with that okay wouldn't mind giving me one minute to get the language together thanks and and maybe for the 14th we can figure out a little bit more precisely about what they're requesting I understand you'd like it to be tailored in terms of timing Nina okay okay I have a little harder time following that one are we ready for the motion there yeah okay um so the motion the proposed motion would be I moved it in accordance with 205 cmr 202.03 subsection 2 the commission issue the following waivers as further detailed in the materials in the commissioner's packet and as discussed here today I was granting the waivers meets the requirement specified in 205 cmr 102.03 subsection 4 and is consistent with the purposes of general law chapter 23 in from the requirements outlined in 205 cmr 238 point oh I'm sorry give me roll that back from the requirements outlined in 205 cmr 257.04 to bet mgm no excuse me yep to vandal fanatics bet mgm better and caesars for december 15th 2023 on the condition that these waivers will be addressed at the december 14th 2023 meeting is that okay second thanks all right michael bernie hi mr hill hi mr skinner hi and commissioner mayer hi i vote yes so we've got through really 90 made it correct i believe so yeah i think we're actually um so we will um take the few things that i know are coming up on the 14th and work on those between now and then i appreciate it yeah and i take when the people just have that ready from um i've taken notes but i'm sure they're not precise from monday the agenda setting so we can get them right into thanks i'll be really good thanks so much all right uh anything else legal no thank you for your time and attention to this i know it took a long time um but it's great to get to get through a lot of this nothing and then and and so that we're we're probably again you'll just narrow down our our packet for just that last section and well the other things we have to be really helpful all right i'm looking for a document my apologies okay then we're amina thank you so much are you sticking around are you i don't think so unless um i'm not going to even ask if there are requests but unless there's something that i i'm forgetting i don't think i you can stay if you'd like anyway thank you thank you so much um we really appreciate your help okay so we're going to move on to item five um c which is uh a jack king's request and i'm going to turn back to director van and hi and yes uh uh interim operations manager andry stessen will be handling this andrew yep thanks for some good afternoon madam chair commissioners only one item for the review today because of page 185 of your packet this is a request from our operator draft kings requesting the commission to authorize the avoiding of wagers of becoming aware of an incorrect market totals on an nba game from our dated october 24th in a match up between the los angeles lakers and the denver nuggets uh pursuant to 205 cmr 238 35 section 2 a sports wager and operator may request the commission to authorize the cancellation or avoiding of all wagers of any specific type kind or subject under section 4 the commission shall issue a written order granting or denying the request to cancel or avoid the wager or wagers in your packet we have prepared prepared a brief memo summarizing the incident and providing a timeline of the events as well as the incident states on october 24th between 4 22 pm and 4 35 pm eastern time approximately 13 minutes draft kings offered incorrect odds on same game parley markets the same game parley vendor sportcast released first quarter player markets for the game despite draft games previously communicating developmental work was needed to handle the first quarter markets as a result the first player markets were offered as full game markets as the draft kings platform interpreted the odds as full game odds rather than first quarter odds and before i move on just like to get a quick example of one of the affected markets um you all may know lebron james of the los angeles lakers um who last season the average 50 or 55 games average nearly 30 points eight rebounds and six assists per game he was offered at same game parley odds of over under eight and a half points two and a half rebounds and six and a half assists assist for the full game for reference to correct lebron james full game totals on the same markets were simultaneously being offered by draft kings as non same game parley player prop wagers as over under 23 and a half points seven and a half rebounds and seven and a half assists assists and this didn't just affect lebron james wagers all players in the game from both teams were effective for this matchup as a result a total of 178 wagers were placed on these impacted markets by a total of 137 individual customers for a total handle of $4182.36 with a total liability to draft kings of $575,436.82 the memo in your packet does provide a timeline but just to summarize on october 23rd at 1 12 p.m eastern time one day prior to the game sport casts who i mentioned earlier is the same game parley vendor advise draft kings they intended to offer a new first quarter markets the next day on october 24th at 1151 a.m a little over 22 hours later draft kings inform sport casts they are unable to ingest the new first quarter lines later that same day at 422 sport cast released the first quarter player markets approximately 11 minutes later at 433 p.m draft kings reported to sport cast the player markets are being offered at incorrect lines and approximately two minutes later at 435 p.m sport cast suspended the offerings as mentioned draft kings identified the root cause as sport cast released in the first quarter markets for the game after draft kings communicated development work was needed to handle these markets as for remediation draft kings has advised sport cast they will not be offering first quarter player markets until further development work has been completed and implemented in conclusion the sports wagering division has reviewed the request instant report and remediation provided by draft kings it confirms all requirements have been met pursuant 205 cmr 238 35 section 2 and is no reservations about moving forward and processing this request to avoid all affected waiters to note we do have draft kings representative senior director of regulatory operations jacob list on the media to help answer any additional questions as well chair thank you commissioners questions for either uh andrew or for mr list commission brian so i'm wondering how it is that if you indicate to the the outside party that you can't list it how does it show up anyway jacob that might be for yeah i'm sorry that was mr list sure firstly good afternoon chair and commissioners thank you for the opportunity to speak about the error so it is summarizing the incident report but essentially we are sent data from the the provider that we use for same-game poly sportcast and then our system interprets the data that they send us translates it correctly for the markets at the customer season the website in this case our system was set up to translate full-game proposition markets the same game poly but not proposition markets for the first quarter we instructed the vendor of this and we believe there was some type of miscommunication on the vendor side and they sent us that first quarter information anyway so we incorrectly translated it into full-time markets on our side so i'm trying to figure out why the the obligation to pay wouldn't fall on the vendor if they did something erroneous like is it so clearly erroneous is that what you're saying is it was so clearly erroneous as to yeah we would we would say this is a circumstance a very clear obvious error so some facets of behavior that would lead us to categorize it that way customers when an error affects multiple markets and customers notice and then they poly them all together that's an indication that the customers clearly know that's an error there's also instances of customers talking online so on twitter and other forums saying you know stuff along the lines of look there's this huge error go about it I'm dropping so we would say that yes we take void requests as an extreme extreme exception very rare but in this case we do think it was an extremely obvious error and fits the description of that in our you know in our rules and the regulation so was there social media chatter about this particular that yes and how much was that in total I know you give the payout right um total bet was four thousand one hundred eighty two dollars and thirty six cents okay so that's the total handle and then the payout if honored is a little over half a million yes so you told them not to send it but you had to do more build out it didn't it came through anyway and then it said the remediation is to tell them once again you're not ready till more build out uh there's three I guess there's multiple bullet points in the remediation I don't know if you want me to go to go back over with them but I it's yeah it's not only that okay so in addition to that what's the stopgap so that it wouldn't accidentally feed into the system again I'm wondering that in addition to sort of reiterating that the system can't handle it what are the other two remediation measures so the vet so essentially what happened on the on the vendor side was when we told the vendor that they uh we once set up to handle this they triaged it internally and we believe they sent it to the wrong party to answer the question and that led to a delay in it getting to the correct person to answer the question so we've asked the vendor to review their internal communications process around this type of thing which they are um we are actually also uh moving to an in-house version of this specific nba same game parlay product so we actually won't be uh subject to uh potential communication error um uh for for nba in in in any case for this particular vendor yeah I'm moving right to some I looked at the red last night but uh this is uh under part of the red that's quite general all right this kind of correction do you have a thought that you could share with us Madam Chair I didn't hear you I didn't hear you could you reflect on the controlling reg because it's quite general I mean and and I looked at last night I just didn't I don't have in front of me but I wonder if it might be helpful for the commissioners to know what you know the the regulation that drags into this file it's under hmm I had um some follow-up questions when it when when um if you don't mind when you're ready yeah thank you I don't know if I'm probably able to get it or Chair I have the red pulled up I don't think I dare going to share the screen thanks so much manager that'd be helpful so everybody has it while we're discussing it too we have of course the memorandum that's in the packet thank you screen okay so this is 238 35 section two for all circumstances not set forth in 238 35 one on the deals of obvious errors okay so that's our framework perhaps my here commissioner Skinner has some follow-up questions should I pull this down yeah sorry that's okay I know you're back so um I thought I'm here I'm um if you we can if you have it ready again because it might be helpful just walk us through the the requirements too okay thanks you may please thank you if that's helpful to commissioner Skinner I'm sorry are you are you waiting for a question do you follow up I do I'm sorry I'm all screwed up today I'm sorry not a problem you don't worry so um Mr. List I appreciate you expounding on uh the reason uh or the I guess the the gap in communication on the sportcast side I didn't find that information in the material but um just expanding on commissioner bryan's questions um I was wondering you know whether this is the responsibility of sportcast to pay out these wagers so um is there an agreement or does the agreement between uh you you you folks then sportcast provide for a remedy for this scenario for instance is there an indemnity clause that you could um point to in terms of um getting a resolution to this should the commission not not grant the the request to void uh I'm not I'm not sorry like the commercial arrangement with the partner is not my area of expertise I'm also really not sure if the like the details of the commercial contract with the vendor would be something that we would want to talk about in the public forum mm-hmm I mean it doesn't sound like you know it's as one commissioner I mean it's it's clear that this wasn't to me that this was an obvious error um and so I I am inclined to to vote in the affirmative to grant the request but um just in general it would be good to know um because where it's not covered here but in instances of say gross negligence or um where there's a malicious intent if you will I I'd want to know um if there is something else that the that that's the operators might be able to draw on in terms of getting some um relief should the the request not be granted um I mean we've certainly had regulatory bodies uh you know request certain details about the nature of uh contractual terms that we have in vendors if it if it was specific interest for a certain reason um and I think that's certainly something uh you know if you wanted to request of us uh either in this context or different circumstance we'd certainly work with you to provide that information um generally um yeah it's just I'm not telling I'm sure I'm sure that we were providing this forum yeah I am interested in it generally and and and I'm I'm making the request now um and so if you could follow up with our sports wagering division I'd appreciate that yeah we will do that absolutely so I did have a follow-up question in light of the statute and the criterion um and it's really subsection c that I'm starting the regulation the regulation sorry so we could bring it there's there's three criterion a b and c yeah and he says explaining why could bring it up again please I'm sorry just so we're all looking at it thanks so much Mr. Ryan yep this is an explanation why canceling or boarding the wager is in the best interest of the Commonwealth or ensure the integrity of this sports waging industry so if you can speak to that as opposed to Jesus it was a mistake that somebody hopped on advantage of 11 minutes because there's sort of two ways to look at it and so this the submission that we got it doesn't really speak to c that's sure I mean I can speak to that briefly first first I go I guess back to reiterating the point that this is a truly exceptional circumstance um I believe that these regulate these type of regulations exist because in truly exceptional circumstances it does make sense for operators to have some type of protection for this scenario um this was an error that not only affected Massachusetts so without going to details of the total math we're only looking at a specific liability in one jurisdiction so these are sort of almost black swan type events but it's important that we I think as an industry that we do have some type of protection should something like this occur particularly when you know there are a lot of controls in place to prevent this type of thing included in the monitoring we have in place to pick it up quickly but the magnitude of the error can also be somewhat arbitrary compared to the size of the control failure and so whether it's 500 000 or 5 million or 5 billion there is you know I think it's important as an industry that there is some type of recourse for an operator for a truly exceptional circumstance and have any of the other jurisdictions refuse to void uh I'm actually also not sure if that's something that's public information um so yeah that is information that I we do have the status of of the void request for every jurisdiction um yeah but I'm not I'm not sure I'm going to be sharing this for so certainly I can say that the vast majority of jurisdictions have permitted us to void I would want um the question commissioner skinner asked and then that question to me bear on my adjudication of this request yeah can I can I ask for the territory her request please Madam chair sure I'm just I'm asking if there is in the in the agreement between the operator and the vendor whether there is a remedy provided for in this kind of a scenario I understand that the assertion by drafting says that this is a clear error notwithstanding that I'm curious to know whether there is indemnity language in any such agreement on top of that you know I wonder is this something that an insurance policy would cover thank you madam chair um I joined my fellow commissioners and asking for additional information but this question is actually not for mr list this is for our legal team is 940 cmr 3.0 or any other um state law applicable to this situation I'm thinking of any consumer rights that exist under um consumer affairs and business regulation the attorney general's office any place where there's a price um hosted and and not followed situation and has it ever been extended to something like this I I'm I'm not sure it would weigh on my adjudication although our regulation permits it right now to follow other applicable laws in the Commonwealth and understanding on anything that we do I know I know that but you got my well commission me and I'm in agreement with you but I'm hoping that I'm hoping that we didn't miss that is what I'm thinking but you've raised I mean you're raising a good point I'm hoping that we didn't miss that okay so the the issue I'm struggling with is we have patrons right now who are looking to be not that they haven't been paid uh the way the wages are currently in pending status in Massachusetts pending state without clarity and and we don't know the status across the country in other words we might not be first we might not be last I do think I think this is that question is something I wanted like quickly seek legal clearance internally about but I think it's something we can um sort of information that we can probably provide to you extremely quickly potentially today I thought the commissioner may have was also going to ask maybe the question to follow up did um this is our regulation isn't an outlier most states allow for this kind of I see Bruce I think this this is familiar territory to you right sorry I couldn't get that unmuted yes that's correct most places do allow you the the question I did post though Madam chair is legal going to answer that now or do we need more time probably I wonder I wondered if they I was that's that's fair because I know it would be hard for them to probably answer that like quickly I'm guess as I said I'm hoping that we can miss something um I get what you were asking completely um and the consumer protection situation Caitlyn um I worked on this rag and I that is not something that I remember looking into as part of it but I've just taken a note and we can absolutely go back and take a look at that I remember a lot of the conversation around around this rag related to separating sort of what was a very uh there's no discretion right there were errors where it was a clear error and there's no discretion determining versus sort of the idea of an obvious error that might require discretion I remember that but yes I will look into that commissioner interview Todd are you going in I was just going to add to what Caitlyn said I don't recall that we've ever made use of the consumer protection laws in this context of course this is certainly a slightly emerging area for us that we haven't had occasion to navigate so it might be a little bit different and as Caitlyn said we're taking a look at but I don't believe we've ever done that before the AG's office reviewed this though correct I'm not sure if they reviewed this particular in fact I don't think they I don't think we sent this particular this was the GLI generated regulations I don't know what that means I'm sorry well they helped us prepare this GLI draft GLI I'm sorry I thought you said TLI sorry it's a new acronym thank you so the other just for Mr. List's edification so the the the two issues that I need further sort of explanation or argument on is whether the facts and circumstances you've put forward is it seems to be you're saying it trends toward integrity of the sports waging industry and then we have another section that talks about writing orders and different criteria to take into effect into account and one of those if you go to foresee is whether allowing it or disallowing it would be unfair to the patron and so it's a little bit of what commissioner Maynard asked in terms of if you post something is it unfair to then say well you typed it in wrong and therefore we're not going to do it which we did have some of this conversation during the reg so maybe if you can speak to those two points a little more I mean so the second one you raised I guess is the most in front of my in front of mine I guess I go back to the the the clearness and obviousness of the era this is not someone accidentally put a 20 off a sale sign on a couch and the seller of the couch ends up having to honor the sale price of the couch this is patrons who noticed five similar errors in the player prop of almost certainty outcomes piled them all together with let's say a $10 bet for tens of thousands of or at least thousands of winnings so the question is really you know is that is that the type of scenario that I guess fits in fits fits into this kind of conversation of all the the patron you know just just happened to see this out there embedded and and therefore what they did should be on it that that's what really the this is an obvious error section exists to distinguish from that type of customer situation first part of your question if you could please repeat sure was it's a big basis for whether in my view we void something like this is the interest of the Commonwealth and the integrity of the industry and you've spoken a lot obviously about the business consequences of allowing this to go forward which I can appreciate but can you expand on how that speaks to the integrity of either the event or the sports wagering industry in terms of if we said we're not letting you void it I mean I still I didn't think it was said a if we said a precedent where that this type of situation wasn't voidable then certainly of the type of exceptional you know examples that I made uh you know suddenly it could cause some significant problems for for operators down the line if you'd like I guess like a more detailed answer than than that um we could certainly follow up with more information there as well but I think you know that is the the the basic concept that play I guess I have one I have one follow-up that I'm thinking about based on a Brian's question Mr. List I understand that you just described a scenario where a sharp like player saw what happened and constructed this parlay what what about the one what if it's one what if it's one player that just honestly put together the parlay that way how am I supposed to think about it how would you yeah so I like as DraftKings as a company probably one of the highest priorities we have is to make our customers happy and bring a pro custom company it's very like pro pro customer brand driven you know type of voice that we have so if we encounter those type of situations and we do have information about our players customers write in and they complain and if we do think that we have someone that fits into that category then we typically provide them with some type of make good or in any case in fact we may have done this already for for some players who have had wages out there yes I would say any it's um hard to get it right for a hundred percent of populations when there's any type of issue but if we want to realize that anyone had sort of uh fit into that category uh that you mentioned and we certainly do almost to to make sure they want to keep betting with draftings thank you commissioners if I may in DraftKings house rules and error is defined as an example not limited to this but bets place at odds that are materially different from those available in the general market at the time that that was placed in your packet as I summarized earlier that the errors are for the same game parlay markets whereas the normal player odds for all the players in those games are at their correct totals so if you went and wanted to bet the over under on any player without the same game parlay you would be wagering on the correct odds when they opened up the app or their their sportsbook and they went into the same game parlay markets those were the incorrect odds if that helps at all Andrew that's really helpful and a good reminder and it does it does support the integrity of the the element game because we have to be able to have our customers rely on the house and then of course we have the obvious error discussion does that help you Commissioner O'Brien it doesn't outweigh the other questions that I have and have asked already but in terms of meaning of element C of the regulation guess yes see and now I can see both sides in terms of before to be blunt I really was not seeing this as any as voiding it speaking to either the best interests of the Commonwealth or in the integrity of the industry it was more a business it was to the benefit any interest in the business that would have to pay out which is why I initially asked the question that Commissioner Skinner asked which is indemnification and I can see that the house rules being consistent would speak to that I don't know if it overcomes the other questions that I have about some of the questions Christian Skinner I mean Christian Maynard has raised in terms of you know if somebody's really sharpening on top of things and puts it together is that really something that we void under this or not this is been a very good debate and discussion but I'm going to be very frank with you I think this was an obvious mistake and I have no problem voiding this bet as we stand here at this moment I do and did have the same question as Commissioner Skinner did in regards to the question that she had regarding you know your partnership with the company and if they should be on the hook for this but overall it was clearly an obvious mistake in my view and I don't see why we would not at this point void this but that's that's my feeling as one commissioner and void it and get back to the patrons with some clarity right yeah okay does the house rule element oh sorry how I said one other question though you talked about there there may be patrons who were given some sort of compensation sort of knowing that this is either on hold or might be voided was every patron who put a bet on this treated the same or with is there any disparate treatment here because that would to me speak to you know integrity of the system or fairness of the patrons all of the bets are in the same pending state so in terms of didn't you say that you may have given some sort of comps or incentives or something to some of these patrons yeah so patrons will write into us I guess in complain about a myriad of things and we'll look into each of those like complaints case by case and so you know a patron who has never played with DraftKings before and suddenly opens an account and the first thing they do is parlay five errors together and complains to us we may from a yeah discretionary like burnishing perspective treat differently than someone who is a casual player that's you know a typical sort of customer of the type that we may you know think would have stumbled on this and and better than in the in the type of way that you know you have to discuss today and is complaining because their wager has been sitting in limbo you know for a lot for a long period of time then we may provide them some type of discretionary bonus that's that's accurate I would be troubled by them any any customer or patron who went did this not being treated the same in terms of compensation for avoided wager I would assume they'd get back to what the money they put in and if anybody got anything above and beyond that I would hope everyone was treated the same but that's just me this one well tip I mean to I guess like just to play this so quickly I understand what you're saying so we've we've refunded the vets right for this in almost every jurisdiction if a customer is complaining about just the non-settlement of their vet we might preemptively give that refund to get ahead of where we think this is going but the way to end by treating every customer equally would potentially be then once we get to settling the bats then those people might not be allowed to double up so it's easily like we want to get to the equal treatment of customers but we don't necessarily want them to be held up on our part because of this type of regulatory engagement that can move at very different speeds and different jurisdictions I'm not viewing it as the regulator speed it's just the error was on the part of you and your vendor and so I think correcting it the remedy would be the same no matter who the patron is right but so getting to the same remedy would be if we had preempted a bonus to a customer not allowing them to double dip by saying we were to void all of these wages if the commission were to allow that mrs. do you have any other questions or comments questions Andrew do you want to restate the recommendations for things yeah certainly so we have no reservations I'm moving forward with instantly avoiding all of these wagers today could you just say the last part yeah so we have no reservations about moving forward with avoiding or canceling all the wagers with regards to this incident from draft kings sorry so yeah to be clear madam chair I'm not in a position to vote today given I've asked for some things that are outstanding and understandably maybe things that draft kings doesn't want to discuss in public okay don't know how the other commission um commissioner skin I know you asked for information as well has the um discussion that we've had since that request um made you more comfortable today so I was I was comfortable voting today anyway because I do agree that this is an obvious error and um you know for those kinds of errors you know whether or not there's any indemnity indemnification from the vendor um you know I think that's irrelevant uh in that context um but I would just for general purposes um like the question to be answered and um I certainly want to respect my fellow commissioner who is not comfortable voting today so um just in that regard I do I do think we should put this off until we are all comfortable voting commissioner brian what is your request again please I want to know the indemnification I want to know what the status is of these judications to void and the other jurisdictions and I want to know whether all the patrons have been treated equally okay so let's just put us back the first one on the indemnification that's a complex question I presume that that could be protected or it could be also a matter of public release um Todd help us out on indemnification I do know that mr. this was struggling with whether or not he could deliver some information on the status of other jurisdictions um and then the final one commissioner uh you know in terms of I I'm just going to beg to differ with you on that you that's fine you it would be great to think that every customer it's going to be treated exactly the same um what I thought I heard and mr. listen can correct me is that they they're exercising some of their business judgment around their customer service uh and and and that it would be some kind of customer credits or that kind of thing and that he hadn't heard from them they weren't going to go back to every customer and give that are you saying that that's something that's expected because I don't believe I'm not no I'm not saying that it's expected but when I look at the criterion of whether it's unfair to patrons contrary to any sort of public policy best interests of the company in the industry that's a factor for me as one commissioner okay and because we certainly don't have that as an implicit requirement correct correct we do have a house rule that we've adopted that I I think it helps me get much more you know comfortable when I thought about this it seemed on its base obvious error um that I went through what did we adopt and I felt that uh the three criteria were were met uh I I'm hesitant to have this rolled over uh because I think for the integrity of the swath wagering um landscape we should be able to make this this um decision today we've had this memorandum now for a few weeks and that the items weren't requested before I don't need to be pushy but I am trying to preserve our meetings and kicking it to the next meeting just uh you know well that's you know I made myself clear Madam Chair and one of the concerns I had when we drafted the regs also I didn't want this idea of we made a pricing mistake being an obvious error that would then just necessarily be wiped out because in that case it's a very simple process so I obviously take this interpretation differently um you know there's five of us if someone wants to move in second I agree with you of course Commissioner Grant and that would be five plus yeah I guess I just wanted to move in second and vote accordingly that's fine with me yeah so the three items so the third item was what again that was your third requirement it was indemnification it was the status of the and then it was the fundamental fairness to the patrons correct or or equal treatment so commissioners do we roll it over to December 14th or do we act today I'm more comfortable with the squeaky wheel getting the grease than Commissioner O'Brien is that said I'm still interested in the information and then further I just wonder if this doesn't hit other parts of Massachusetts law on consumer protections and maybe we did just miss it when we put together regulations I don't know I'm not I mean the odds of me voting on this today are lower than a healthy LeBron James scoring less than eight points in a game so I'm not going to devote on it without this information okay then commissioners going to you feel the same way then we won't have we won't move on it yeah I want to respect my fellow commissioners desire to be fully informed just before taking a vote on this and respectfully we did have this memo for a couple of weeks but this is the first opportunity we've had as a commission to discuss the request and so you know going forward I'm happy through our sports wagering division to seek additional information but if when we're talking about information that has to come from the operator I'm not sure that's feasible but you know I hear you don't care and we'll make some adjustments going forward in that regard well I I'm only saying it not because I mean I'm living these public meetings and this is how we do our business but to the extent it can help our sports wagering team to anticipate any of the types of things which are all fair requests just if it's going to be a request for information that all five of us are asking for but one is then you know I I agree I I always love more information commissioner brian worried about the jurisdiction piece we could look we could make that we could make that ask ourselves and that's quite a bit of work but we could figure that out which jurisdiction I'm sure the raw I'm sure the raw numbers are one thing all right that's right the individual and then individual jurisdictions if they can be great but the raw data in and of itself wouldn't be something I would think that's I guess be great so if you're chair jadstein if you're going back to the question of the status of other jurisdictions I'm sure I think we can provide that to you very quickly just because and we have actually to other states it's just because it's not currently public information as far as I know I'm headed into this but I have the informational problem is how does it get to the five of us make our decision if it's protected that's you know that's where we're caught it's it's a dilemma where you know anyone's listening the legislative we could have a little relief on this piece it would be very very helpful because we're actually right now caught in kind of a conundrum to borrow commissioner brian spit one of her favorite words we we want that information but we can't present it publicly we can get it all privately but then we can't talk about it so it's a little dilemma and if I could just add to that dilemma as far as indemnification the materials go I'm not at the top of my head as we sit here sure under what theory we would be able to withhold that information so I think it should be assumed if we receive that that will be public information right so if it comes into us before you send anything Jake you you know it becomes a public record and we want no we know that you've all been briefed on this it is a hard it's just a rule we want to remind folks out so I'd reach out to our legal team that uh specializing before you send anything that's once it's in our custody it's up I understand that it's just there's a difference between uh if we're allowed to you know quickly go expedient legal review internally before we provide something which we know may well become public that's different than you don't be talking off the cuff you know in a conversation like this without going through the proper internal process Andrew are you concerned about this going into December 14th this is something that we should add on to our Monday the 20th would we be able to get all of this done by the 20th of Madam Chair can I speak to that I'm not concerned with people's funds being tied up the next for two weeks uh you know for what they bet and that's my concern with it uh these people don't have access to their their money it's already been since October so that would be my concern that's fine that's been my concern is the sense of urgency that I thought accompanied this maybe that wasn't clear yeah but if we could get it on for for money we could probably get you the information that you requested by then and and so what would happen is that it'd be a release of their religious effect you're talking about this Monday well I went on and commissioner I'm not able to make um a particular meeting on this on Monday and um I will be none too happy if I can't make a decision on this and so if we have to make a decision on this right now I'll take a vote but it's going to be to give the consumers of Massachusetts their money that's what my vote is going to be I'm sorry that I forgot that you weren't going to be coming I'm just looking for a solves I'm looking for solves I can do after 130 or two on Monday but I cannot do yeah 10 or 11 on Monday I was just thinking our agenda setting meeting all right and you know how many patrons in Massachusetts were affected total number of customers I believe were 137 thank you and to Bruce's point we have received I don't have the exact number of hand but we have received a handful of customer disputes maybe five to 10 okay Mr. List thank you for your time today commissioner hell I think that a motion would be defeated it sounds like perhaps I don't know given that there's outstanding information that folks want to hear I feel like Commissioner Skinner does that if my fellow commissioners need some questions to be answered we should get those questions answered before we take a vote and I'm okay with that and it would be after the Thanksgiving holidays on November we could not roll it over to December 14th we'd roll it over to November 30th that would make sense I can do Monday I just can't do the the meeting on Monday I can do later on Monday just want to be clear yeah I mean it's also what four thousand dollars in bets correct four thousand you know drive kings could could just decide to refund customers too while we work out the first time we've had this come in front of us it's it's not I want to I want to resolve it but I'm this is the first time this is this is actually come in front of us this reg manager we have a regulation placed our house rules in place let's get your questions answered the best they can be answered Commissioner Bride and and not um perhaps propose a mandate that I don't see a regulation support I'm not I'm not saying that's right but I think your point about the number of customers I want to point out the monetary so yeah well and and I'm putting in the context of that very criteria again um you know I'm I'm hoping that we can speak be a legion be a legion to the regulations that we've passed and that includes being a legion to the house you know house rules that we as a commission have to pass and approve I mean so um I'd rather not just do some one-offs right now without if the further information will give you some level of comfort or get us to a majority vote I'm you know fine uh Commissioner Maynard if it's of any I guess if it's of any comfort I think we will be able to provide the additional information you've requested to extremely quickly most of the difficulty with customers having pending bets happens immediately so if it continues on for a couple of weeks it's not the end of the world um I would say lastly uh I think it is to our understanding this isn't the first time this has come up before we did review I think there was a an error request from Basta earlier in the year I'm not saying in any way their request is analogous to ours um but certainly we did review that before this meeting yeah it was a very different factual request but that's great that we can get the information quickly sure should we try to do it in the afternoon that the time that I I I know that Commissioner Maynard is taking that day off so I don't want to close on him but we want to try to do that on November 20th for the benefit of consumers in Massachusetts if Commissioner Maynard is okay with that that would be fine with me Commissioner Maynard yeah let me get you a time right now um which I don't recall happening a lot of times in public meetings but I'll do it you know what let's go a little bit over to November 30th thank you everyone thank you Mr. no I no we're excellent you know I'm I'm I want to respect your your time um no I actually land at um back into Massachusetts at 1.05 I am happy to do it anytime after I can get to the office by two this is one more wrinkle not to keep being the skunk at the garden party here but we'd have to post the meeting notice 48 hours in advance so we're up against everybody we can do it at three it's 256 I can't post that I'm sorry I can't get an agenda done in three minutes from my desk um all right I could get um because we have another proceeding that I can't I can't um get that done unless somebody from legal puts it together for me um and it could be you know 430 but you know what I didn't realize Commissioner Maynard would actually be back in Massachusetts as opposed to off my vacation I forgot that um Richard I just need some guidance November 30th fine okay we'll do um we'll add it to the agenda November 30th Mr. Liss thank you very much appreciate it okay I've got a turn now to um again uh and also Andrew I didn't mean to in Bruce thank you very much for your your good work I'm sorry that we we couldn't get everything tidy for you today my um my apologies for not managing the meeting in a little bit smoother process thank you very much thank you let's go to um item number six excuse me Madam Chair might I just ask about timing for the Judicatory hearing um it's we've let the folk the parties know that it's not likely to start at three but I'm wondering if we can give any additional information about start time we have um we also had an executive session that's important to the commission I know Commissioner Hill you wanted to hear from on that matter yesterday um a few weeks ago so I hate to roll that over we have Plain Ridge Park Casino waiting in the wings as um is Uncle Boston Harvard to do their reports each takes about 20 minutes and then we have a very short guidelines and grant amounts which take require a vote the REIT is there Caitlin any flexibility on their schedules oh well I know we have we have on our schedule it's scheduled three to four and then probably through the end of the day internally for staff um I can reach out and see if if the parties are available through five um Chair and Caitlin if it helps I have spoken with Attorney Nozzle and they are aware that the REIT um may be bumped to later but if there is kind of any more end quote on the specific timing that would be great I would have no problem moving that particular issue Madam Chair okay Heather um so that means for item number seven we would move that um to a later date if that works for the other commissioners actually I'm sorry I I was speaking about the REIT um no no no we're we're trying to find time in our day and and you said I'm sorry what did you say Heather maybe I misinterpreted you I was just I had spoken to Attorney Nozzle about the fact that the REIT was going to be moved later but that said if the commission wishes to move the item number seven as well then you know we can certainly have communications with MGM about that I'm trying to find some time to get the two presentations done um Attorney Hall and also be aware of the fact that the end of the day is approaching for staff so that helps us by rolling seven over to another a future date whether it's the um yeah just so you know that they are amenable to that I just communicated with Attorney Medalla so thank you they might be that's good and then we have item number six where we have two reports which I think we should have recorded the reports done Joe that brings us to the two items six C and D which we do need to vote on today my suggestion is that we move on those two items first I'm going to turn to Commissioner Hill who would like to start with a question on item um six C uh uh I want to first before we do thank Joe's team on all of the work that has gone into this new process for producing these guidelines and for producing the um the allocations for across the board um we um have had just I just want to thank you and and Mary is I don't know if I see Mary but Lily Mary and Joe thank you so much Commissioner Hill would you like to take uh center stage here I would be more than happy to Joe you mentioned during our agenda setting meeting that we should be able to get this done in 11 seconds I'm going to ask that we try and do this in 30 seconds uh we have seen the proposal quite a few times we've come to a consensus on what um you have proposed and I think Madam Chair unless there's any objection that I would move that the commission approve the FY 2025 Community Mitigation Fund guidelines as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today thank you second any further discussion Commissioner O'Brien hi Commissioner Hill hi Commissioner Skinner hi and Commissioner Mayer hi and I vote yes okay Madam Chair yes please I would move that the commission approve the FY 2025 Community Mitigation Fund grant amounts as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today second any further discussion my one point we now have Mary so Mary thank you thank you for all your good work Lily and Joe I've got a second Commissioner O'Brien hi hi Commissioner Hill hi Mr. Skinner hi Commissioner Mayer hi and I vote yes 5-0 that was almost 30 seconds well thanks thank you very much of that and Madam Chair if you would just indulge me for a moment um I I did want to extend my thanks out to to Mary and Lily this was really a lot of work um we took a program and completely transformed it into something else and and it wasn't just internally the local community mitigation advisory committees the subcommittee um we had meetings with stakeholders we had a public hearing we got lots of input from lots of people and um I think it was just to really it was a great process and it was um it was just it was a lot of work and a lot of hard work by a lot of people and and the commission as well you indulged me a number of times so that I could keep you up to date on what we were doing and and we kind of took it like baby steps a little bit but I think in the end I think it certainly has paid off and we'll you know they say the proof of the pudding is in the tasting we will see how that goes in January once once it's rolled out and we got our applications in but thank you all and thanks to the team very nice to say Joe and we um expressed our gratitude you just done excellent work and it is um you know a big change and I think we'll test it and um um it's a process that's been so participatory and transparent and that's why I'm very hopeful it's going to be very very successful so thank you okay okay so the next item we have up uh 6a is the Plain Ridge Park Casino third board of report and uh so we have with us uh North Brownsell uh Heidi Yates Aquaba and uh Kathy Lucas from PPC and with that I will turn it right over to them to get started good afternoon madam chair and good afternoon commissioners uh Plain Ridge Park is pleased to present our Q3 2023 update I'm joined today as Joe mentioned by our vice president of human resources Kathy Lucas our vice president of finance Heidi Yates Aquaba is enjoying some well-deserved time off and so I'm going to cover the financial before uh portions that are normally covered by Heidi so jumping right in um sports wagering revenue at PPC's retail sports book was 575,000 and third quarter resulting in a little over 86,000 in sports wagering taxes with respect to our gaming revenue and taxes in Q3 we saw in that slot revenues of 40 million 057,000 and total taxes paid to the commonwealth commonwealth just shy of 20 million at 19,628,000 for the lottery sales um and for the quarter lottery sales were 656,000 of note there were two large jackpot amounts in august that were uh billion dollar plus jackpots which helped us drive sales in those areas and now turning to our qualified spend data we had 58 percent of our qualified spend was within the commonwealth and of that amount 15 percent happened within our surrounding communities with respect to our diverse diverse vendor spend we exceeded our goals for q3 women owned business met the target at 21 percent minority businesses exceeded the target by about one percent and veteran businesses also exceeded their target by about one percent on a year over year basis our total qualified spend was up 21 percent and diverse spend was up 25 percent now turning to the compliance side in q3 of 2023 ppc prevented a total of 231 guests from entering the gaming establishment of that group 15 were minors 49 were under age 167 had expired and valid or no identification we had no underage patrons escorted from the gaming area and there were no instances of underage gambling and no instances of underage alcohol service and so with that i will pass it on to kathy who will give you a little bit of information on community relations and our employment numbers kathy thank you north and good afternoon commissioners um i'll just share briefly some of the information or the data on our employment statuses we had 462 team members in the quarter and you'll see where we hit with our numbers so diversity we were above the goal along with veterans still slightly under the women goal but much better than um past quarters and then uh slightly under our local goal we had 63 percent of our team members at the full-time position and then 37 percent at hard time with our sportsbook a lot of the um members kind of stayed the same in q3 you'll see our diversity at 17 percent uh still no veterans spoke women up a little from the last quarter 22 percent and then actually that that was flat to the same quarter and then uh local was up 17 percent and then full-time 50 percent our supervisors and above you'll see 13 five and 35 for diversity veterans and women and just a couple of things that we had going on throughout the quarter in regards to our development uh north delivered an executive development retreat where um he took the team out to plan for 2024 we also hosted our town hall um that's north they are presenting we honored our q2 aces of pen the best of the best we went outside for the women's link business networking um in conjunction with the chamber of commerce we welcomed a new fed food and beverage director matt carry to the team and then we uh launched our emerging leaders program for our internal candidates looking to go into management and we're in the process in uh q2 of relaunching women leading at pen and our two ambassadors heidi and jen will lead the program at the property we had two really great things happen in q2 first being the opening of the sportsbook restaurant and bar plus the relocation of our sportsbook um we are so appreciative of you being present for the opening getting to meet eddie bruschki and then also at the ribbon cutting we also held the spirit of mass um in q2 and at that event we rebranded our patio and we did a fundraiser for the american cancer society so so really great things going on in qt that we're customer facing and then finally just some of the partnerships that we had on the non-profit side we focused our continued efforts with fundraising and awareness with the american cancer society at our dual dueling pianos event we hosted a fundraiser for them we also supported habitat for humanity we supported multiple chambers over the summer with business barbecues and golf tournaments we uh did a drive for the adelborough animal shelter collecting toys and treats and gifts for the little uh animals that are in the shelter we um had a really good opportunity to be present on one of the floats were actually one of the fire trucks leading the rentham 350 grand parade and then we did our recruit military um adulet stadium in foxborough with our commitment to bring veterans in and with that i'll turn it back over to north thanks kathy uh that concludes our presentation and we're now prepared to take any questions you may have regarding our update can i just do you have questions i think the number's going up on women yeah that's a good thing two four should be even better so hopefully we'll like those periods where i kept saying just wait till we open up the restaurant it's coming back yeah it's gonna have the bar going you know do any answer yeah it's going well so i mean we've um we've had a good start to the the football season and so it's been great to have folks in there it's uh certainly a hop and plays for sure on the weekend and then big game night so uh we're really excited and proud of the space i'm good very well done um madam chair yeah yes christian so i've got to ask this and i'm asking all the operators i'm still not seeing great numbers when it comes to hiring our veterans any idea why i know you guys have reached out to organizations and i know you're trying but every every update we still see the number that's to me disappointing not your fault for sure but i'm trying to figure out why so so commissioner hill with regards to that we certainly see um our numbers right now are at four percent which hits our target um so i think we seem some progress in that that area we you know do have connections with local veteran groups and have done quite a lot you know you'll hear in our uh next update the support that we've provided to veteran organizations and i think it's also just about relationships with that group and making sure that they know us they know that we're here and know that we're a veteran friendly organization so i i think with regards to that it's something that we're always looking at um you know we occasionally have two team members who are veterans but don't care to disclose that status to us so um we're cognizant of that as well thank you north and thank you madam chair anything else commissioners all right it was nice to see you recently capi and thank you nor thank you capi does have a lovely office a lot of pink yeah all right thank you so much thank you have a good day thanks joe all set yeah so uh next up uh madam chair questions we have on core uh boston harbour their third quarter report and we're joined by uh jackie crumb juliana catanzari and uh carla pavaro and with that i will turn it over to jen so uh good afternoon madam chair and commissioners are ryan skinner hill and maynard i'm going to turn this over to juliana and she can get started with our presentation i know that everyone's short on time sure so i'm just going to go ahead juliana everyone's able to see that yes now perfect um good afternoon madam chair commissioners thank you so much for taking the time to go through our quarterly report with us i know your schedule's packed so we won't be um super long today so beginning with gaming revenue taxes and lottery sales during q3 ebh had a gross gaming revenue for table games of about 78 million dollars and a gross gaming revenue for slots of about 104 million dollars this resulted in a total gross gaming revenue of about 182 million dollars and about 46 million dollars and state taxes were collected here's the year over year comparison and then 20 23 totals to dates first sports regional revenue during q3 we had a month a total monthly win of about 552 thousand dollars and the commonwealth collected about 78 thousand dollars in state retail taxes during q3 we had lottery sales of over 1.5 million dollars and that was a 72 increase over the same order of 2022 and here are the year over year comparison for that and also the 2023 totals to date so moving over to workforce at the end of q3 we had a total of 3491 employees unrelated to sports wagering so 60 of those employees self-identified is belonging to a minority group two percent were veterans and 45 percent were women um joe mentioned that our director of training and investigations carla pivro is joining us today and she will shortly discuss our efforts to hire women in her department um and some of the challenges that her team faces so um more to come on that so here we also oh go ahead juliana so here we have the statistics for non-sports wagering related supervisors and above um jackie's going to jump in go through a recent discrepancy in our reporting that we discovered and we just wanted to elaborate a little bit on that so as i believe most of you are aware rsm is in the process of conducting a diversity audit on all of our numbers and during a call that we had with our employment team last week we identified a mistake in the formula formula that has been used to calculate the percentage of minorities that we report for managers and supervisors and above essentially what we did was we included employees that were categorized as unspecified or who didn't provide any detail about their their race or in our minority count so to be clear the non-specified individuals were not counted as minorities in the total count so this this was not it doesn't impact our total account but it does impact um the manager and supervisors and above so we've remedied the error and wanted to provide you with an accurate calculation so approximately uh 595 or about 17 percent of our employees do not specify uh please note that this report assumes that none of the employees who are quote unquote unspecified are minorities for example if we deducted the 595 from the total amount of employees and ran the same analysis our percentage of total employees would go up to 83 percent a total number of minority employees would go up to 83 percent so for managing above the number of minority employees is reduced from 89 to 77 and the corrected percentage is reduced from 43 to 37 percent for supervisors and above the number of minority employees reduced from 327 to 277 and the corrected percentage is reduced from 60 to 50 percent and as I said the total number and percentages were not impacted uh in that original slide which Juliana went over for the total number of employees so going forward we will obviously um make what make the corrections that need to be made and we will also provide additional clarity around how these percentages are uh calculated. Madam Chair, have a question? Sure, hi Jackie and I apologize I'm not able to be on camera I'm having some technical difficulties here on this end with my wi-fi but um so I'm going to need some time to I guess digest process. Do on this um have this been reported? Sorry? Patricia Skinner we can't hear you we heard has this been reported. Patricia Skinner we can't hear you you last word was I think you said we can't have you as this been reported. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes all right and in the meantime I'm going to try to call in but this is the first just um you know I've been working closely with the team on this end and at MGC on the diversity audit um conducted by RSM has this been reported to RSM just yet because I don't think it's made it to this team the team on this end yet? It was actually discovered on a call where we were on the same call as RSM and we were demonstrating how the formulas were created and so when we went in and we did a deep dive we discovered this and so they were uh they were right there when we discovered it and are very much aware of it. Okay um so yeah it just just it might just in my my role working closely with you know our group here um I don't have much to offer because you know seeing this for the first time is a little um uh it's it's um I feel like I'm caught off guard a little bit but it's good that you've caught this issue and um I think that um we'll have to just have a a discussion tomorrow just in terms of what that means for purposes of the audit in the the findings. Sure and and it absolutely would be reported as part of the the audit I apologize we couldn't give you more notice we were actually just rerunning the numbers we'd obviously turned in our report so we wanted to make sure though that we raised this issue and and uh we didn't report the wrong numbers uh today. Yeah no apology necessary um at all it's just um this is something uh like that um would typically be raised in that sort of forum um but it's absolutely appropriate for the for the full commission to hear this update from you Jackie so thank you. And just some background because folks may not understand the RSM audit at one point there was a um a news story on questioning whether the commission was getting um was getting accurate data from our casino with our licensee licensed casinos and I um I know that I went to Delaney because the information flows through this information flows through his work and with uh then director Wells and I asked for an audit if it seemed that it would be very hard internally for us to conduct that audit and at some point there was an RFP which at that point I said you know I'm not involved in the selection of a of an audit um company but RSM was selected and then I um was in coordination with director Wells asked commissioner Skinner to really work on this which we've been very you know very appreciative of her work but that's how you know the audit is directed from the gaming commission as opposed to through each facility so and it's been on our agenda and so commissioner Skinner this will be a good trigger for us to bring it into further light I also know we do have a we've received through the news at least some update on the the impetus to on this matter and apparently um that was resolved as not being a problem from my perspective Jackie today thank you for thank you for you know you're benefiting from an audit so thank you and commissioner Skinner I know you need to be updated on this I um but I don't you know I don't think this this plenty of time for you to get caught up and I'm sorry that you felt blindsided I don't think any of us were aware of this so but today we are so thank you Jackie any further questions on this slide and then commissioner Skinner and team will work with the EVH on it okay so here are the same numbers for sports rejuvenated employees these were not impacted at all by the mistake caught by the audit so they're the same numbers that they would have been before um so at the end of q3 there are a total of 21 employees related to sports rejuvenation 29% self-identified is belonging to a minority group and 38% more women unfortunately we did not have any sports reader related employees who are veterans that we continue to recruit veterans for all positions property wide and the next slide or so I'm going to highlight some of those recruitment efforts specifically so here we also have the supervisory and a bug breakdown for sports rejuvenation employees so granted we're dealing on a much smaller scale here but 100% of our managers and a bug self-identified as being minorities and 50% more women so here's just a short update on our recruiting efforts so during q3 our recruitment team attended or hosted 27 recruiting events 15% of these events were veteran focused and of that 15% veteran focused group percent were specifically focused on women veterans um 11% of the events that our team attended were specifically related to college hospitality programs and this is important from a female recruiting perspective because 66% of those enrolled in hospitality programs nationwide are women and that number is even higher locally so because of a majority of these enrollees or women it naturally these events naturally recruit more women so moving on to operating spend our discretionary spend for q3 was about 21 million dollars 12% of that was spent with minority business enterprises i percent was veterans business enterprises and 12% with women's business enterprises as for the local breakdown to highlight a few communities about 1.75 million dollars was spent with businesses in boston 2.1 with businesses in everett and nearly 2 million dollars with businesses in summerville so as promised we'd like to now introduce carla pivro she is our director of security and investigations and she's going to speak about compliance and also her experiences with the recruiting women for her department afternoon madam chair good afternoon commissioners thank you for the opportunity to speak so for the third quarter minor report for us we had 12 minors total found on the gaming floor and zero in the sports wagering area of the 12 there were three that had gained of the three that gained one accessed the the gaming floor with another side d so an id swap and that was discovered when he won a jackpot was able to unable to identify himself properly two were the results of security officer error one an id was not requested and the other an id was requested and failed the veredoc scan but however the officer allowed entry there were two minors under the age of 18 14 and 17 that did not game or consume alcohol but access the gaming floor for one minute the longest time on the floor we had actually two instances that bumped up our average this month they were kind of offshoots the 118 minute was the 18 was the id swap that resulted in the jackpot winning and that was gaming only in no alcohol and opposite to that we had the 113 minute spanned which was a woman that used her sister's id multiple times over multiple days and did not game just consumed alcohol over the quarter we caught 17 fake IDs scanned 246,000 over 246,000 IDs and veredocs for the 12 minors you know we will continue to address and stress the importance of paying attention to detail and picking up on those IDs that fail the scan and also following up on those minors that are denied access at one entrance and then sort of pop up again at another entrance one even you know was with his dad went into the bathroom changed his shirt tried a different entrance with a fake ID that failed but the officer unfortunately let him on so that is that's that commissioners are going to be interested in finding out what the follow up was with respect to that officer with which the officer who will have a letter of mine they're all they're disciplined they take corrective action so we have a progressive discipline policy and so they are disciplined under that policy so further change right yes but the first defense would you know they get a written notice and then you know if we saw a pattern that would obviously be extreme so we could move right to termination but typically it's a first notice a second notice and then they are terminated commissioners Carla this is Eileen good to see you thank you for going into the detail I usually ask about the longest on the floor the the long stretch where the woman came back repeatedly with the sister's ID you talk about attention to detail you know what is it that you got first my question is did she really look at that much like her sister or was this really a question of one or more really not looking at the face the this particular ID swap she did look very much like the sister and the attention to detail more for me is that security officer seeing that failed ID so the technology is working and just sort of reacting quick enough to stop that person from accessing the floor right okay thanks sure any further questions commissioners okay Carla do you want to speak sorry go ahead so I just said thank you Carla do you want to just speak briefly I know that you've worked very hard to recruit women in your team and do you want to speak briefly about those efforts and additional things that you've thought about sure sure so so what we're seeing now I think is is sort of an across the board thing and it's not unsimilar to my past life in law enforcement and and and women in law enforcement and the challenges to recruiting them I think we we typically face the nature of the work alone as a challenge I think it's it's you know we're very upfront with security officers that are potential highest that they're going to be working overnight for at least one or two bids which could be you know three to six months minimum and a lot of people you know a lot of women just really that isn't for them or and then you sort of take into account the nature of the work itself as far as you know the conduct of some of our guests that they're they're likely to encounter especially on those overnight shifts so it's it's it's sort of a combination of of those things and weighing it out but we continue to sort of showcase you know potential hires and and pulling in the college recruits that we want them to understand that the skill set that they develop and coming here you know into this department communication emotional intelligence you know their ability to deescalate and and and all these things can really professionally you know help them grow and develop and be a great you know segue into other areas and you know on property other departments which we do have people that transfer to other departments in table games once they're in security for some time you know and other careers and I think it's it's a matter of a desire to serve as well I think you have to that individual definitely has to have something in them that wants them to come and and help people and serve people so those are the challenges but we're going to keep working at it and we're going to get some more females on board for sure. Thanks Carla for joining us you filled in really well for Tom Coffey who actually is in Las Vegas right now he's working on the he's helping the team there with Formula One. Thank you for having me. Thanks Carla. Okay so our day in the life program happens about twice a year and it's a program which pairs leaders with team members in the department and the team member actually trains the leader to perform a two to four hour shift in their department so our leaders learn how housekeepers consistently maintain such high levels of cleanliness in our hotel rooms how our team members in the staff cafe provide meals for over 3,500 team members each day and how our horticulture team maintains all the floral and plant life throughout the building. For the second year in a row we ran an employee engagement survey we had 73% of our employees respond to the survey which was really what we were aiming for and we've been working on a department by department basis to review the results and develop action plans. The good news is 84% of our employees so they are proud to work at our company and 81% say they will recognize Uncle Boston Harbor is a great place to work. As we get more of these results compiled we can give you a more fulsome presentation. As you know as September was responsible gaming education month our mission was to continue to educate our team members throughout the building about the signs of problem gambling how to direct guests or other team members to seek assistance. I'd like to thank our gamesense advisors for working very closely with our team as always to grow awareness. So we are incredibly proud to welcome chef Megan Vaughn as the executive chef of both Rare and Rare Lounge. As you may be aware this is not typically a female dominated position particularly at this level and we were absolutely thrilled that she agreed to join us. She comes to us from Seattle and she's really made a lot of great changes in the menus and I invite everyone to come taste her food. Jackie. I'm sorry not you. Sorry but to the public right? To the public. We can only imagine. Yes also in September we participated in ABCD Hoop Dreams to support youth programs. Unfortunately our team was not excellent and we did not make it to round two but we are already in training for next year. Just a quick overview on our community relations we're currently at over 4,000 volunteer hours. We've also donated more than 1300 school supplies to every public school district and 1,220 pounds of food to bread of life. We packed just under half a million meals throughout Feed the Funnel events in partnership with the Pack Shack and we were joined by cheerleaders from New England's favorite football team as well as their mascot Pats. We are kicking off another round of Feed the Funnel the week after Thanksgiving. We're aiming to hit and we're going to hit 1 million meals and we're very much welcome any volunteers from the public maybe the commission. Game sense can attest to how much fun it is. You can even keep the festive hats if you would like. And at the end of September we hosted our second annual nonprofit leadership retreat where nonprofit leaders learned from various guest speakers. We had about 75 attendees from 39 different nonprofits. We started with a diversity and inclusion panel. Jenny gave a great presentation about how to move up through the leadership chain and an organization both the private organization as well as a nonprofit organization and the various skills that are needed at different levels. I was fortunate enough to host a philanthropy panel with our partner Ed Cain from Big Night Entertainment Group, Josh Kraft the president of the New England Patriots Foundation and Sharon McNally the chief executive officer of Camp Harborview and the chief of staff for the Connors Family Office. And just a quick update on the TRU patron charitable contributions. As you can see we added some new organizations including South Cove Manor at Quincy Point Rehab Center, New England Center for Homeless Veterans, Big Sister Association of Greater Boston and Animal Rescue League of Boston. I believe that is it. We appreciate the opportunity to present to you today. Please let us know if you have any questions. Questions for Jackie and team. Commissioner, Jackie when I was preparing the other night something came over me and I knew I would see Sharon McNally's name there. A dear friend and really a star so. She really is and she had so much good advice for all the other nonprofits. There were a lot of younger people participating in the program and they were really looking for that input from more seasoned veterans of the nonprofit world. Well, she's a good one. Thank you. All right. No questions. Commissioners. Thank you so much and thank you for the efforts that are underway to correct the diversity numbers. Appreciate it very much. All right. It is 338 commissioners and I believe that we have gotten through our extensive agenda almost with respect to item 7. We're going to roll that over to November 30th. Appreciate MGM's flexibility and our GES. But that will come from Brian. We wanted to give an update. Yeah. Just two things based on the feels like a long time ago. When we open the meeting this morning you made certain comments about the legalities of the sites. We had talked early on about looking into whether or not we wanted to have some sort of logo or insignia that would go on the mobile apps in particular to let people know you're on a legal site. I do think we need to put that on the agenda for discussion again because I think it bolsters the statement that you made. Yes. Thank you. And that's that seal of approval. Let's look at that. Thank you on Wednesday. I mean Monday. And then the only other one also was there's been a couple of different companies in the news crossing paths with daily fantasy sports and or looking like they might be like casinos. And I know I've had some communications with staff on that. I do think we might benefit from getting that marked up sooner rather than later to know some of the companies that have been out there and subjected to certain action either by attorneys general or other gaming commissions. I do think I'd like to get that out there too. Yeah. Follow up to that. I do think that the executive, the past executive director received an inquiry from the operators, our license operators look into that. I think that's on internal executive director Grossman's desk. We know too that the attorney general's office has expressed interest in working on this matter. And so we really want to coordinate efforts. And so in terms of what it will be marked up, let's give that some thought that we've got to Monday. Yeah. At a minimum, I would like to be on the under review to sort of make sure we under push it up. Really, really good idea. Thank you. Commissioner O'Brien. Good reminder. And thanks. Trudy just came on board. So a couple more items for us for Wednesday and I mean Monday. Okay. Thanks so much. All right. With that said, anything else? Any other business commissioners? I have an update. I'm here. I first, I thank you, Commissioner O'Brien for raising that issue that is under review sort of jointly with the commission in the attorney general's office. I had a few discussions with Todd just in terms of the appropriateness of putting that under review. So I'm glad it's kind of been decided at this point. By way of just an update, I wanted to let you all know that the IAB director position is posted now. We are still in the process or HR is still in the process of expanding that posting to some of the affinity associations, some of the public safety and law enforcement associations. So that is an ongoing process and we are working very diligently and quickly to get that position just sort of distributed as widely as possible. So more to come on sort of the process that the subcommittee will undertake to review any resumes that we receive. So we can, I think the item is already under review on our agenda setting schedule, but that's all I have on that for now. Commissioner Hill, anything you want to add? You gave a thumbs up, Commissioner Skinner. All right. Thank you very much for that update. Anything else, commissioners? All right. Before we have a motion to adjourn, we do have our adjudicatory hearing. I need a break. I don't know if you do, but it's a quarter of four, four o'clock. Is that too much time? Is that okay? That's your time. I got a thumbs up from Heather. That's good. Is that okay? Thanks. All right. Well, I'm honestly right now, I cannot remember. We have a different link to go into, but it is a public meeting. We preserve the right to go private when necessary. Okay. Thanks. Move to adjourn this one. Thank you so much. Commissioner Hill? Commissioner Bryant? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. And Commissioner Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes, 5-0 to everybody. Excellent. Excellent work. Thank you. A long meeting. A lot done.