 I'm going to I'm going to try it right now to make sure that's good. It's going to say live in the corner here, but we're not live yet. So let me try it out. Yeah, I just shared my screen and it looked like everything was the same as always. It's very strange. Sometimes I mean, you know, HG meaning. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's Kathy's license that I scheduled under her as a heads up for everybody. So I this does work, but we are live right now. So I did not have the option of waiting before we go. So just as a full disclosure for everybody, we're currently live. Well, good morning, everyone. If we're live, I just had to go grab a tissue. That's good to know. I guess we're having a few technical challenges this morning. We'll get started. This is convening on this gaming issue and because we're holding this meeting virtually. And we need to take our roll call. A good morning, Keshia, Ryan. Good morning. I'm here. Good morning, Christian Hill. Good morning. I'm here. Good morning, Mr. Skinner. Morning. Good morning, Commissioner Maynard. Good morning, Madam Chair. Thank you. Today is June 1st, everyone. Time to change your calendar. It is public meeting number 457. It's a pretty day and we have a good long day ahead of us. So thank you, everyone. And we've had a bit busy week, right? I think we've met Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So, well, yesterday we met to celebrate our people. I want to again extend our congratulations to the recipients of the MQ awards, Dr. Nett and the licensing division. We honored them yesterday and a nice staff gathering. So that was a great, great fun and great celebration of outstanding work by those recipients. The whole team was outstanding. Hard to make a decision, right, commissioners? But it was really nice and to Karen, it was a really nice event and to Grace and all those who helped. Thank you so much. I'm going to get started. No administrative update today, Karen. Madam Chair, did you want me to speak about scheduling with respect to the category two today? You know what that would be probably a good time now for you to update rather than us to wait for the end of the meeting. I know we have, Meena has a challenge with his schedule today. I guess we had it switched up. I'm sorry, we had the minutes first. My apologies. If we could just hold, we'll go to the booths. OK, I'm sorry. I realized we did have minutes today. Did everybody have a chance to review them? I never got the minutes. I don't know what happened. So I'm going to ask that we not do that today. So if we could bump those and if someone could resend those to me, that would be great. You might have been looking at the least refreshed packet. There was, of course, some kind of. No, I just looked at some. I looked at this morning and first I didn't have any issues with my email and attachments disappearing, similar to what Brad was talking about. So I did not get a chance to look at them. So someone could just separately send those to me and we can put them off for the next meeting. I'd appreciate it. OK, great. That's fine, right, Commissioner Hill? Of course. Yeah, OK, all righty. All right, then we will go to the administrative update back to you, Karen. OK, so for the administrative update, I just want to note the scheduling. We have an application for a category two sports wagering license for sportsbook from Massasoya, the Radon property. And the plan right now is to go forward with the site visits for the commissioners on the 9th and the 10th and to at least start the review of the process on June 12th, which is a Monday. We have reached out to RSM and GLI. As you may recall, RSM did some background financial work when we did evaluations of other applicants. They'd be able to do that. And then GLI was spoke to yesterday. They do, if you may recall, they basically gave an overview of what happens with respect to operational readiness for the operation certificate, which is a later portion. They have submitted internal controls. Those are reviewed. But that piece is done as part of the later review for the operational certificate. So right now, I think we're good to at least start that review on the 12th. We've had the application now. If any commissioners need some assistance in accessing that or getting the information, please let us know and we will help you out with that. But I think that's the update for that at this point. Great, thanks, Karen. Any questions? Commissioners for Executive Director Wells on that update. OK, I'll set and I think we're all set in terms of our calendar holds too with travel, et cetera. OK, then now we have our regulations right up front. Nina, I know you're on a tight schedule. So I think we have you from now until 11, correct? Correct. And thank you, Madam Chair, for accommodating that. Appreciate it. Good morning. Good morning. And maybe we can get you out early. We'll do our best. Kailin, I'll let you start off here. Sure. Before we launch into the regs in particular, I want to do two things. One, I want to do a little bit of table setting on sort of where these regs are procedurally, because some of them are in a little bit different posture than normal. And then additionally, Jared Reinheimer from the Attorney General's Office is here with us this morning and would like to make a couple of remarks before we speak about the data privacy reg. So first, I just again, the table setting. So the first reg that we're going to talk about, 205, to CMR 257, the data privacy reg. This is the first time you're going to see this reg or the commission is seeing this reg in a meeting. And up to this point, with the regulatory process for sports wagering, the legal department has been recommending that the regulations be adopted by emergency. We're going to take a little bit of a different tact with this one, and we're going to recommend that it go through the regular promulgation process, which means that we would recommend, and the commission can take or leave this recommendation, that the reg be adopted in the ordinary course today or that the commission vote to move the reg forward in the ordinary course today, which would mean that after the vote today, we will go out, get public comment, review any comments that come in, and evaluate all those comments before a final vote in a few months, two to three months down the road. And so that will give all the operators any other interested parties, governmental entities, time to weigh in before the reg is finalized in effect. The other four regs that we're going to talk about today you've seen several times now. There are 138, 238, 247, and 248. These are sometimes what we think of as some of the core sports wagering regs. They deal with internal controls and other things like that. At the April 24th meeting, we brought these regs back to you for some amendments, as you know, as we've been going through this sports wagering, standing up the process, things change, and we've made little tweaks here and there. And so on the 24th, the commission voted to make some amendments to these four regs by emergency, but had us not file them until we could come back today and make potentially a few additional tweaks. And the reason for that, for not filing, is that if we filed the regs after the 24th, they'd be locked up for a few months and we wouldn't be able to make any additional changes. So it's really all procedural. So today we are bringing back 138, 238, 247, and 248 again for a few additional tweaks, mostly related to the data privacy reg. And we will continue to ask that those be adopted by emergency today. We will file them by emergency, assuming they are adopted. We do know that some of the operators have some questions about some of the amendments. And to the extent that any, and we will of course review their comments in the ordinary course, they'll have plenty of time to get comments in and we'll review them. And to the extent any waivers are needed, we would ask that they just send in those waiver requests and they can be evaluated and looked at right away. So that's where we are procedurally. Any questions on procedure? I guess, can you elaborate a little bit more on why not moving on emergency on these when we've done it on everything else? I mean, do you want to take that? Sure, yeah, that actually is a good segue, Commissioner O'Brien to what I was going to start with. There, the protections for data privacy, which were the initial concern, just to kind of remind everyone how we got to this reg, we had included some provisions in 205, CMR 138 and 238 for protection of patron data and including confidential, personally identifiable information that provides a level of protection that is already in place, has been in place. So we were comfortable with that being in the emergency regs. 257 has been an approach similar to what we did with advertising and a lot of the other regs, but really with advertising was a good analog where first we surveyed all of the other states to see what they were doing on these issues, tried to take the best of the bunch and kind of fit it within the model and framework you have here. And also had some input from the Attorney General's office, which was helpful. The data privacy regs, as I'll explain when we start going through them, have not just the provisions regarding protection and security of patron data, but also some policy questions that arise about how data is then used by operators. So we wanted to give both the commission and the regulated entities a sufficient opportunity to comment and because there are some media issues here and because we already have the data privacy protections in place as well as protections against fraudulent use or misuse and other responsible gaming issues in other regs felt comfortable that there was enough of the background in place today that these warranted the non-emergency process. Thanks for that. Any other questions on that particular point, because that is a little bit of a check for who carries, right? Sorry, Kayla, thank you. All right, if there are no other questions about sort of the status of the regs procedurally, I will turn the mic over to Mr. Reinheimer from the Attorney General's office for a few initial comments. Hi there, and thank you very much for just giving me a few minutes to say a few things. It's very appreciated, just as a reminder, I'm the chief of the Data Privacy and Security Division at the Attorney General's office. And just wanted to say thanks to the commission for working with us on this important issue. As Meena mentioned, we've had a few discussions about this particular regulation. I would say that the office really continues to think that strong privacy protections are needed here and that there's a lot of risks that are associated with the use of consumer data that are worth addressing. And with that in mind, we're really encouraged by this regulation and deeply appreciate the approach, the initial approach that's being taken here. And we just hope to continue working with the commission if there's questions or concerns that come up. And especially on the particular provision in here surrounding the types of work that can be done to help identify problem gambling behavior using information, we certainly like to work on that a little bit more. But with that, I'll just say thanks again and yeah, appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jared for appearing today. We appreciate your kind words and we will continue working towards cooperation with the Attorney General's office and all invested agencies and entities. You know, we do coach our regulatory process in a very collaborative fashion. And I know that you appreciate this, Jared, that we have been working extensively to get input from the public stakeholders, the operators, the industry, as well as all of those who are experts in the fields of responsible gaming and consumer protections because that has been our priority. So we are very happy that the Attorney General's office is also joining in in that collaborative effort with us. It's so important. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Any more tablesetting, Caitlin? I think the table is nearly complete. And so Mina can take it away with the data privacy record. All right. Thank you, Caitlin. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to the Attorney General's office also. It has been a helpful collaborative process, as well as just five more seconds of tablesetting in the development of this. We have worked with the responsible gaming team, Mark and Bonnie, with Sterl and Bruce and the IEB, as well as with the IT folks to make sure that there's because there's a bunch of different angles to this. So as we go through to keep that in mind, what I'd like to do is do sort of our walkthrough through the rag and talk about what each section does. I'll pause, obviously, for questions and please feel free to interrupt me. This starts at page, the reg itself, starts at page six of your packet. The very first section is the definitions section. This is a key to a lot of the regulation, as well as definitions you'll see in some of the other regs we'll talk about this morning. There are three definitions added for the purposes of the data privacy sections. Note that when we come back to the next round of revisions to 202, we will consider whether it's appropriate to include those throughout the 200 series in that form. The first is data breach. The idea is to have a clear definition of data breach that aligns with state statutes for when there is an actual or suspected data breach. And that comes right from chapter 93H. The next two are definitions of confidential information and personally identifiable information. I'll start with the latter one, actually. Personally identifiable information tracks generally personal information that most folks would expect to be protected under other state laws, name, social security numbers, bank information, sort of the core privacy information. The reason to add confidential information, as we'll get to as we go through the reg, is this really is the category that captures other information that is unique to the user and patron experience on sports wagering platforms. So that includes how often, when, how folks interact with the patrons interact with an operator's platform, including things like the identity of what events they bet on, the location from which you're wagering, et cetera. And so that is a broader set. We also made clear that both confidential information and personally identifiable information are not necessarily going to be mutually exclusive. There may be times when they overlap in definition. So we're trying to be as broad and protective as possible. This is broader than just difficult data privacy because of the kind of information on the platform. Any questions on the definitions before we move on? 25702 is really the meat of the regulation, or O2 and O3. O2 sets the standards for data use and retention. First, 25021 provides that an operator may only use both confidential and personally identifiable information as necessary to operate their platform or to comply with laws, including all of your regs and your statutes. So it's essentially putting a standard right up front. There's also a focus in 25022 on consent for data use. And the consent, as with other things we have set up in the regulations, needs to be clear. It needs to be presented to the patron. And as I believe I've mentioned in context of some of the other four regs we're talking about today, it also needs to be separate from the consent provided so that it's not just a part of a lengthy login. One of the things we talked about and got some feedback from and certainly would look for more feedback through the regulatory process is making sure that the consent provided is both meaningful and separate without inundating patrons with forms such that this and responsible gaming and other messaging becomes meaningless. So we've had, this is one of the conversations, especially we've had with Mark and Bonnie, to make sure that they're comfortable with having this be yet another thing someone clicks on. And so it doesn't feel like when you sign a mortgage and you have a million docking is in front of you. 25023, this is at the heart of what use the confidential information in particular but also personally identifiable information may be used for with respect to by the patrons, excuse me, by the operators of patron data. And this is a bit of a crossover with promotional offers and advertising. The approach we are trying to take here, and again, this is one of the issues we would expect feedback on, is to make sure that while operators have an opportunity to tailor the patron experience so that patrons aren't inundated with ads or promotions for things that they don't want or that they may not participate in, that they are not targeted for with advertising that may promote or lead to a targeting of indicators of irresponsible gaming or problem-gaming behavior. I would think of this as three buckets of how to use the data that might come into play. One is if there is a malicious use, and this is where I mean by targeting, the an operator notices within the data or has an algorithm set up, but I'm not suggesting this is happening or this is the concern would be to go after someone who's chasing losses or consistently turning off some of their responsible gaming controls to get them to bed as much as possible. That kind of behavior we are trying to not allow in this setup. On the other end, same kind of behavior is noticed in the data and interventions are targeted to help that person get help from responsible gaming sources. We want to make sure in this reg, at least, that nothing we do prevents that and to the extent we can start moving towards that. I know it's a bigger project we've talked about, but that nothing prevents that in this reg. The middle category and where we try to strike a balance is this category of if you know that I am a Celtics fan, regrettably this week, that I might be more interested in Celtics games and if I wasn't barred by the Code of Ethics, of course. And so I might get more targeted ads for a Celtics game, not because I've shown a propensity to over bet or to make a responsible decision, but because I'm more likely to bet on that than I might be a Houston Rockets game. And so that's sort of the idea of what we want in that middle category. Some of the things that would be prohibited within that framework would be promoting offers based on a period of dormancy or non-use. So if somebody is sort of starting not to use a platform, we haven't seen you in a while, kind of targeted ad, would not be appropriate. Social connection, I think this is one that we've seen in some other regs. I know this is one that is often a concern on the responsible gaming side is sort of promoting it through social connections that way. Third party communications, predicted medical status, occupation, credit history, et cetera. And then a sort of broader computerized algorithm or automated decision-making that is set up, really, or expected to make a gaming platform more addictive. And I already see one edit I'd like to make which would be gaming or sports wagering platform. I think we'd want to say in that piece. So I'll stop at this one because I think this is one, again, we're going to be, as we get comments and feedback, I expect, we'll draw some attention. It is based on our survey of other states and input from, as I said, staff, the Attorney General's office, and others. But we are trying to strike the right approach with those three categories. Initial comments or questions? Oh, Matt, I think you're muted. Any questions so far? Thanks. OK, thank you. Number four has to do with retention. It basically sets the same standard for retention as for use so that materials aren't held on to unless they're necessary or useful. As we talk, we'll talk later about the deletion of data and how these two kind of interplay. But that's here as well. And then number five is the one, and I think Jared alluded to this, I think this is where we are trying to make sure that not only have we not done anything to prevent positive use of data, but that we have, as this is a new industry, the beginnings of this. So section five here requires sports operators to collect and aggregate this kind of data to analyze behavior for purposes of identifying and developing programs and interventions to promote responsible gaming. This is based in part on the New Jersey model that I know that folks have heard about. It's language that we want to work on and continue to work on with Mark and his team. And what we've set up here is providing a report to the commission on a every six months basis to sort of figure out what we're seeing in the data, how the data is used. Recall that one of our other regs, which I believe is 1.38 and 2.38, also provide for some more data sharing from the operators of how they're using and what they're seeing in data. And so our hope and our expectation is that having this regular reporting and discussion with the commission helps find some of the areas of how this data is used. We want to know more about what can be seen from the data in order to learn how to best use it for good. I'll move on to data sharing, 250703. Data sharing, this gets at when the operator can use, can share data with others. Again, same standard in number one, only use it when you only share it when you need to to run your operation or to comply with the law. If you're going to do it, take commercially reasonable measures to ensure the part you're receiving the data is also complying with this. This is similar in a way to what we've done in the advertising realm of making sure that you are responsible as an operator for your affiliates and business associates and vendors use of data. And the number three in particular is to make sure that if you're sharing with a sports wagering vendor, subcontractor, registrant, that there is a written agreement that has certain protections on the use and retention of data. This is something that in conversation with staff was very important to have in here to make sure that there aren't new polls when data leaves the operator and goes to a third party for legitimate purposes, but still needs to be protected that way. And these particular entities would be within the commission's regulatory reach, especially important to have that. Number 257034 requires multi-factor authentication, encryption, et cetera as a technical standard. And again, these are ones that Katrina and others have looked at as well and weighed in on. I just want to make one quick note, because we've talked about multi-factor authentication before and when it can be a little too much for patrons. I just want to be clear that when we use multi-factor authentication in misregulation, it really has to do with at the operator employee or operator vendor employee end. So we felt that was an appropriate level of protection and requirement here. This is not necessarily for the patron experience, it's for the folks who work with the data in general. Mina, excuse me, I'm glad that you brought that up, because I know that I think I've mentioned, I may have mentioned it publicly. I'm wondering, are we going to have an opportunity to revisit that issue with respect to multi-factor authentication for the operator better relationship? I know that the Attorney General's office has brought it up. And I think that we've learned a little bit more, because right now it's an option for the plagiar, if I can remember correctly, as opposed to mandating that the operator require multi. I think that is correct. I am, I will just confirm as we go through, I believe it does. In 248, when we get to that, which is one of the wrecks for today, it is there that the patrons must be given the option to use multi-factor authentication is where I slept. We weren't proposing any changes for today, but I could draw the attention to that portion of the rag when we get to it, if you'd like. Great. Sorry that I missed it. Oh, it's OK. 441 page. Yeah, no, it's OK. I had to search for the. Thank you. I saw it last night here and didn't pick it up in the other, so thank you. Well, and I will say it's still an option for the patron, not a requirement. I think that's where we went last night. And I'm not sure if we would shift, but I know that it's been brought up by the Attorney General's Office, and I think it's been brought up even on some of our internal discussions as to whether it should be. Correct. Enhanced. OK, thank you. No problem. All right, so no questions on O3. I'll move on to O4. O4 is patron access to their data. And this is it again. This is different than the 248 regs that get into how you access your account, et cetera. This is really a patron or consumer protection. What do you know about your data and how it's used? It provides a method to make requests to access your data and what the operator has to do in response to that. What I want to call your attention to in particular is 2507043. This is on page 10, where a sports-waging operator might grant a patron's request to impose a restriction or erase confidential information. We want to be very careful to balance two things here. And this starts at 3, 4, 3 and 4, subsections 3 and 4, excuse me. Patron might have a legitimate desire to make sure that their information that's on a patron server that they no longer want there is deleted, is removed, so that if there is a data breach or a malicious attack on the operator system, that their data doesn't go anywhere. On the other hand, we also want to make sure that for the hopefully very small subset of folks who might be misusing platforms or engaging in fraudulent activity, inappropriate activity, or have been the target of a larger scheme of inappropriate activity by an operator or a vendor or someone else, that the commission, the IEB, law enforcement generally, has an ability to access the information it needs to properly investigate. So we don't want a kind of rushed erasure of data that we might need later. So the idea of 3 and 4 is to allow the request to happen, to put in some ability or some requirements really for the operator to flag that there is no legal interest in preserving the data and the form that it's in, et cetera. And then if you get to 4, and this was again in conversation with staff, the suggestion was to make sure that there is always a backup of data so that there is always a way, even if it's no longer connected to networks that may then reachable by others, that if then an operator is investigated or an investigation is necessary by the operator to resolve an issue that the data is not lost forever. So that's the balance we're trying to strike in 3 and 4. This is obviously a somewhat technical portion of the reg where we would look for feedback from folks who deal with this on a regular basis. But our internal staff, I think, helped us come to this balance. And I see Sturrell came on. I don't know, Sturrell, you want to add anything to that? No, OK. Great. I will move on to 250705 in that case. This is a supplement to the internal controls piece, data program responsibilities. An operator must have a data program. And essentially, this is one of those times where we're reminding the operator to have a program and policies in place to do the things that's required to do the rest of the regs, so not a whole lot different, but also to have internal discipline measures that make sure that employees of an operator or a vendor understand how seriously the commission and the operators take the data privacy. And that written and sort of external facing copy of that policy should also be available on the website, I think, keeping clear what they do with data, et cetera, of course, not the schools and anything that would compromise the data. On page 13, 250706, the last portion of this has to do with data breaches. A lot of what an operator or vendor has to do with the data breach would be the same as what they have to do under other state laws. However, we want to also be clear about when an investigation must be launched, the notice and reporting to the commission. If there's a data breach or a suspected data breach, again, we define data breach to try to avoid or limit a potential for someone to say, well, I don't know if that was quite a data breach, so we're not going to do anything yet. We are trying to keep it consistent with other bodies of law that have longer precedent in that. And that's 250706, so there's a lot there. But again, we're very happy to have had all the input from staff, legal department, and as I mentioned, Attorney General's office before. Any questions on this one before we move on to the others? I mean, just a very quick one in the data breach, why five days, not sooner? That's a good question. So the notification to the commission must be immediate. This was to investigate. I think this is understanding that sometimes it might take a little bit of time to figure out what happened. So we want to provide some period of time to be able to do that and not have a rushed investigation, but also have immediate notification. Thank you. I do see, I'm not sure why this is, I apologize, this is a mistake on our part. I believe it says, which will be completed no less than five days, it should say no more than five days. In that case, Caitlin, correct me for a moment. We're not anticipating any, obviously, vote on the reg today, but we did want to get the commission's consensus or understanding on the process. So I'll let Caitlin take that part from here. We would actually appreciate a vote on the reg, but it would be, if you agreed to begin the promulgation process in the normal course. So we could take, the commission can decide you can take the vote now. We could do them all at the end. I feel like these are all different enough that it would be okay to do them sequentially. I'd recommend that. So again, the difference here is that it's not emergency. Commissioner, do you have any questions? I thought this was just very well done. Thank you. Nina for the excellent shepherding and just nice drafting and clarity on the dense subject matter. So thank you. Madam Chair. Yes, appreciate it. I don't so much have a question as, Nina, as always, you did an excellent job and I think it's very well written as a starting point. And I see that Jared is still listening in. I wondered if the Attorney General's office had any initial comments as they were part of the discussions with this moving forward, if that's appropriate, Madam Chair. Certainly. Hi, I am still here. I just kind of wanted to listen and see what happened. I think I don't have too many initial comments just because we've been in conversations with Nina about these regulations already. I will say that part of my role in the office is enforcing data security regulations at 201CMR17, which is referenced there. And so one of the things that I think we're trying to do is kind of harmonize some of the approach here with that so that operators aren't subject to conflicting regulations, things like that. The other thing that I think is very important in this approach is really giving the patrons the choice as to how their information is used and presenting that in a clear and understandable way so that they really know what's happening and that they can turn that off and understand what the operators are doing. I think that's really important. It's the approach that a lot of privacy laws have taken in other jurisdictions. For example, California has a general privacy law that is approaching this in a similar way. And it's very important, I think also just for consumers generally to understand how the operators are showing them advertisements, showing them certain pets, things like that. And so that is really encouraging in this particular regulation. And I think it's really great to see. So I'm sure there will be thoughts from operators about how to improve this and how to make it better. And we're happy to consult further as time goes on. Thank you, Jared, and thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Jared. Okay, so commissioners, if you have any substantive questions for Nina, do I have a motion? Certainly, Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the Small Business Impact Statement in the draft of 205, CMR 257. It's included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. And the 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. I further move the staff be authorized to modify chapter sections, numbers, or titles and file additional regulation sections as reserved and make any other administrative changes necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Back in. Okay, any questions or comments? Hey, Mr. O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Mainer. Hi. I vote yes. It's underway. Wait a minute. The table is set. All right. Continuing on. I'm sure, Madam Chair, and I will try not to take the remaining 76 minutes I have for these. I don't think we'll need to come close to that. So, no pressure. Sorry, yeah. So, starting on page 18 is 205, CMR 138. These four regs have, for this round of edits in track changes or red light, that the changes we're making. So the first change that you'll see is actually on page 20. This is the insertion of the definition, confidential information. Regardless of whether or not we put this in 205, CMR 202 because this is in the 100 series. The 138 in the 100 series, we needed to include it somewhere as well. And it is identical to what you just saw in 257. Similarly on the following page, the definition of personally identifiable information shows up again from 257. Data breach does not. We confirmed we just simply just didn't use the term within this round. That's why that that definition wasn't carried over. The next change, I'm just gonna scroll down for a while here. You recall this is a very long read. My, I'm catching up here for a second near my apologies. I had a shift. My apologies, just something. Just if I could catch up. Let me try again and just get a loading problem here. My apologies. Oh, no, I don't know, grab it all on my end. Okay, thank you. And mad, I'm sure when you're ready, I can, I can move on, just let me down. I'm really sorry. That's okay. That's funny. Here we go. Okay, and Grace, I know that the packet I'm looking at might be slightly different. Well, that's, yeah, some of the, there was a due to the size of the packet, the outlook server wasn't updating, wasn't able to update the packets. So there was a new one circulated this morning to the whole team, which I think would only affect page numbers. So if you're looking at the one in the calendar, your page numbers may be. Thank you. I think what happened is I've got a little connectivity issue going on here with this. So I don't wanna hold up everybody to bear with me if I'm scrolling, but I'm listening, you know, okay? Thank you, sir. And Madam Chair, if it's preferable, given that, I'm happy to do a screen share for these minutes. Oh, okay. Thank you. I'll give it one more try. Thank you very much. Feel great to have me. All right, all right. So 138, the only other changes we've made to 138 for today are actually all the way at the end. It's on page 96 in the version of the packet that I have at least. And they're fairly simple changes to add the term confidential information in a few places. This is a provision that I mentioned that sort of the basic data security and privacy that we had before my ethic in response to Commissioner O'Brien's question earlier, I had referenced this. We also, I misspoke earlier, we did use a term data breach once with reference back to 257. So that will be, so that's just to align term. So really no substantive changes just to do that. We did add at the very end that any required notification, this should not only be to the commission, but anybody else that's required which may be the Elkabar at the Attorney General's office or others, and including the consumers themselves. So that is it for 138. Nina. Yes. 138.07, there's looks like something funky is going on there. I don't know if there was a proposed change or not, but I have two red boxes. Yes. I know, I know exactly what we were speaking about Commissioner Skinner. That is something we can't seem to get out of the document. It has to do with the fact that this, I believe if I'm not mistaken, this has to do with the size of plans or the scale of plans. So it uses a, let me just go to it here. Sorry, I didn't capture the page number. Oh, it's okay, I have it. It's page 29. Yes, that's what it is. It has to do with the scaling of plans. And for some reason, when this gets turned into a PDF, the terms one eighth get put into this in a weird font, but it's simply just say one eighth scale. So we'll make sure that's fine on the, one of the projects that we're undertaking with the legal team is making sure that everything that's filed and published with the Secretary of State's office is consistent with what was voted, just as a double check on everything. As we get past some of the first emergency regs. So this is one where we'll make sure that's right. Okay. I'm still struggling a little bit with my pagination issue guys. So where are we right now? Mary Ellen here. So Madam Chair, it's page 96 in my packet, which is the very end of 138.73. That pagination, Madam Chair seems to be consistent with the attachment in the calendar invite. Yeah, thank you so much. I'm just catching up. It is now fully loading for me. And I have, pagination now appears for me. That was my biggest issue. So thank you so much. And we have as the internal pagination. And in terms of any questions on what Mina just went through not hearing any Mina. So in terms of action, so I think this one is ready for a vote. Caitlin. Agreed. And I am ready to make a motion, Madam Chair, when you are ready for me to give it. Great, thank you. Go right ahead, Commissioner Hill. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement and the draft 205 CMR 138 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. I further move that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation for the secretary of the Commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that staff shall be authorized to modify chapter section numbers of titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes that's necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any questions or edits? Okay, Commissioner Bryan. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Mr. Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Minner. Aye. And I vote yes. Thank you so much. Moving on. All right, so moving on Madam Chair to page 102 is where the first changes in 238 appear. There are two different colors. Can I just pause for one minute? Why is it that I'm a grace if you could help me? Yeah. I'm on 118 and like scrolling. There's something definitely going on. What am I looking at that's different? You're looking at the correct packet. I believe that the packet that was emailed to commissioners and to our staff last night and this morning is the most accurate packet but one in the calendar is a older version of the packet and it wouldn't let me upload the new. There's no minutes in the old one. So that's why your numbers are on. Just one minute. Grace, I think that you were forwarding to me so I could see it on my second screen. That's what I'm looking at. Yes, and that is. So now we're going to 238, right? And that starts on, they're saying what page? Grace, I believe you said 118, right? It's 102 in my. Yeah, see, that's why I'm on 118 or I'm much further along, but it sounds like others are falling on you or Mina and I'm falling on maybe most updated version. Grace, is that correct? The most updated version is the one that was emailed to commissioners last night and to staff this morning. Mina, I just forwarded it to you as well. The Outlook calendar, the file size was too large for the server so it's the version that was emailed around is the most accurate one. I think it starts on 110 in this packet. My apologies, I knew that we were all looking. No, this is 238, right? No, the whole thing is off just because the meeting minutes were 10 pages long. So the one you're looking at probably has the meeting minutes in it. So you just need to add 10 to whatever page reference Mina has and that'll get you right there. And I read the minutes yesterday. So those were there, so. It also, the most updated packet has the edit, the memo that was sent from Sportsway during last night around 8, 8 p.m. Which also has some of the numbers off and the file size was just too large for the calendar. So to have the most accurate packet, the one that was emailed to commissioners and to all staff who was presenting this morning. And that's what I'm looking at, right Grace? Correct. Thank you. I just wondered if I needed a new packet, that's all in there. No. We can give both pages. Yes, I'll do that. That's, and thank you Grace. I have that now, so that's perfect. So I'm on 112 of that most recent packet, 102 in the prior packet. So the edits to this section, 238, first again, inserting the definitions. There's no particular meeting to pink versus blue here. It was simply a matter of language that was added towards the end of the process. And that's why it shows up separately. But these are the same definitions from 257. And then we go down to page 116, slash 106. That is a change with respect to the internal controls. The slight tweaks, obviously inserting, we did not have a number before for 257. It was 2XX, it's now 257. Slight cleanup to the paragraph that I believe we talked about before regarding use of data by an operator to minimize irresponsible gaming. And so slight tweaks are suggested in the process and in discussions with staff. And I think that the only thing to note there is that these are a bit more of an affirmative duty as opposed to considering how they might minimize the extent but really putting it a bit more emphasis on this issue. I won't go through every one of the changes, but starting on page 120, 110, slash 110, the simply just inserting confidential information and reorienting which one goes first in the pack just for consistency. Those are really more, when that doubt really substantive edits there. There's a couple of those in the same place. And then we go all the way down to, make sure I'm not missing anything. Page 139, presumably also 129 in the other, just let me double check. Yep. We had used the term confidential information as a non-defined term in a prior version of this reg. We took up the word confidential so that it's not confusing. This is not the same as the defined term confidential information. Again, on page 146, just inserting the correct references using the defined terms, same on page 147. Except at the bottom of 147, there is a substantive edit. This is the providing that the withdrawal of consent also must be conspicuous, could get speculously provided for. So that patrons who no longer want to allow certain uses of their data know that they can do that. This provision which kicks over up to 148 also provides that withdrawal of consent, only ask once. This isn't, are you sure? Do you really want to stop using your data kind of checkboxes? And that I believe takes us up to page 150 slash 140 for the end of the rank. I think we're all set. That's all I have on this one. Any questions for Mia? And thank you, that was the solve the mystery. Thank you very much. Commissioners, any questions? Not, do we have a motion on this? This is 238, correct? Yeah. I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement and the draft of 205 CMR 238 is included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. I've moved the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further moved the staff be authorized to modify chapter section numbers of titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Do I hear a second? Commissioner Maynard second. Commissioner Maynard second. Thank you, I can quite hear it. My apologies. All right, any questions or else? Okay, Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Mr. Hill. Aye. Mr. Skinner. Aye. Mr. Maynard. And I vote yes. Aye. Staro. Thank you, Madam Chair. With that, I'll take it to 247, which starts on page 153 in the updated packet, 143 in the other packet. This is uniform standards of sports wagering. There's a couple of changes to this one that are not necessarily related to the data privacy regulations. Starting on page, this is the top of page 156, which is 247.03. This formerly read, this is a process for petitioning for an inventor category to be a permissible, to be in the catalog. Previously it said any person, I think the feedback we've heard from staff that this should really be limited to operators who make the request. Previously, if you look a little bit further down, there's also a change to the sports region operator sponsoring the petition was always somebody that had to be included. But now since it's coming from the operators themselves as a proposal, only the operators themselves, we've made that change. And we think this is appropriate because if no operator wants to sponsor an event that the commission shouldn't be going through a process just to, or provide wages only about the commission may not need to go through the process of reviewing it. I can keep going unless there are questions or thoughts on that. And Sterl, you've had a chance to look at that, correct? Correct, I have. Okay, great, thank you. On pain? No, I'm sorry, go ahead. That kind of drives our next conversation, correct? Because right now, You are correct. So commissioners, I'm right, right? We're at the top of 156, so any operator rather than any person. So we were really gonna spray that. So that would be the A versus B choice. Yeah. Right, and what I'm concerned about one, because still you did a really nice job on the packet explaining that right now it is of course any person. And we've actually heard from persons from across the nation, including operators that don't have licenses here in Massachusetts who want us to have events. And it's coming from including the independent monitor. I'm wondering if we want to just stop right here for a second and explore this because I might recommend that it may not be so much that it's any person. It might be the fact that it might be any person or operator within Massachusetts. In other words, is it operator or a licensee? Is that what we're talking about? Because operator would also mean an operator outside of Massachusetts when we've heard from them. May I just jump in there on the defined terms? Oh, thanks. Maybe I missed that. As a defined term operator, which is in 202 would only refer to sports, we're doing operators licensed in the Commonwealth. So I don't know that we would need to clarify that it was on Massachusetts licensed operators. Okay, so any operator is a licensee in Massachusetts. Now the next question would be, do we want to, Commissioner Hill, I think that you might have even referenced this a little bit. Do we want to confine it to operators only or do we want to allow other stakeholders in Massachusetts to be able to offer? I understand Mina's point. If none of the operators want to operate, do we go through all that work, right? And it never gets put on the catalog. I just thought we should pause right during this. So, Shemeter, are you leaning or Commissioner Hill? I don't know which, who's went first? My part. I think Commissioner Hill, he breathed while I was leaning. So you have to make that choice, Chair. Okay, Commissioner Hill, alphabetical order. So just Mina, is there a way where, so if I'm a consumer and there's a sporting event that I want to bet on, I can't bet on it. And you just explained to me, well, maybe we go through a whole process and the operator doesn't really want to offer it. Is there a way that we can put language where the consumer goes to an operator to request it? Do you know what I'm saying? Certainly. So I think, Commissioner Hill- Because I do think a consumer should be able to have some type of, if they want it, they should be able to ask for it. Now, whether they get it or not is a different thing. I certainly understand that point. I don't think you need regulatory language for that. Certainly a consumer could go to the operator and as a public entity, a consumer could always write to the commission or copy the commission if they're not feeling like they're being heard by operators and make that request. And so that could come in through your normal public submissions, public comments that come in. And certainly when you post an agenda about a particular catalog or an events coming up and that gives a commission in your regular check-ins. And I know this is a process I believe prior meeting, I recall that Director Wells was talking about how the check-in might work with operators. You could ask, why aren't these events being offered or are they offered? So I think that's how you would address it. And doing it that way, I think avoids having a process where there's sort of additional reporting necessary or for something that may not rise to a level of a very formal request or where the operator declined to do it because they've read the rules more closely and know that it's not allowed in the Commonwealth or there's a reason not to do it, but they can't disclose rather than having that always come up as a public process, it leaves both the commission, the operator, well, all three commission, the operator and the consumer the ability to make that advocacy and let that come up to the normal course. Mr. Rainer? Commissioner Hill really got to the right of the heart of the question, right that I had, which was how can we ensure that patrons are also being heard in this process? I hear what Mia is saying, I actually tend to agree with them that I still want to see what's going on. I think about the fact that we heard complaints from the public that table games were open at frickin' mortars, right? And then that caused us to make some decisions and think about things. And so if there was something a patron wanted, I would be interested in knowing that they petitioned the operator and whether the operator has moved forward through regulation or they haven't and why they haven't a particular offering. So that comes to mind, you know, off the top of my head I think that, and when I was looking at this, I think some nexus to the Commonwealth should be the standard here, but if the nexus is ran through an operator, I'm fine with that. I just would like some operational means and maybe that's through the sports wagering division for the commission to know that there's a petition in place or that someone has talked with the operators or that they're having a conversation with the operators. Mr. O'Brien, Commissioner Skinner. So I like leaving the actual operators as the petitioners. It's their catalog and it's their business decisions. You've raised the comment about the table games and that came up, you know, by basically people writing to the commission and saying we want them to open more table games. So it seems to me there is an avenue already if we change it to operators that if they reach out and they don't get a response, they can reach out to the sports wagering division and to us as a body and then we can query the operators. My concern is people coming in that have not or don't get traction for a reason with the operators and us having to spend time and the staff having to spend time adjudicating something that the operators have no intention of offering or wanting to offer. So it seems to me like restricting the actual petition to operators is okay. And I think the appropriate way to do it for everyone involved, they do have an avenue to do it whether there's something on the website that says, you know, you feel free to put whatever you want if they want to specifically flag that you can point out to us that you're looking for, you know, something to be bet on in the catalog. That's fine. I don't, I feel like the consumers found their voices in our regular structure and I'm not so sure we need to do anything different in this regard for sports wagering. I feel like it's the operator's catalog and they should be the ones coming to us that they wanna expand it. So I'm fine with the language that's proposed today. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. I'm pretty much aligned with Commissioner O'Brien. I am fine with the language as proposed today in the regulation. I think my colleagues have the consumer perspective covered in terms of the concerns there. But I think as Eileen, Commissioner O'Brien pointed out there is a way, although not prescribed by this regulation for consumers to get any concerns about a sport not being offered in the catalog to the commission's attention. Thanks, I agree with that. And I also think that our licensees, they wanna be competitive. They want to, you know, with the illegal market with each other, they wanna offer a rich array of events in the catalog. And they also are really the watchdogs for integrity. They only want to put on their catalog events that they can assure that there will be proper integrity in no challenges with respect to the events itself. So I like it for efficiency purposes, limiting it to Massachusetts sports wagering operators. And I agree with everyone that, you know, our Massachusetts residents and stakeholders here come up with great ideas. And if they can contact our sports wagering division and say, this is our great idea, can you afford it to the operators if they're not getting any traction down to the commission manors point? And if they still don't, then we can bring it forward publicly. So I just wanted to policy thing that are noticing that our communications department can work with the sports wagering division on. So as written, this will now inform our next decision. We've taken care of that discussion and Mina's limited time. Thank you, Mina. But it was an important point to pause on. Okay, should we continue then? Are we all set commissioners? I actually want to make one more point to that point. And I'm agreeing totally, but I just want to get this thought out there so it's out in the conversation. If for example, an operator was offering men's polo but not women's polo, I think the commission should have an avenue to know about that and that's really what's sitting on my mind. So just want to put that out there for public consumption. Okay, makes sense. Anything else? Wish I was going to be all set. Wish I was going to be all set. Wish I was going to be all set. All right, I mean, we can. So it's important policy decision. Thanks. Thank you. So page 158, very small change. Just a type of graphical one. I think it was intended to say wager not wagers. And so that's it for that. I'll keep going to page 159 at the top there. There is a small change. This was a provision that we had added anticipating I think comments from the players associations. We then got the actual, you know, written some comments and this change, I believe is simply adjusting to be closer to the language that they had suggested. So it's simply that change. I think we actually talked about this change last time when it wasn't reflected in the packet last time. Then at the top of page 160, there's a new provision added here. This was in our view, and I think the external and internal legal teams view something that was already implicitly true in the regs, but we wanted to make explicit that the commission also has the ability to limit or restrict sports wagering on its own initiative without a request. We want to make sure that it was clear that if you saw something before one of the entities in the prior section asked for a restriction, you could go through the process on your own. Now, of course, you'd still have to go through that process and wouldn't, for dealing with it, but you just, that for instance, if there's an emergency, if there's something that came up, not through that formal initiative process, that's why we wanted to put that in here. Can I pause for a second to Commissioner Maynard's point? And I'm not sure where I stand on it, but if I'm hearing Commissioner Maynard, is it also true that we could require an offering or no? I think this provision certainly wouldn't go that far. And I think that the challenge with that, of course, is, as was mentioned in the prior conversation, is ultimately a business decision. If an operator didn't want to allow bets on the NBA finals, that obviously that would be an odd choice from a business standpoint, but that is a business choice they can make. I would say the Commission's real authority in that regard is more in the sense of investigation and questioning of why aren't you allowing you offering women's sports, or why don't you offer women's sports as men's sports? So I understand why it can't be in the regulation, but we have the ability to ask questions. Commissioner Maynard, correct? You're all right with that? Because I think the mail... I think the Commission has a bully pulpit. And so whether it's in the regulation or not, and I just want to... That's when I was thinking about the consumer, and I think Commissioner Hill was thinking the same thing, I want to make sure that no one's being treated unfairly too, right? It's not just the business decision aspect. It's making sure that the offerings are fair too. Right. Thank you. So it also to follow up on that, Commissioner Maynard, because I thought about what you were saying in terms of if the explanation we get back is the integrity is not the same on the women's side versus the men's side, et cetera, that might be a valid business reason, but that might be something where we use our voice to make sure that it rises to the level of being competitive with the men. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Page 166 is the next change. This is a more of a cross-reference one, and using the defined term, personally identifiable information. For now, we've added it as defined in 205-CMR 257. Again, if and when we update 202, that won't be necessary, but for now it is just a simple, it's the only time that term appears in this particular, I believe. Page 168, this was a discussion I believe we had last time. We wanted to, and this was a comment that came in the public comments on the advertising regs actually initially from the Attorney General's office, and I think we talked about this, and then we were asked to go back and kind of make sure we understand the rationale behind it. This is, the thinking on this from a consumer protection standpoint is that if you have offers that take a long time to be redeemed, it may require someone to keep their account open for a long time even after they no longer really want to, and that longer period has a concern for both responsible gaming and a kind of consumer protection angle. So we have suggested going down to the 30 days from 90, but also clarify in the language a bit that the point is redeeming the offer not necessarily winning or the bet. So this shouldn't affect, for instance, a longer term bet on say, at the beginning of the football season, you pick the Patriots still in the Super Bowl. That's not the same as you're made an offer where you have to keep the account open for X period of time in order to get it. And this addresses that latter situation and limits the time period that one would have to sort of continue to be a Patriot in order to even offer. Any questions, commissioners? I believe that is it for 247. Okay. I didn't hear any questions, but just now, but anything, any further clarification? All right, then we need a motion. I think we're gonna move forward. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement and the draft 205 CMR 247 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. I move that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that staff shall be authorized to modify chapter or section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Second. Thank you. Any questions or edits on that motion? All right. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. And I go yes, five, zero. That was an authoritative aye, Brad. Aye. Yeah. I think. Kind of a certain punch to it. The other day, Commissioner Hill had the additional visitor of a bird, which that will be a favorite of mine, Commissioner Hill. Right into the screen door today. I've been watching very carefully. My dog is at the bottom of it, looking up every few minutes, saying what's going on in the wild kingdoms of Gipps, which is back yard of the Hill Clan. Guarding against the, all right. So I will be on then, Mina, right? Yeah. So we're to the last one. And this is, there are fairly limited changes to 248. The first one's on page 174. And this is really the kind of change that is most of the changes here in 248 are inserting a cross section in 174. And then if you go down to page 176, again, cross-reference and a definition there. Similar thing in on 177. And I'm just looking to see if there's actually any change that deviates from that. I guess 248.16 on page 181. This is probably the only substantive change here. There's a missing word, place is a wager. And actually these are also not particularly substantive. It was a change in, take out gendered language in 248.16 and change it to there, correct a typo. And I believe that's it. So nothing other than those typographical pieces. This is the one that would address the multi-culture. I'm sorry, yes, I did promise to tell you where that was when we got to it. So this. So that is a page there. That is at 248.07, which is on page 178 in this case. In this case, this already had the language. 248.07, three patrons must be given the option to use multi-factor authentication. And then they're required to use multi-factor authentication to unlock an account that's been locked out. So commissioners, we may not be, this may not be been teed up for a full discussion today. We may not want to explore that. I just thought I would raise it. Should we leave as is with the option? We certainly discussed that thoroughly when we assessed each application. Would you like more information? Because right now, Caitlin, we vote on this. It's frozen, right? I never know the regulatory process. Yes, well, once the vote happens today and we file, it's then essentially frozen for two to three months as it goes through the process. Right, so over the next two to three months, if we want to explore any further information on whether it should be a mandate and what other states do that. And then if there are other implications that would make it favorable with respect to data security, et cetera, for other reasons, I just, I thought I should raise it today briefly. What do you think, commissioners? I know that for instance, all of us use probably hospital portals in a mandate, right? That second step. We are not requiring that. There's some notion that that might be an additional step for KYC purposes to ensure that underage or ineligible lagers can't access it. There's also from, I think, the business point of view additional friction that they may not love, but they all offer that option because we did require the option to be offered. The difference would be, do we mandate it? And I don't know if this is the right juncture to discuss as we may not have enough information. Thank you, commissioner Ryan. Oh, I was curious. And I'm, Jared's probably not out here anymore, but did the AG's office opine on this in terms of data privacy protections? And I don't know if Jared is still here, but my recollection is that we had the conversation about leaving it at this stage of at least being offered in all cases. I do recall that they opined on it being a good idea for within the employer, within the, excuse me, the operators for themselves. I think one thing as we take comments in the normal course on 257 that we have given some thought to is whether the commission may want to ask for sort of particular feedback. And this could also be in 257 and then re-add it here. So you may want to just simply invite that whether it's through a formal discussion with responsible gaming advocates and operators or others who might comment, I certainly would invite more input on that. So am I hearing that we can just perhaps invite comment through the other data? The first bag? Correct. Yeah. Invite it right now. It's not the between the ledger and the operators on the platform. I don't know how many other jurisdictions require no, can't remember if we explored that. Yeah. Messers, are you okay just pausing then right now keeping it an option and then perhaps exploring that for a future discussion? Mission Hill. That's what I would like to do. Okay. Mr. Maynard. That works for me. Mr. Bryan. Yeah. I mean, I see that there would probably be business reasons why they don't want to do it and in easy access. I think it's a good idea. But hearing Mina say that there is an avenue to not have to wait two, three months where if we decide and the feedback is do it there is another avenue for doing it faster than two to three months and I'm comfortable moving with this language and then looking at the data privacy one if we want to move faster. Just kidding. Yes. I think the cause makes sense to allow us time to gather some additional information. I think mandating it right now is a bit premature but maybe a good idea once we learn more about what the technical capabilities are. Well, I probably lean toward the industry when we are assessing because they were going we at least mandated the option and not all of them even had the option. So they added the option. So I'm leaning toward wanting it as an additional safety measure against any young person or an eligible wager. But I think Mina, like Mr. Bryan pointed out it's got to solve that doesn't that would allow us to get some input and if we could revisit it sooner than later if we get some input that it is a good idea and I'd like to see us at least move in and discuss it for it. Okay. All right. So that's it, right? That's correct. That's it. Thank you for going back on that. And so this would be our last poll on regs today and we're going to be getting to the carriers and help a little bit for the motion. Commissioner Hill. I'm chair. I move that the commission approved the small business impact statement and the draft 205 CMR 248 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Further move that the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that the staff shall be authorized to modify chapter of section numbers of titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien. Any questions? That motion. Okay. Commissioner Hill. No, Commissioner O'Brien. My apologies. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes. Five, zero. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. And since I do have a few extra minutes, I first thank you for setting the schedule correctly and I'll take the opportunity to wish Mr. Povich a happy birthday in a public session as well. An embarrassing publicly. You know, June 1st is a special day. Why is that? Tony Povich, what's the plan for this evening? Small dinner with family. Thank you very much. I'd invite you all, but the reservation's already been made. And I thank all of you for your good wishes. And did the celebration begin yesterday at family? Every day is a day to celebrate, so. Yeah. The remarks let me down a little bit, but that's okay. Well, happy birthday, Ma'am. Thank you very much. All righty. And that was nice, Mina. Thank you. So you can let Mina go. He's gone. He's off to his next gig. That means that we can turn to, and thank you to A&K. We can turn to the next item on our agenda. It's 1040. Madam Chair? Yes. Can I ask for a five to seven minute break, please? Yeah. And we can do that math and make it 1045, quarter of 11. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate it. Great work to the legal department and to A&K. You're all such a great team. Excellent, excellent work. And we'll be back at 1045. I think we're set. Dave, our mills, thank you. All set. Okay, we're all back. This is a reconvening of Mass Gaming Commission public meeting and we're holding it virtually, so I'll do our roll call. Morning again from Brian. Hi, I'm here. Mr. Hill. I'm here. Mr. Skinny. Morning. Mr. Mead. I'm here. Great, and I will turn then. I believe we can turn to now item five on our agenda and turn to directly to our sports weight training operations manager, Stowe Carpenter. I think Mr. Band is out today. Good morning. He is, he is taking a couple of days off to recharge. Good morning. And spend a little family time. I think he's got some special grandchildren. He does. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. What we're presenting today is a form that was just decided that we would be partitioning for new approved sporting events and wagers in the Commonwealth, the form which is referred to in the packet on page 187 or 177, depending on your version is form A, which we took a vote and joined the meeting. We took a vote and we determined that we would have any operator in the Commonwealth be the ones applying for new wagers and new sporting events in the Commonwealth. Form A starts on page 187 and is a two-page, a four-page long form. It's a fillable form in which all of the operators can add as many and encourage to add as many documents as they want, as much information as can be requested, or to also determine a decision by the commission. These forms will be used by the sports wagering department to set up a memo type presentation to the commissioners for approval going forward. Once we receive them, they will be scheduled for the next commission meeting available and we will summarize and also attach all forms for view by the commissioners. The form that we used mirrors the regulation as written. We made it a point to have one of the last sections highlight that the operator has reached out to the sports governing body or if not the body, the entity that conducts the sporting event just to assure that it is acceptable with that sports governing body that they want to have wagers on the event and it doesn't cause any undo concerns via either public health or for that operator. I'm sorry, that governing body, not the operator. I'll stop here and ask if anyone has any questions on the form. I do. So, Sterl, thank you for the form. The page three, I think it is, which is either 179 or 189 in the packet with that section you just talked about. I'm wondering if it can be written even more pointedly in terms of, because right now it says basically have you informed them. It doesn't say, I'm curious to get, I would like to see if they have not, why have they not? And what's the response? So it doesn't require them in this writing to give us what their response was. Just, yes, I told them. And I'm probably looking. Do you mind, I'm so sorry, do you mind saying where it is again? Yeah, so it's on page three of the form that he's talking about and it's 179 or I believe 189, depending on what you're saying. Okay. And it's the section that they put in after our conversation, I think Boston Marathon and the last one in terms of, did you reach out to the players association? Did you reach out to the governing bodies? And I'm wondering if we can get language that's more pointed with, you know, if yes, what was the response? And if no, explain why you didn't reach out. So I can point that out. I put in the final one that if the above entities have been contacted, please provide additional. So you're saying if you would like something, if the answer is no, why they didn't? Okay. Correct, correct. I mean, maybe they, you know, we didn't, we tried and couldn't find an actual contact, like, which would make me suspect about why they're trying to add it in. But I just think that, you know, the cynical part of me wants to know, and, you know, if they didn't do it, why didn't they do it? So even though I still has the catch-all at the bottom, you would like both the response to yes and no, right? If they do say yes. So maybe it's more specifically like, you know, if yes, you know, please make sure you fill out the last question in this section. And then if it's no, explain why not. I can do that. Madam Chair. Yes, Commissioner Hill, go right ahead. I would just kind of say, I don't think that's cynical at all. I think that's appropriate. And I would agree with that language being added. Commissioner Maynard. Agreed. Commissioner Skinner. I agree with the language. Commissioner Skinner, do you have thoughts on the forum? I'm good with the forum. I don't have any questions. Okay. Commissioner Hill, do you have any additional comments on the forum? I think it's, I think it's very well written. And I think the additions of the comments made by Commissioner O'Brien are appropriate. And with that language should move forward. Okay. Commissioner Maynard, thoughts? I'm fine with the language. And the good news is, is that we're very nimble. So if we're missing something, I'm sure that our stakeholders will point it out to us quickly. I agree. This is very comprehensive. The only question I have, just as we were speaking with Commissioner O'Brien about those additions, this is a complete form on a stick thing. I'm thinking of when this comes up in the future, Sterl, would it be helpful to have these sections, numbers would have like labeled section A, section B, section C, and then the numbers so that you would be able to easily reference to the question, you know, the answer like, yes, back in the box, yeah. You know what, that's an excellent point. And I'm gonna label them sections A, B, C, D and A because I also request that if they add additionals to reference, I was just saying the title, but there are long titles. They can just use the substantive alpha. Yeah, then maybe enumerate your question. So if it's subsection A, then it'd be A1, maybe B2, okay. Yep. I think it looks really nice. Okay, I will agree. So the sports week, the sports week during division will then now make all these changes. We will share that with the communications department. We will work to get this uploaded onto our website for the operators and I will send out a notification to all operators that the form is now eligible. And I know that there are two that have requests that are ready to be forwarded to you guys. So we'll get that right away. Commissioner Bryan, do you have another comment or a question? No, I was ready to move if everyone's ready for it. Sounds like Stirls, you're concluding anything else you wanted to add, Stirl? No, like I said, I think these are all great suggestions of making the changes now and that it will reflect those changes. Excellent. Commissioner Bryan. Sure. Madam Chair, I moved that the commission approve the petition for sports, sporting event or a wager category form as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Like I can. Commissioner Hill, thank you. Any questions or concerns, edits? Commissioner Bryan. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. Excellent. Thank you, Stirl. Thank you. Now we come up to the request from the commission for Draft Great Kings to change their language that provided to us in last meeting. So under 205CMR 247, subsection 024, the sports way during the commission reviews all changes for licensees for their house rule. As you may remember, we requested several of our operators to just add language that credit is not allowed in the state of Massachusetts. In the packet on page 195, Draft Kings has resubmitted the language for the additional of credit language to their methods of funding a wager section. This section can be found on page 15, section nine of their house rules. And in that, it says that sports wagering may be funded through multiple options, including without limitation, customer deposits and site promotional credits. Deposits can be made through a debit card online banking, PayPal, pay plus cards, bank wire transfers, cash at retail and approved gift cards and may include any other method approved by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. And final, it says in no event may a Massachusetts account be funded through a form of credit. The concluding statement for the memo is that this division confirms that all the requirements have been met under 205CMR 247, subsection 02. And the sports way during division has no reservations about moving forward on this approved change. Commissioner's questions only seem that they were responsive to our last meeting card. Okay, Commissioner Hill. Yes, I'm Adam Chair. I would move that the commission approve the amendments to the house rules submitted by the category three sports way during operator crown mass gaming due to business as draft kings as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Back in. Thanks, Commissioner Skinner. Okay, any questions, concerns, edits? All right, Commissioner Bryan. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes, five zero. Thank you. Great work, Sturrell. Let me get next. I guess that you're like, there's not another one for us today. That's it. Well, thank you, Sturrell, very nice work. I'm glad we cut that off before I'm addressed. Excellent. Anything before Sturrell leaves the meeting commissioners? Commissioner Hill? No? No. Anything? Great job. All right. Okay, great job playing Bruce for the day, Sturrell. Thank you very much. I agree, Sturrell. I was actually just looking for the chat function to send you a personal note. Good job. Thank you all. Okay. So we're moving on now to a really interesting report. They're always interesting, Mark, but I know it's one that we've been looking at, and I believe, Commissioner Bryan, did this come up yesterday? Maybe you can mention it at Commissioner's Update, but you did have your subcommittee meeting yesterday. This was not the one that we were talking about yesterday. No, we spoke about the one that was already presented. Guest earlier, right? So you can discuss that in Commissioner Update, but I know that we've been waiting for this one. It's very, very interesting, Mark. You want to give our Caitlyn some praise of the day. We went from breakfast table. Now we're leaning into setting the table for lunch. Let me set the table for lunch. Thank you. Madam Chair, and good morning, commissioners. Today we will be sharing with you the patron and license plate survey for Encore of Boston Harbor. And this starts, I believe, on page 197 of your packet, or at least the latest packet that I have. So completed in 2022, this report presents the results of the first patron survey at Encore of Boston Harbor. It builds on the patron surveys at PPC with a report that was released in 2017 and MGM with a report that was released in 2020. Findings include insights on demographics of casino visitors, behaviors, and expenditures. Patron surveys have been an important part of our research agenda as they provide the only data that's collected directly from casino patrons regarding their geographic origin and expenditures. We have several members of our SIGMA team here today. Of course, we have Dr. Rachel Bullberg. She, as you know, is the principal investigator on the SIGMA project. She also is a research professor in the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. We also have Dr. Thomas Peake, who is a senior research analyst at the UMass Donahue Institute. He contributed to the design of the patron survey questionnaire, the data analysis, and the expenditure portion of this report. And last but not least, we have Dr. Lori Salome. She is a lecturer in the Eisenberg School of Management and the Department of Hospitality and Tourism. She has been instrumental not only in this report, but in the other two reports that I just mentioned. These are no small tasks giving these reports fielded. And I would say that Lori and the team have learned a lot in those first two iterations and brought that experience to this report. Just so you know, the coordination with Encore Boston Harbor, first of all, with our MGC team at Encore Boston Harbor, coordinating between the social and economic teams is extensive. Lori coordinated 42 surveyors to conduct the surveys as patrons were leaving different exit areas of the casino. So just a big shout out to Lori, to Rachel, and to Tom for getting the point where we are here today. Rachel, I know you, I think maybe you wanted to say a little bit more, I didn't steal your thunder on any part of this, but I will turn it over to you before we dive into the presentation. Thank you. Great, thank you, Mark. And good morning, commissioners, Madam Chair. Mark, I think you inadvertently gave Tom a promotion to Dr. But I just want to, sorry, technology. So I just want to introduce Lori Suleimie and Tom Peake in a little bit more detail since I believe this is the first time they've been in front of the commission in quite a long time. Lori is an attorney. She has been with the Sigma Project since its inception in 2013 and actually for about a year before that as we were putting the team together. As Mark mentioned, she's a senior lecturer too in the Eisenberg School of Management in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management where she has been teaching since 2001. She has experienced in the business as well as at the university, but among her various duties on the Sigma Project, Lori's most important role, I think, is that she heads up the team that has conducted the patron surveys which importantly bridges the work of the social and economic teams in the development of the survey and in drafting the report. So she led the survey implementation and supervision in the field as well as the writing and editing of the report. Tom Peake has been with the Sigma Project since 2014. He's a senior research analyst at the UMass Donahue Institute where he conducts economic impact studies for clients in state government, higher education and the private sector. He also assists the public in acquiring and understanding US census data as the point person for the Massachusetts State Data Center. And among his various duties on the Sigma Project, Tom contributed to the design of the patron survey questionnaire, the data analysis and the expenditure portion of the report. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Lori and Tom for a presentation on the Encore Boston Harbor Patron Survey. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Rachel, for such a lovely introduction and good afternoon commissioners. It's, I guess it's still good morning commissioners. It's my pleasure to be here. As Rachel said, it's been a while since I've been before this body and it has changed since then. So nice to meet you all. I've been listening in today. I'm gonna dive right in and go. Is somebody sharing slide? Is that Mark? I'm sorry, I couldn't quite hear your question. Mark, are you sharing slides? Mark? Mark, you're on mute, just so you know. Okay, I hadn't, I would need to pull them up, but if you wanna give me a second, I could send you. Let's just see one minute, Grace, do we have that separate or is that? I can share slides if you want. Okay, as long as you have access, that's good. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. It just means I won't look at my notes, but I think I'll be okay. Just wanna say good morning to the entire Sigma team. Thank you so much for appearing today. All right, can people see that okay? Yeah, you have, just so you know, it's also, we see the side view, not just the clean. Yeah, because if I show just the clean, then I won't be able to see you. Then you won't be able to change it. That's just fine. I just want you to know. That's absolutely okay. All right, thank you. Okay, thank you. All right, excellent. Thank you so much. So we have now done patron surveys at all three Massachusetts casinos. We did Plain Ridge Park Casino in 2016, MGM Springfield in 2019, and Encore Boston Harbor, of course, in 2022. Methodologically, a significant effort was made to capture a sample of patrons through venue exit surveys that was as representative as possible. However, there were a few differences with the Encore Boston Harbor survey. First, ideally, we would have gone to Encore Boston Harbor in March of 2020, obviously with the pandemic that didn't happen. The idea is to do survey six to 12 months after opening to give patronage a chance to settle in so we were delayed with Boston. The second thing is that initially we did two waves of collection at the prior two casinos in winter and in summer in order to see if there was any seasonal differences in patronage, and we found there really was not. And so it did not seem to warrant the significant higher cost of fielding surveys two times a year. So we did one data collection and we did it in April. Instead of doing it in the February, March, we'd done the pass because COVID was pretty high then, we went till April. So we did change a couple of things since we were only going once. Instead of collecting those over eight days, we collected over four days. Instead of a six hour collection period, we stayed on site for a seven hour collection period. And instead of approaching every sixth patron who exited, we intercepted every fifth patron who exited. Again, just to get a little more data. One thing that has been the same on all of them is we try to again get a sample. So we're there during peak and non-peak periods that would include peak and non-peak days being there on a weekday and a weekend and peak and non-peak hours being there during the day and evening on those days. So for example, for this particular location, we were there on Saturday, April 2nd during the day which was 1030 to 530 p.m. Monday evening on the 4th of April and that's a 5 p.m. till midnight slot. Then we were there Saturday evening, April 9th and then Monday morning, April 11th. So that's how this particular one broke out. At all of them, we have survey teams at multiple exits ahead of time. We go in, we look at the business volume at each exit and we pick the busiest exits and set up at three or four exits depending upon the logistics of the particular property. And at all properties, we wait the data to adjust for differential of age, gender and race non-response. And this is kind of a unique thing that we developed for this project. When somebody declines to do the survey, we're stopping every fifth person. When somebody declines to do the survey, the person who invited them, our survey who invited them makes a quick assessment of their age, gender and race. And then we tally how many people declined to do that by those characteristics. And we wait that to those who did participate in the survey. Our goal was to complete 500 surveys. So we did fall a little short with 440 surveys and we had a 15.4% response rate. This response rate was a little bit lower than we'd seen in the past with Springfield it was 21% and with Plain Ridge Park it was 22%. And in the report, we have speculated several reasons why that may be. And again, it's just speculation. So you can refer to that if you're interested in ideas that we had about that. What we've done at all three venues is we've conducted a license plate survey concurrent. So each time when we're at the venue conducting the survey, we're also out in the parking lot, the parking areas looking at the geographical origin of the vehicles. And some of you may be familiar or recall that for many years prior, the Northeastern gambling, excuse me, Northeastern Gaming Research Project did a similar count at the Connecticut casinos for many years. And the data from those reports were used by Massachusetts regulators in looking at why it was so important to have casinos in Massachusetts. So we try to very similarly replicate their methodology. And what we have seen at all three surveys is a very similar residency. And that is the case here as well. Of course, the license plate count can't give you the in-depth analysis that we're gonna be sharing here. You can only get the residency, but it was good for us to do that just so that we could see how accurate those counts were from prior reports. Let me jump in and share some information about the geographical origins of the patrons. The majority of the patrons were from Massachusetts at 78.3%. Of those patrons, 41.8% were from the host and surrounding communities. The host community, of course, being Everett and the surrounding communities being Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Saugus, Lynn, Malden, Medford, Melrose and Somerville. Now, the surrounding communities are those designated by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission except for Chelsea and Saugus. While they don't have an official designation, they have similar stipulations to those official designations. So we've included them in this report which is consistent with what we've done in other reports. And then we had 36.5% from other Massachusetts locations and just 21.8% were from outside of Massachusetts and lumped into that is a small portion of unknown. So there's our geographical origins of the patrons that we encountered at Encore Boston Harbor. I wanna do just a little, we didn't do a comprehensive three casino comparison in this report because this really is a standalone report and a more in-depth comparison of the patron survey data from all three Massachusetts casinos is going to be included in our upcoming integrative report, the socioeconomic impacts of expanded gambling in Massachusetts in 2024. But we did do a few things and I wanna share a couple of snapshots here. So we did compare the patron origin of the three venues. Now recall the three venues had staggered openings with Plain Ridge Park opening in June of 2015, MGM opening in August of 2018 and Encore opening up in June of 2019. They're located in different regions around this day and they're also quite different in terms of their size gambling offers and non-gambling amenities. At Plain Ridge Park Casino, we actually had 479 completed surveys for a response rate of around 22%. At MGM, we yielded 878 completed surveys with a response rate of 21%. And again, at Encore we had 440, so keep that in mind. One important difference that we saw between these three venues is where they draw from geographically. Only 11.4% of patrons at Plain Ridge Park Casino were from the host or surrounding community. And that's quite different when we look at MGM and Encore Boston Harbor who both were in the 41%. So quite a significant difference there. And these are nearly identical, which is also very interesting. MGM had the smallest percentage of patrons from other municipalities within Massachusetts with 17.9 and we had 36.5 as we had sent before at Encore. Plain Ridge Park Casino had the highest at 66.5. But remember that when we were at it, when we were at Plain Ridge Park Casino, there were no other casinos in Massachusetts. So certainly that could have been a factor. When we look at patrons outside of Massachusetts, we see very similar numbers for Plain Ridge Park Casino and Encore Boston Harbor with almost twice as much from MGM. So MGM had the highest number of patrons from outside of Massachusetts by far at 40.6%. All right, so there's a little comparison for us. I'm gonna jump in and talk about demographics. This is some general demographic information. In our full report, you can find more detailed data about these and other demographic characteristics and also broken out by geographical origin. When we look at gender, we had a bit more men at 55% than women at almost 40%. This is the first survey where we actually offered people an opportunity to check off that they prefer not to say their gender. And about 6.5% did. So that certainly could impact this figure. Race and ethnicity, we're gonna talk about this in more detail in a minute. Over half were white at 55%. A quarter were Asian, 24.9%. With smaller proportions of Hispanic patrons at 7.6% and Black patrons at 8.3%. Oops, sorry about that typo. That's gonna be bad. Okay, the age, the mean age was around 44. The largest percentage group we saw was in that middle age range 58.1% in the 35 to 64. And we saw more younger patrons in that 21 to 34% age group than we saw older patrons. So about 26% in that 21 to 34% and the older patrons, 65 or older, only 16.1%. Annual household incomes we found were quite varied. About 14% of the population reported and this is total annual household income of under 30,000. About 10% in the 30 to just under 50,000. 35% in the 50,000 to just under 100,000. And 40.4% reported total annual household incomes over $100,000. The majority were employed at 71.6%. With about one fifth, about 18.7% being retired. Again, this is just a sampling. We have more detailed information in our full report. But I did wanna talk a little bit about racial diversity at Encore Boston Harbor because we did see that 40.8% of the patrons identified as non-white. If you put in there, it's 44.4% for patrons who identified two or more races. Nearly a quarter, 24.9% of patrons were Asian. If we just look at Massachusetts patrons, 24.3 were Asian compared to their much smaller prevalence in the adult population of Massachusetts, which is 7.1%. And they were represented in the casino at a rate of 24.3%. If you break it out and looked by the host and surrounding communities, the number was even higher at 31.2%. So again, this looks at the geographical breakdown by percentage. So we had 7.6% of Hispanic patrons. 60.3% of them were from the host and surrounding communities. And 30.6 were from other places in Massachusetts. This number is a little bit higher for the black patrons that we intercepted. We have 8.3% of identified as black with 77.8 being from the host or surrounding. The other cells were too small to report. And again, of the 24.9% of the patrons, more than half, 53.6 were from the host and surrounding communities. The opposite pattern holds true for white patrons. Only 30.8% were coming from the host and surrounding communities. And we saw a larger number here coming from outside of Massachusetts. Just so you know what we did offer people who checked, for example, that they were Asian to break that down, we had 40% identified as Chinese and about one fifth each of Vietnamese and other Asian and about 10% of Asian Indian. And given the frequency of the complimentary shuttle service between the casino and Chinatown, it's not surprising buses actually depart when we were there anyway, depart from Chinatown and the casino every half hour. And the only break in the 24 hour period is from 8 to 9.30 in the morning. Again, we did not do an in-depth comparison in this report that will come in our integrative report, but we did want to look a little bit more at the racial diversity issue because this certainly, you know, when we saw this number, it certainly gave us a reason to want to look at it a little bit more. So we did try to look at the comparison with three venues around race and ethnicity. Encore Boston Harbor was the most racially diverse with roughly, as I said, about 45% non-white when we're looking at the two or more races compared to 32.5% at MGM and just 18.2% at Plain Ridge Park Casino. MGM actually had the highest number of Hispanic patrons at 16.5 compared to Encore Boston Harbor, 7.6 and over here is Plain Ridge Park Casino 4.5. Not pictured here, but we also then wanted to look at what is their represent, if we looked at just the Massachusetts patrons, what is their representation in the total general Massachusetts population? So Hispanic patrons from Massachusetts were actually overrepresented at MGM at 16.3% since they only compromised 10.6% of the adult population and slightly underrepresented at Encore Boston Harbor since they were 8.6% and they represent 11% of the total population. When we look at the patrons who checked off white as their race for ethnicity, Plain Ridge Park Casino certainly saw the largest patrons identifying as white compared to MGM and Encore Boston Harbor. When we look at their populations in the adult population of Massachusetts, white patrons were overrepresented at Plain Ridge Park Casino because they only represent 75% of the population and were underrepresented at Encore Boston Harbor because at 55% they represent 71.9% of the population and at this percent here, they represented 73.4% of the population. Patrons at Encore Boston Harbor were slightly more likely to be black compared to MGM and Plain Ridge Park Casino. They were overrepresented at Encore Boston Harbor if we look at just Massachusetts because again, this is all of them. We had Encore Boston Harbor had 9.4% and 6.1% as their number in the general adult population, fairly evenly represented at MGM. And as previously stated, patrons were significantly more likely to be Asian compared to MGM and Plain Ridge Park Casino where the numbers were actually even too low to report. So you can read more detail about that in the full report and of course, more discussion of it. I'm sorry, is commissioner Hillard, did you have a question? I see your, oh no, he must be talking to you. Commissioner, if you'd have questions on, you can either. I just saw, I saw you talking, I wasn't sure if you- We can decide to fold them maybe to the end, commissioners. Yes. It might be the most helpful. Thank you. Thank you so much, commissioner. I wanna talk a little bit about frequency of visitation because people were asked how often they come. 17.6% of patrons reported this was their first visit. 13.8%, I'm gonna jump over here a little, reported to coming two to three times a month and 43.4%. Visit once a week or more. In this chart, we also broke out the information by geographical origin. So 43 of these 43.4% who come once a week or more, when we look from the host and surrounding communities, we actually see that that number is 58.1%. So from the host and surrounding communities, 58.1% report coming weekly. For example, we also looked at it by ethnicity and patrons who identified as Asian were more likely to visit at least weekly at 60% and the number of weekly visits or more were also higher among blacks and Hispanics. Patrons were asked about the activities that they participated in, both gambling and non-gambling activities both at the venue and offsite. And we have this information here. 89.2 participated in gambling while they were on the venue with slots and they could check multiple, check all that apply. 62.7 participated in slots and 37.7 in table games, smaller number for lottery products. We do see that only 10.8% did not gamble at all, which would seem to indicate that gambling really is the main draw for this venue. That number was only 6.8% from the host and surrounding community. So that number is even smaller there. And again, that given, it's not surprising given that there's 12 dining and lounging and entertainment venues within the facility. 79.4% spent money on non-gambling activities in Encore Boston Harbor. Food and beverage was the most frequent at 68.1% followed by the hotel, shopping, and entertainment. We also asked patrons the non-gambling activities they engaged in offsite. And those would be either what they did on their way in or anticipated on their way out. So we assume that most of that is in Massachusetts and 70.5 did participate in some type of offsite activity. Attending events shows or exhibits was the most frequent followed by food and beverage. Patrons had an opportunity to discuss or to share with us some of the strategies that they used to gamble within their personal limits. And again, they could check all that applied. And the three top strategies that were used was avoiding the ATMs, 43.1%. Viewing gambling is fun and not a way of making money, 31%. And sticking to a monetary limit, 29.5%. As an aside, not pictured here, about 70% reported that they did gamble elsewhere in the past year. And that included about 19.3% who gambled elsewhere in Massachusetts, 25% gambled in Rhode Island, and about 49% gambled in Connecticut in the past year. About 83% or so got there by car. About 90% of them reported having an enjoyable visit, 88% saying they would come back. About 74% have a loyalty card. That number's a little bit higher for slot players. About 83% have a loyalty card. We're going to be turning over the floor to Tom in just a minute to talk about the overall economic impact. But I did wanna talk about an important social issue. Looks at the potential for a regressive impact. And this happens when people with lower incomes spend relatively more gambling than people with higher incomes. And this, we can look at this in two ways. Number one, we can say, well, what's the percentage of patrons compared to their representation in the state's adult population? And then we can also look at comparing that to the gambling spending that they account for. And this is what this figure here does. So for example, when we look at people with the lowest incomes, and these are our Massachusetts patrons, they represented 14% of the patrons and they represent 13% of the adult population here in Massachusetts. So that figure is pretty close. And they only represented 10% of gambling spending. And when we look for host and surrounding communities, those numbers are identical. If we look at the patrons reporting the highest household incomes, 39% of the patrons had those highest incomes. So they're underrepresented because they do represent 54% of the adult population, but they also represented 56% of the gambling spending and similar pattern over here. So this data suggests that casino gambling at Encore Boston Harbor does not have a regressive impact. And as you recall from MGM, we saw different results. So I'm gonna turn it over now to Tom to talk about our economic modeling. Thanks, Lori. And thanks Mark for the introduction. I think I said before that if the MGC ever feels like handing out honorary doctorates, I'd happily accept one. But I know there's some new faces on the commission. So I just kind of want to give an overview of what I do and how this relates to the project. In about a month, I'm going to be sending into the review process a report about the economic impact of the first few years of operation at Encore Boston Harbor. And when we do that report, we're going to be using a special economic impact model from a company out here in Western Mass called Remy that is used to sort of calculate the ripple effects of something like a new business being established or a new type of government spending coming into place. And for the way that we use the patron survey, the question that we're really trying to ask here is how would patrons have spent their money if the casinos had never opened because what we're really trying to capture is the impact of gaming. So what we're really trying in a way to figure out is what would the world have looked like if casino gambling was never legalized in Massachusetts. So really it basically comes into two things. Money that would have been spent out of state if the casinos had never opened is new to Massachusetts and money that would have been spent in Massachusetts is coming at the expense of the businesses that would have otherwise received it. I remember when I started this project in 2014, I came on right after the ballot question about this. And one of the central arguments during that ballot question that really framed the way that we built our modeling process was that the casinos were going to take all these people who are currently spending money on their local main street and they were instead going to spend at the casino. So whatever benefits economically the casinos have, they would need to be, they would at least some of that benefit would come at the expense of somebody else. So this is a very important part of my operation reports and I collaborate with the social team on this survey in order to get the data that I used to do it. So as I said, the economic work is ongoing, but this summer we'll be wrapping that up and you'll be able to see sort of the full report where we mix this survey data with operational data that we collect directly from the casinos and run that through an economic model. I can go to the next slide. So I touched on this on the last side a bit, but the patron data that we have allows us to determine the sort of economic activity that would have or would have not occurred in Massachusetts. So really the big policies questions that we're asking are how much money was recaptured? That's a term we're gonna keep coming back to in the next couple of slides from in-state residents who otherwise would have gambled out of state. We have a question in the survey that specifically asks, if the casinos weren't here, would you have traveled out of state to gamble? Because if they would have, then that money is money from Massachusetts patrons or out-of-state patrons, but it wouldn't have occurred in state without these casinos. So I mean, I guess if you looked at a regional or a national economy, you could say it comes at the expense of those states, but for a Massachusetts based model, it's essentially free money. There's no Massachusetts firms that are being affected by that shift in consumption. And then how much of Encore's revenue would have otherwise been spent elsewhere in Massachusetts? And if so, where is a big question that we need to look at? This is a regional model. We break everything down into multi-county regions that are quite broad, but it does give us a sense of if people are traveling across the state to visit places and things like that. And then how much new out-of-state spending is Encore, Boston Harbor attracting, in other words, how many people who are out-of-state and wouldn't have come to Massachusetts otherwise, are coming here because of the casino. And then one thing I didn't put in here, but it's another, and Lori touched on this earlier, another question that we do look at is how much money is being spent off-site by patrons who are visiting Encore, Boston Harbor and may have not been visiting the area otherwise. That's another impact that we attempt to measure. I can go to the next slide. I will say here, our findings are a bit more high level at this point because with all the different questions that we're asking, we really kind of cross-tabulate this survey population quite finely and due to the survey response and just the sort of way that the survey broke down, there's a lot of groups that we theoretically have like a category to set up to study them, but very few people fell into them, like not enough to report. So we're just gonna be reporting this on a slightly higher level. Those smaller groups, by the way, we can still totally use for the economic modeling exercise, it's just a reporting best practice. So the big finding here is that in-state patrons who we're calling their spending recaptured, something we call them recaptured in-state patrons, they account for 45.2% of the reported gambling spending and 64.4% of the reported non-gambling spending at the casino. And these numbers are generally in line with what we see at the other places where this is, this is the largest group of patrons. I think in some places it's been the majority of spending here, it's just a little bit under, but it's in any case the biggest, when you account for their reported spending, the largest group, the group responsible for the most spending is people who have identified that they otherwise would have been going out of state to gamble. And just for a little bit of context, that could be people who are regular, like very regular gamblers who were previously traveling to Connecticut or Rhode Island or now they're not, or it could be very casual gamblers, like it could be a bachelor party or something that had a plan to go to a casino and now there's a close one. But in a lot of cases, I think it's probably quite regular gamblers. In terms of patron, in state patrons who their spending was reallocated from other businesses, we have them accounting for about 24.3% of reported gambling spending. So there is some of that spending, about a quarter of the gambling spending that we think is spending that probably would have occurred on other expenditures within Massachusetts instead. One of the big findings that we had is that out of the reported spending, whether recaptured, reallocated, about 95% of it is coming from what we're calling our Metro Boston region. And again, this is a model that we build out of counties. And so our Metro Boston region is quite large. It's Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex, and Norfolk counties. So it's a very large region and it is a home to I think the majority of Massachusetts residents. So it's not wildly surprising, but I think it is important to say that a lot of the spending that we are seeing is based, is people who are based in, like in the, either the surrounding area or one of the adjacent counties. I think we'll go to the next slide. But just in terms of recaptured spending, I think it is important that the majority of casino patrons that were surveyed did indicate that they would have gambled in another state, if not for on Corbuston Harbor. So that includes people in the host and surrounding community, people in other municipalities and people from outside Massachusetts, all indicated that the majority of all of them indicated that they would have otherwise gambled out of state, if not for the casino. Given that that was an important public policy goal of the legalization of casino gambling in the first place, I do think that's an important thing to point out. But I would also point out that the numbers while they are the majority or they're not overwhelming majorities. So that's sort of a very quick overview of the information that we pulled out of the Patron Survey. There'll be more information on this and on its economic implications coming in our on Corbuston Harbor Economic Impact Report, which like I said, we're just finishing up the data analysis and it should be on your desks later this summer. Madam Chair. Yes. Tom, can I ask you- Do you mind on commissioning? If I can just ask, do people want to go back? Because I know we have the slideshow in our packet too. Do we want to go back? Could we open it up so I could see faces? Do you mind taking down the PowerPoint then, please? Thanks. Great, now we can have a conversation. Thanks, Commissioner. Tom, a very quick question on your last slide you were talking about patrons who if we didn't have on Corbuston Harbor, would have gone to out of state gambling. Did they happen to save? They were going to Connecticut, New York, Maine. Did they happen to get any indication? There is some information about that although I don't have it in front of me. Laurie, do you have those numbers in front of you? By any chance? They're in the report, but yes, we did ascertain that information of where else they would have gambled if we didn't have here, Connecticut. Oh no, that's where they visited in the past year, sorry. Don't have it right handy, sorry. That's okay, if you can get that, I mean, if it's in the report, I'll read it. It's in the report for sure. I for some reason missed it when I was going over it, but I'm just curious, that's all. Mark can follow up with us on that, Commissioner Hill, because it's a dense report, so I'm gonna be helpful. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, John. Director Bennell, are you heading in? Yeah, well, I was just going to add, and usually I say this at the beginning, but Commissioner Hill, what I think you're probably thinking is that a major driver of the Expanded Gaming Act was recapturing dollars that would have otherwise gone to these other New England states, and so it is a really important aspect of what this study highlights, so yeah, I think it's a good question. I have a question. Commissioner, is anyone leaning in to ask a question right now? Let me just go back to, yeah, we did ask, if there was no casino in Massachusetts, would you have chosen to spend the money you spent here today on gambling in another state or county? And then when we ask where, we do give them the opportunity very clearly to check off where that would be. Sorry. And do you have the results? I will get you that page number and I'll drop it in the chat. Okay. And Lori, you, I wanted to follow up on something you mentioned with respect to the Asian population, the numbers of percentage seem to outpace the representation of the general population. And you, and my question was going to be, how does the fact that on court provides passing impact and you did reference, but it sounded like you might be surmising. Did you ask, were you able to ascertain who was in not just with respect to the Asian population who was taking a shuttle versus driving there? Did you have that? Yeah, people were asked how they got to the venue and they were given plenty of options to say how they got to the venue. So that is in there, yep. And do you happen, would you be able to share any of the results? Well, I know the vast majority drove at 80 something percent. Transportation. Maybe 70% of the 400, was it the 400? Of the total 440, yeah. 51 appendix G. Let's see how much we can break that out. Sorry about that. Okay. So 82.6, their own car. Taxi, rideshare, limo, about 9%. So then the other cells are getting kind of small, public transportation, MBTA commuter rail was 4.7. Oh, private charter bus, shuttle bus, private coach or runner van. The number is a little too low to have high confidence and it's like 1.8%. And what about on core sponsored? I think that would probably be included in the charter bus shuttle private coach or runner van. Dr. Andrews, are you weighing in? Oh, okay, I didn't want to put you on the spot. Just wondering. So we don't really have any discernible evidence of the impact of on core sponsored transportation. Up here on mute, Lori, so sorry. That's right. We were able to get bus counts from other venues. For example, when we were at MGM, they provided us with a number of people on the buses. We were not, we don't have that from on core Boston Harbor. I don't know if they monitor it the same way. I request, I recall us talking about it and they say don't really keep those counts. So really it's more anecdotal in terms of, you know, the business volume we saw and the people we spoke to. But you don't have really from the Asian population necessarily evidence of that population being, okay, thank you. All right. Madam Chair. Yeah, commissioner. So Lori and Tom, I think I got my answer on page 19 of your report. Even though the question was, have you gone to any other states in the past year? I think the information on that graph is indicative of where they would go if we didn't have casinos here in Massachusetts. So thank you and I did find it. So thank you. And that's on page. It's on page 19 of the report. And that would be page 237 of our packet of the 10 pages ahead. So it might be 227 to 237. 237, yeah. Thanks, I'm just gonna take a peek. It's not surprising what I saw. No, that figure, 237, oh. It must be your... It's figure 15, if that helps. Page 15, so it's two... Figure 15. Figure 15. What page of the report? 19. Oh, here's figure 15. I have it on 230 of my packet. Yeah, where they went in the past year. So you're saying, Commissioner Hill, that it would imply that if Angkor weren't there, this would probably be indicative. Obviously impacted, right? Cause it's... And something else I was interested in your comments. Madam Chair, if I can continue, I didn't wanna... I was interested and actually I was looking at page 237 of my next question. So I gave you the wrong page. I... Also on the problem, thanks. Let me go back to 237. 237, that does have different data, yeah. Yeah. I was interested in... How they would have spent money if not the casino in gambling in Massachusetts. So I just find this to be very interesting is all. I'm sorry, what page of our report? It would be page 26. Yeah, I mean, that does require some speculation on the part of the patrons. Yeah. So we just have to take them at their word on that. We have asked this question at all three venues, obviously being consistent. And I think for Tom, he finds that helpful as well. We do find it helpful, although it's something that we, when we're doing our economic modeling, we do tend to take it with a bit of a grain of salt just because people are not always great at actually estimating what they would have. Like a lot of that is what they think they would have otherwise done with their money isn't necessarily what they would have done with their money. And in cases where maybe there was something really important that they should have spent that money on that they didn't, they're probably not gonna just come out and say that to a total stranger. So it's something, we think it's important in some ways, especially when you look at the sort of the entertainment and discretionary spending to get a sense of what sort of discretionary spending they were otherwise engaged in. But it's just something that we do sort of wanna caveat with the fact that like self reporting on that is probably not gonna be 100% accurate. Understood. Other questions or comments? I think the last comment I will make and it's just a comment. And it's something that I've always believed in my hearts of hearts for our casinos to be successful. You know, we have to have events and shows and other exhibits around the casino if not in the casino to bring people to the casinos. And I noticed in figure 17 that that is one of the highest figures that I see of how people, the non-gambling activities that have participated in the offsite, but what brings people to the area are just that event shows and exhibits. I found that to be an interesting figure. And with that, Madam Chair, that's all I have to add. Commissioner Hill, I think figure 16 is also important that it was set up as resort style casinos that would be a draw to not to just gambling, but to other forms of entertainment. And from a responsible gaming perspective, the idea that you're offering other forms of entertainment, it's not just the destination to only gamble is important. Agreed. Thank you for that, Mark. Mark, do you wanna walk us through that figure? So figure 16 takes a look at non-gambling activities that were participated in at Hancor, Boston Harbor. So 20% said, no, they only came to gamble, but the rest, it was a mix between other types of entertainment there. Food and beverage was a huge draw with 68%, 18% stated the hotel shopping. I mean, it's just important to note that the legislature said specifically, resort style casinos with a significant investment in developing these casinos. And it's reflected that the resort piece of the casino is an important draw for visitors. Yeah, and it's worth thinking too. I mean, you have a better handle on this than I do about what of venues, non-gambling activities on the venue are actually licensed to third-party providers who now are able to take advantage of that economic activity that they wouldn't have been able to take advantage of if the casino wasn't there, as opposed to just on-core getting that money. Excellent report. Yeah, I'm sorry, Krisha Hill, I- I said excellent report. I have the questions or comments for the Sigma team. Commissioner O'Brien. No, just reiterating what Commissioner Hill said and then in terms of follow-up, I would like to know whether you couldn't get the information at all from UVH because they didn't track it that way or whether it's something we can get after the fact. If they don't track it that way, I'd love to have conversations with them to have them start tracking it because that is an interesting bit of information, particularly with the numbers on the Asian players at UVH. You're asking precisely for Commissioner O'Brien, I'm sorry. The question that you had, Madam Chair, looking at the shuttle bosses and the impact, if any, of the shuttle bosses on that number of the Asian players in terms of the percentage at UVH. Commissioner O'Brien, Bonnie and I are taking this. Okay. Thank you. Because we have not other reports, as you know, Rachel, you've been a layer of Asian cares and so the passing has come up, but I think it's important for us to have the right data, right? You're not necessarily just surmise. Yeah, if I can add, Madam Chair, the data that we have from the Patron Survey Report is somewhat constrained by who was willing to participate in an interview. And I think, you know, for people who are trying to catch a shuttle bus, for example, it's quite likely that those people would have been harder to recruit into a survey as they were exiting because they would have wanted to make the shuttle bus and if they missed that shuttle bus, they would have had to wait another half hour. So, you know, the data that we have are constrained by basically by who is willing to participate in the survey to some extent. But our research team will put our heads together and we'll have some discussions and see if we can figure out a way to nail down what proportion of Encore Boston Harbor patrons are arriving there by shuttle bus from Chinatown versus other modes of transportation. I don't have any immediate ideas, but we'll certainly put our heads together and see what we can come up with. Michelle Bryan, meaning in. Also, thanks. I will just add that we did have surveyors who spoke Vietnamese and Chinese and we also had printed versions of the Patron Survey in Vietnamese and in there. Because you did capture the percentage of this level 400, if I understand correctly, you were able to have a 440 surveys. How many were Asian? Almost 25%, I remember that's weighted. Right. I'm not sure if you have been able to find out if they were catching the bus to Rachel's point. We can pull that out and see if those numbers are reportable, yeah. But in other words, I think it's important for Rachel's point that you did get them. They did participate in this survey, which if it were people of the Asian population where we're kind of surmising that they're taking some on-corresponds or transportation and I want to be careful. We not do that unless we have data to support it. But I was impressed by the fact that because I think of all the resources you use, Lori, on language, you had such a diverse population captured in the survey. I think that was outstanding work, right? So there was no language barrier, certainly. Maybe what Rachel's saying is those who are catching the bus didn't participate, so would it even be a higher population than the 29% or whatever the percentage was? Well, we are waiting to the non-refusals as well. So if somebody refused, right? We tracked their, you know, we had a form so that you could quickly say, okay, what gender do I think they are, what age range do I think they are, and what ethnicity do I think they are. And we've done that for all three and there's some, you know, we also do an accuracy test of how well the surveyors do it, estimating that, et cetera. So we do take that into account. So I think that that's helpful. So we don't know really the percentage of the Asian population that actually participated in the 1240s. We can go back and take a look at the recent debates by race and ethnicity. Yeah. I think the larger point is that even when you're waiting the data to what you think, you know, to what you know, the patronage looks like in very rough demographic categories, you can't take that information that you use for waiting and find out things that people didn't tell you, people who did participate tell you certain things, but that may not be reflective of the entire body of the patronage. So there are some caveats that we include in all of our reports about the statistical process known as waiting, because it's a very important process, but it doesn't correct for every type of non-response bias that you might have in a survey. I understand now. Thank you for that clarification. I think to the Commissioner O'Brien's point, mind me, we're hopeful to get more data, clarity around the narrow issue, and I'm hoping that all the good work you've done, you can extract the answer from already on what you've done rather than having to do additional work, but we'll stay tuned, right, Mark? Okay. Okay, thanks. Appreciate it very much. Alrighty. Other points or things that jumped out at you, that was one that was on my mind. A follow-up. International, Tom, we're not seeing the impact of the international tourists so much, or Laurie or Rachel. Yeah. Laurie might be able to speak a little bit more to that, but just in terms of the respondents in shares of spending, it would be relatively small, most of the spending we can attribute to Massachusetts and really to Eastern Massachusetts patrons. Yeah. Less than 1% were from outside of the United States. Yeah. Although I think it's also important to keep in mind that the patron survey on Corbos and Harbor was conducted not during the height of the pandemic, but sort of as things were kind of calming down. And so as we point out in the report itself, it's quite likely that the patrons that we surveyed in 2022, in March and April, for April, I'm sorry, are people who are like more enthusiastic gamblers who were anxious to get back to the casino rather than maybe folks who wouldn't want to travel internationally to a destination and then go to a casino. So, I think the geographic origins of the patrons was probably reflective somewhat of the state of the pandemic at that time. That makes good sense too. Thank you, Rachel. I need the commissioner meeting. I just have one question. I second everything my fellow commissioners have asked. But since I am a newer commissioner and it's the first time I've seen this particular report, I was struck by how many folks game in a really high income bracket. It's a large, is that standard across what you've seen in the past when we've conducted similar surveys, is it standard across the industry? Yeah, I mean, we will, in our integrative report, we will do a comparison looking at that, but we have seen higher incomes than we expected, even at the prior ones. Remember that the median income in Massachusetts is quite high compared to other states as well, right? Isn't it up in the mid-70s, as I recall? So, it's not surprising to see that. Yeah, but I think we were actually surprised at the other at MGM as well, to see that number as high as it was. And education as well, seeing a higher number of education, again, Massachusetts has a pretty high education level compared to some other states. Yeah, I mean, I just was totally struck by almost 40% of folks who are gaming in the state make $100,000 in more household income. So that was really struck me. And so I am interested to see those comparisons and interested in kind of why that is versus other states. Well, I'm looking, I just pulled up MGM real quick. And if we look at the entire sample, 100,000 or more, it was 18.7 per, excuse me, 18 plus 16. So it was a pretty significant number, 18.7 plus 16.2, 34.9%. At MGM. At MGM of the entire sample, yeah. We're 100,000 or more household income. 100,000 or more. If we looked at just the host and surrounding area, it was 30%, so a little bit lower. But still a significant number. And to your point, Commissioner Maynard, trying to compare what this piece of work that's being done in Massachusetts with patron surveys with any other jurisdiction is almost impossible because there are no other U.S. states that I'm aware of over the last 10 years that have done patron surveys. So I'm sure that the operators have lots of excellent information about their patrons, but that is not information that we're privy to. So we have to collect information in a different way to get a sense of the patrons. That's a really good point, Dr. Volberg. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Commissioner Steele. I'll just add excellent work by Dr. Volberg and the Sigma team as always, chock full of good and helpful data. And thank you very much for your presentation today. Thank you, Commissioner. Anything else? Well, Mark closed it out. Oh, he closed it out completely. I made that unmute, I apologize. I was thinking like closing out the item. I was closing myself up. Nothing else to add. I'm happy to see that we've done this at all three properties now and it contributes to our ongoing monitoring after the social and economic impacts of gambling in Massachusetts. Thank you. And I look forward to the integrated report, right? It'll be really interesting. And I didn't use titles because at this point, I'm just ready to give you all honorary doctorates. So it's nice to see you and Rachel, thank you again for your leadership in this work and Laurie, nice to see you and Tom, thank you. So I guess we're all set then to continue on to our next item. Does that make sense, Mark? We're all set. Thank you, thanks so much. All right, item number seven on our agenda. It's just barely good afternoon now. Dr. Whitebound, how are you, Alex? Thank you, I'm good. Yes, good afternoon everyone. This item is just to inform the commission that I use the 2013 delegation to the director of racing to approve certain track matters, to approve Dr. Zach Matzkin as a racing official, which is the association veterinarian. Earlier in the year, the commission approved all plain ridges racing officials, including Dr. Murdoch who has been there veterinarian for years, but this year, we have been fortunate enough to get a sub for him. So if there's days that he wants off, Dr. Matzkin can come in and it just took a little bit to get through the veterinary licensing procedure. He's been a veterinarian for quite a while up in Maine, but he needed to get his mass registration. So that came through and Steve requested him, Steve O'Toole, for on the 22nd and he was able to work on the 23rd with that delegation of authority. And Steve O'Toole is on the meeting today. Any questions? Thank you. And I saw a director O'Toole did come in short, just a few minutes ago. Questions for Dr. Whitebound Director out there. He is good afternoon, Steve, our director O'Toole. Good afternoon. Okay. Commissioner Maynard, Commissioner Hill is the process the same and the one that's we'll just authorize as being a minorized member. Back to you. I believe it is. That would be my interpretation. Right. Excellent. Well, this works, right? No questions. Do we have, do we have, we do, we don't need to take any action. We just remind them that delegation. Okay. Dr. Whitebound, thank you for your report. Thank you. Steve, good to see you. Have a good day now. Always great to see you guys. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Then we're moving on to item number eight. We have a fiscal year 24 budget. Commissioners, I'd like to continue unless we need a short break. We're good to go. All right. Sounds like I'm not hearing any, any requests. Okay. We've got, there he is. We have our Chief Administration and Accounting and Finance Officer, CAFO, Eric Mullen and we see John Skelly. Thank you. And I know Commissioner Skinner, you're involved with today's presentation. So let's get started. Oh, there's Doug. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Commissioners. I'm joined by Douglas O'Donnell and John Skelly and we are here to present to you staff's recommendations for an operational budget for fiscal year 2024. The budget documents begin on page 368 of the public meeting packet. The MGC's annual budget building process begins in February and concludes once the commission approves a budget in June. The MGC office of finance met with each division bureau head within the MGC and developed a spending and revenue recommendations that are best estimate representations of what will be needed in FY24 to operate the commission. As well as what can be expected for revenue based on the commission's current fee structures. These requests were then reviewed by the finance team, the executive director and the treasurer of the commission. A third review was conducted by representatives of both the gaming licensees and sports wagering licensees in a virtual meeting on May 15th, 2023. As a result of the aforementioned process, we are recommending an operational budget of 54.9 million that funds approximately 133 FTEs and six contract employees. The MGC's FY24 budget of 54.9 million represents a 5.5 million or 11.12% increase over the currently approved FY23 budget and is funded from the gaming control fund, the racing oversight and development fund, the community mitigation fund, the sports wagering control fund and the public health trust fund. FY23 experienced substantial growth in FTEs because of the implementation and regulation of sports wagering. The table at the top of page three of the memorandum shows that we approved an initial FY23 budget funding 104 FTEs and four contractors. As of the writing of this memo, we have increased the approved FTEs to approximately 123 and 10 contractors. In FY24, we recommend increasing the number of FTEs to approximately 133 and dropping down contractors to six. The finance team developed a revised cost allocation plan for charging the costs of staff that work across programs in racing, gaming and or sports wagering. The method used was to take the positions that work directly on racing, sports wagering and gaming as a subset and then determine each fund's share of that subset. Those percentages were then applied to staff that are not directly assigned to a given fund. The distribution arrived at 65% to the gaming control fund, 28.5% to the sports wagering fund and 6.5% to the racing oversight and development fund. As a result of the licensee meeting on May 15th, we also shifted approximately, well, we shifted 28.5% of our lease in shared IT costs from the gaming control fund to the sports wagering fund. This amounted to approximately 790,000 additional costs that were shifted from gaming over to sports wagering. The tables on page three of the memorandum illustrate the changes in FTEs as well as how the cost allocation adjustments distribute FTEs across each item within the commission's budget. Recommendations for the gaming control fund begin on page four of the memo in page 371 of the packet. We're recommending an FY24 budget of 37.39 million for the gaming control fund, which is a 3.95% increase over the currently approved FY23 budget. Just as a reminder, this item funds both our regulatory costs as well as statutorily required costs of the Attorney General's Office, the Alcohol Beverage and Control Commission and the Commonwealth's Assessed and Direct Costs. The MGC's regulatory costs funded by the gaming control fund increased by 4.17% while statutorily required costs only increased by 2.94%. The table on page five of the memorandum demonstrates that the majority of the regulatory increases came from union contract costs of living adjustments from the gaming enforcement unit, both MSP and locals, as well as our own 5% recommendation for COLA's. Moving on to the racing development and the oversight trust fund, that fund is actually decreasing spending projections by 5.83%. The page seven of the memo or page 374 of the packet shows the decreases coming mainly from the revised cost allocation implementation and shared costs for racing going from down from approximately 10% in previous years to 6.5% in FY24. The racing division itself is experiencing a 3.4% increase from FY23 spending levels and that is attributed to the COLA's that we're recommending. Community mitigation fund is recommended to be funded at 385.4,000, which represents a 10% increase from FY23 funding levels. The increase here is related to the COLA's and friend rates going up. As a reminder, 205CMR 153.05 allows the commission to expend funds for the administration and oversight of the community mitigation grant program. The regulation requires the commission to annually approve a budget not to exceed 10% of the funds available on the account for the fiscal year. This funding level is well below the 10%. Just for reference, as of May 30th, we had brought in 13.9 million from wavering taxes collected in FY24 and deposited in the community mitigation fund. The 385,000 is less than 3% of the current deposits and we still anticipate May and June deposits to go into this. So like in previous years, this will probably be closer to about 20% of what we're allowed to spend in this budget. In August of 2022, the Massachusetts legislature and governor approved a bill that legalized sports betting in the Commonwealth. The gaming commission was designated as a regulator. Included in that bill was a sports wager and control fund to provide a means for the commission to spend money on regulating the industry. In FY24, we are recommending a budget of 8.33 million which represents a 75.55% increase over the current FY23 funding level. The majority of the increases composed of the annualization of salaries approved for part of FY23, new positions that are included in this budget to help regulate sports wagering, as well as the allocation of lease costs, IT costs and the support positions we discussed earlier in this briefing. The table on page eight of the memo shows by spending category the changes from FY23 into FY24. And as you can see, the majority of the increase is going to staff and fringe costs. One area to focus that I wanna call attention to is we are moving away from consultant assistance and towards more internal staff work as can be seen by the decrease in the HA costs. And once again, that corresponding increase on the AA costs, which is straight salary. Moving on to the research and responsible gaming office. This is a statutorily required component of the MGC and began being funded by the public health trust fund in 2020 through a collaborative process with DPH and EOHHS. The MGC's research and responsible gaming division will continue to be funded in FY24 from the public health trust fund. Funding for the office has been increased by 12%. The table on the bottom of page eight of the memo shows up much of the increase in this item is in consultant services. And that is increased in the game sense program run by the Mass Council for the addition of sports wagering and the Commonwealth. The additional revenues will be funded through both the licensing fees for sports wagering operators as well as from the taxes on sports wagering operations. As in previous budgets, we're tracking potential exposures in our FY24 proposal. Litigation costs are funded at a minimum required by our insurance policy. The overtime for the gaming enforcement unit is funded at the same approximate number of hours. We've increased it for the colas that we're anticipating, but the number of hours remain consistent. And the Everett police requested a large increase for their share of the GEU at Angkor Boston Harbor. We funded a portion of that and our GEU team continues to work through those requests with the Everett police department to see what the right staffing numbers are and how we can work together to contain those costs. We've decreased, as I pointed out earlier, we've decreased our anticipated spending on consultants and outside help for sports wagering. If our divisions come back and say we need additional help with that, that item may need to increase, but that we're tracking that as a potential exposure for this year. Moving on to the assessments on licensees, this budget requires assessments on gaming licensees for the gaming control fund, as well as $5 million for the public health trust fund. To determine these assessments, we need additional time to work with the licensees to get estimates of what their slot and table game counts will be. Mass General Law Chapter 23K, Section 56C directs the commission to determine the difference between the projected budget and the projected fees and assess that difference on licensees and proportion to each licensee's share of the total gaming positions. Without those actual gaming position counts, we can't give you a chart that shows what the assessment would be for each licensee, nor do we have the revenues that we would bring in for the $600 per slot machine fee. Once we get those numbers, we will bring those back at a meeting on the 29th for your review. The budget also requires two assessments on sports wagering licensees, one for the sports wagering control fund and another $1 million assessment for the public health trust fund. Mass General Law Chapter 23N, Section 15C requires the commission to assess on sports wagering licensees, the difference between its anticipated costs and its anticipated revenues and proportion to each licensee's adjusted gross sports wagering receipts. For the purposes of the initial FY24 assessment, we recommend using the actual adjusted gross wagering receipt figures for licensees from implementation to the end of May 2023. This will allow the commission to assess costs and begin regulating sports wagering in FY24 and then revise for actual performance through June 30th, the end of the state fiscal year, when staff provides its first FY24 quarterly budget to the commission. There are two operators that we do not expect to begin operations in FY23. Therefore, we recommend they pay the same percentage of the assessment as the operator that generated the lowest adjusted gross sports wagering in FY23. We will not be able to provide those percentages until we release the adjusted gross sports wagering numbers on June 15th. So I just wanted to give everyone an overview of all the assessments that had to happen. However, we can't provide those. We are ahead in this budget cycle. We usually don't come to you until the middle of June, but because of the expansion and sports wagering and the changes to the cost allocation plan, we thought it was wise to get to June 1st, give a full two weeks for the public to comment, and then if there are large comments coming forward from that, we can take those up in a meeting before June 29th, which is when we are projecting to come back forward for a final vote on this budget. Well, those are all of the prepared comments I have. I know that I had a chance to meet and the team had a chance to meet with the commissioners and two by twos to provide a deeper dive into some of the figures that we just gave a general overview when they're in the packet. But the team is here and ready to discussion. I just wanna say that we are very thankful for all the work that the executive director, the treasurer, all of our directors put into this. Like I said, this starts in February and it's a pretty intense process. And I think that the licensees had a good review this year, came up with some good decisions and some recommendations for us to put forward for your consideration here today. Thank you, Derek. Just on the very last point, did you say two or was it three who will not be contributing in this fiscal year? So we're thinking it's two because I think Fanatics is set to open up before the end of this fiscal year. So it'll just be the two remaining ones. It'll be Bally's and Betway, which is a digital gaming court. So just those two. So Fanatics will start before June 30. Okay, excellent. Thank you. All right, just a point of clarification because I wasn't sure of what I heard. Thank you. So commissioners, we did have the benefit of two by twos. Commissioner Skinner, you've been involved as in your office of treasurer. I know commissioner O'Brien and I did have quite a really productive discussion with you and my perspective is a very good presentation that you, John, Doug, Eric gave us. So thank you, commissioner O'Brien. I think we can maybe hold our comments but I turn first to commissioner Skinner and then commissioner Maynard and commissioner Hill will you two together? Will you together or commissioner Skinner or will you with commissioner Hill or Maynard? I'm not sure because of treasure if you did it two by two as well. Commissioner Hill and commissioner Maynard would get together and commissioner Skinner had just helped us to develop the whole process. Yeah, that's what I thought. So commissioner Skinner, maybe you have comments first and then we'll turn to commissioner Hill and commissioner Maynard and commissioner O'Brien. You and I can follow up. Yeah, nothing too substantive for the reason Derek just mentioned has been very heavily involved in the process and developing the budget. I think it's sound, I think it's physically responsible and Derek, thank you, John, thank you, Doug, thank you and the entire finance team for their work as well as the directors who contributed to the process. Okay, excellent. Mr. Maynard and commissioner Hill did your two by two generate anything you wanna share with us or? Madam chair, I would just say that I have or had concerns regarding the sports wagering requests for employees moving forward without really knowing exactly what it is that we're asking for. I mean, there's been money put aside and I understand that and it should but I would have liked to have seen maybe and I talked to Derek and Doug and John about this what other jurisdictions actually have for employees, what their positions are, what they actually do. We're kind of, in my opinion, we're kind of waiting and seeing where I think other jurisdictions have already been set up and maybe could have given us or given me anyways better information of what positions we actually could be adding in the next year or so. That was all and the discussion was a good one and I got a lot of good answers out of that discussion that made me feel comfortable that this budget as presented is a good one. And I don't have really any financial questions except for getting me better information of what type and what employees we need in the new sports wagering division. Mr. Maynard. I appreciated Derek and John and Doug spelling out for me how the balance is really going to work in this budget and making sure that we are fiscally responsible but that we have the resources we need to effectively do our jobs at the commission is the balance I want to strike. One thing that I brought up that I'm happy to say here publicly is that I have noticed that we have had difficulty filling some positions. I know it's a highly competitive market out there and one of the ideas that I've brought up to Karen in the past and I know that we've never been at the right spot for it but hopefully we will is getting people involved early on in their careers and making a pathway to capture some folks early on and keep them and move them through the systems because I really believe that there are a lot of people that if they saw how interesting the work is at the MTC and rewarding that they would want to make a career out of it. And so that's one thing that I did bring up and just making sure that we have the resources we need. I believe from my prior position that the worst thing that a state agency can do is not have enough resources. It should be fiscally responsible but there's gotta be enough hands on the deck. And so that's kind of what came out of our conversation. So Commissioner O'Brien, we raised the same issue about the sports wagering division and I think I use the term functions. What are the jurisdictions requiring? Not so much in terms of necessarily under sports wagering division because we might be, I think Carol will comment on this, we might get a lot of those functions taken care of internally through other divisions but what are the functions that are fulfilling that other jurisdictions fulfill and what are the gaps? Commissioner O'Brien, then we can go on the other matters but maybe we just focus right now on the sports wagering division. Yeah, so I had kind of the opposite reaction Commissioner Hale to you in terms of sports wagering, just I feel like our staff has done a tremendous amount with very limited resources. We took three internal people with tremendous skills. They are now our sports wagering division. We are relying heavily on contractors. I asked Eric this during the process because the budget line item for that is going down. Understandably, there's a lot we don't need anymore but I wonder if we are going to be needing to pull them in and or expanding sports wagering as we go forward and truly understand what it is that those three current staff members need as we fill this out. I think it's a great idea. Chair asked for it, it sounds like you guys did too and you're two by two in terms of surveys of other states figuring out comparable sizes. What are they doing? What are the ideas? So we're not creating the wheel. I also didn't want licensees to be shocked however at the I think likelihood that we're going to be expanding the money that's going to be necessary to fulfill that regulatory function be it through third-party independent contractors in certain areas like assisting with advertising, monitoring that sort of thing or getting staff in the dorm what that's going to look like. So I agree with Commissioner Hill with your sentiment of not putting something out there with not necessarily knowing what it is but I also felt like realistically to tell the licensees this is going to be a bigger number just by the nature of the regulatory task in front of us. And so that was a lot of the conversation that the chair and I had when the budget team kind of briefed us on this the other day. I'm going to turn to Karen in a minute but I think if I recall, I've got my notes here Derek and I revealed that maybe last year I might have used the term slush fund and that was a little bit frowned upon. It's precision, but I do think that perhaps Commissioner Hill you're joining us. I know there are a few positions that are in the budget for sports wagering division. I think Commissioner O'Brien and I are like, that's great but is it sufficient? And Derek I think you even said perhaps we could set aside a lot of dollars for sports wagering use should it be needed. So with that I turn to Karen because you've been thinking about this and you know the whole team's been thinking about this of course, Director Bannon, Sterl and Crystal are thinking about. Yeah, absolutely. And had another conversation yesterday with Sterl and with Bruce and I think you are correct that there will need to be additional resources for the sports wagering division. Sterl sent me something this morning as an example from another jurisdiction and the expectation would be that there would be a build out of sort of the audit function. So we've now got things up and running and then it's a matter of, okay, what are we checking and what is the process to audit the licensee. So I gave an example of another jurisdiction that launched sports wagering I think first in November 18th and they're still organizing and structuring in that jurisdiction. So it is not unusual as the process unfolds to be looking at your division and developing the systems as you go. In that particular jurisdiction which I've made, they have a gaming operations unit that processes internal controls. That's sort of the Sterl side of the house and that's what he's doing there. The lab handles the technical testing. That's what the IT department and Katrina's group is doing and they have an audit unit that's responsible for auditing all forms of gaming. That's sort of the piece that we've built out now that we have the launch. And they also have 247 recs in the casinos where there's sports books where we have the gaming agents unit. So using that as an example, we have sort of the infrastructure for sort of three of the four of those and then the next phase is the auditing. And in talking to Bruce, it's a matter of, we still are going through all the regulations, still going through all those. So that next phase would be hiring that audit division and working on that piece of it. The team is also gonna look, they were speaking with other jurisdictions as we were planning for the development of sports wagering anyway. But now that we're sort of within the world of actually regulating and we're seeing what we need. We obviously see advertising is a great concern. We have to deal with patron complaints. We have to deal with just monitoring the website, things like that. So as we identify where the needs are, there'll be additional hires. When I spoke to Bruce, he didn't want to just hire a bunch of people and then figure out what they're gonna do. We need to figure out the job description and bring on the people. But I think that is in our future. So I'm very grateful for the commission and their proposal here to put in some money because we know we're gonna need some people as we go forward and it's folks operate. So those are my comments as we wait for afternoon. There's questions for Karen. Karen, could you tell me the state again, please? Well, I don't know if I should say. Okay. We're talking about the timeline. You didn't mention it. I couldn't come here. I wasn't sure if I'd missed it. Thanks. I didn't know if there was a question to disclose. That's a double check. No, no problem. You're gonna maybe do a little bit more reaching out. And again, I think we either write my point. Some of the functionality of other jurisdictions are captured perhaps in our divisions and not necessarily have to be recaptured in the sports wagering division. And that's where when you, when we finally hear from you, Karen, on where you are for right now. And I appreciate you saying that's gonna keep on evolving. And I think that's a really important point. But maybe next month or so, you can keep on updating us on what you're envisioning. If you could tell us where the functionality is too. Because for me, that'll be important to understand, well, it may not be through reckoning sports division, but it's got in between as team is capturing it to the distance that would be really helpful. Different jurisdictions do it differently. There are some jurisdictions where they don't even have a sports wagering division. They just fold it all into their existing operations and other jurisdictions really silo it out. We're somewhat of, you know, we're working on a hybrid model here. So we're sort of picking and choosing from different models as we go along. Okay. So Derek, given that, do we right now just pause because I know Commissioner Berman had a couple more points you wanna make. Would there be a recommendation for an amount to set aside? And there's already, how much has set aside for the FTEs that they already identified? So we've identified three additional FTEs. And we have those positions built in and we have the specific functions. But that is the extent to what we have built in for this year for sports wagering. And that's what we talked about. We can either come back in the two by two with you and Commissioner O'Brien. We can either award a certain amount to the executive director and some FTEs and have the executive director have her keep coming back and saying we've identified this function. We'd like to fill it until we hit that FTE cap and or that dollar amount. So that could be a combination of consultants and FTEs. So you can do both money and FTEs. Or you could say I would like a straw man put together by the June 29th meeting of different functions. And we could go that route based on the conversation that Karen had with Bruce. That sounds like option one may be easier because option two we're not ready to do yet. So I had said just throw out a number of three quarters of a million dollars and six to 10 FTEs and start there and then keep coming back to update. And there was that's there's no science behind that, right? That's just a number of throwing out. So that would be at least a recommendation. I'll lose recommendation that you can make but then we're gonna get feedback anyway because this goes out to public comment, right? Correct. All right. Precious Skinner, any response in terms of your thinking now that you've heard what the two by two has revealed? No, I think this question had come up earlier in the process and I think it's good, a good strategy to get ahead of it and plan for it as opposed to the other option which would be once a position is identified and scoped out coming back to the commission for approval of it and an increase in budget after the budget has already been voted on. So I mean, I think it's to Commissioner Bryan's point putting the licensees on notice that this is something that is going to create an increase in the assessment. I think it's just a good process. It's a good approach. And I agree with the need to account for the additional staff for sure. Great, excellent. So if we can just kind of put that one out there. Commissioner O'Brien, we also had a couple of other points and one was with respect to the executive director herself and that item. Yeah, so this is, I've been saying this for a while structurally, I feel like we need it and I absolutely think we need it given the number of licensees that we have and the number of direct reports that go up to the executive director. I do think that us exploring the org chart adding in and I know the title can't be deputy because that by statute belongs to the head of IB but someone who would be either second in command deputy executive director functionally for the ED so that there can be an assessment of how the direct reports come in and up so staff can be reviewed because as we just talked about we were getting a unit up and running right now that S3 it's gonna get bigger than that. There are gonna be contractors that need to be monitored by staff even if a third party is performing the function. So I feel like we're at that point now and since we're going into the budget to have a conversation about adding an FTE that performs that function. Yeah, and I had it, I had Commissioner O'Brien during our review I had your observations in mind and I did mention that I think we should anticipate that position given the fact that we have 10 additional right now which measuring operators. Karen's always, we've always noted that it's a very flat organization with a lot of reports. It just has gotten that much more complex. So I'm in agreement that we explore that and ask Director Wells to maybe make a proposal about what she might think. But again, that would mean some reserving some another pot of dollars to anticipate that possibility if others agree. Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Maynard, Wells? I can speak. I'm happy to hear that, Commissioner O'Brien because I think the first day I came into the office I looked at the chair and said, well, where's Karen's deputy? Like that was a day one ask for me, right? Because I was trying to send something out and so I wouldn't, I totally support it. Okay. Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Skinner, any thoughts? I support the concept. I'm one of those people I've already stated my original thought. I'd like to see a plan come back and if it's something we agree, then we add money during the year. I don't think we need to put something aside but the concept I like for sure, just the way I am. Well, maybe we should discuss that, the implications of setting the money aside versus adding in, Commissioner Skinner, you alluded to that as the two alternatives and I guess maybe we should understand the implications of that. Commissioner Skinner? Yeah, I totally support some assistance for Karen in the form of a deputy or equivalent. I was pleased when Commissioner O'Brien raised it during Karen's evaluation recently. I think it's a great idea and very necessary. So thank you. So to Derek, what are the implications of setting aside or adding in later? So the implications of setting aside or adding in later are just the timing and then when the licensees get assessed. So this type of position, I wouldn't budget for a full year. If it's added right now, I'd probably budget it for seven to eight months because we would have to one, generate the job description, two posts for it, three interview for background check and then finally on board. So I'm not saying that we can't do it quicker but that's probably realistically what I would budget for it. If that time period slipped, then we would have assessed for money for a position that we didn't bring in earlier. So that's the only implications, right? And the licensees get that money back at the end of the year. Anything that's unspent gets credited back to them in a proportional share to their either adjusted gross sports wage during receipts or their share of the gaming positions because this position would be split across all three appropriations. And if we didn't put the dollars aside. We would just assess it at a quarterly update. We'd come back, we'd say we're ready to hire this. You've approved it. We think we're ready to bring this position in now when he has a start date and that's when we'll assess for it. Any preference, commissioners? My preference would be to market pro-rated the way Derek referenced, because I feel like we are in a position to start drafting a job description and moving forward. So I have another question too. Is there a requirement we submit an org chart with FTEs into the Comptroller, I think? So Secretary of State, when does that happen? Historically, I've done that, so it's annually. I'm trying to, I usually do that at the beginning of the year. I think I just said Mary Ann said that in the last couple of months. So I'll double check on that, but yes, we do set it up. Okay, but I think we incorporate it into our ICP. ICQ is coming up. So all of that is, we're looking at all of that. Those internal control matters. But we can always amend any submission, right? Correct, we can amend it. And as long as the org chart is approved by the commission, we've met that requirement. And this would be one of those positions that would be approved by the commission. Yeah, we could just submit it for amendment. All right. Other, so Commissioner Bryan has indicated that she likes the preference of marking it, letting it aside. I've heard Commissioner Hill indicate he'd rather wait. I'm going to turn to Commissioner Maynard, your preference. Mark it. Okay, Commissioner Skinner. Preference, we can go with the majority. Okay. And we're not doing taking a vote today right there, because now this goes out to public comment. Perhaps we'll get some input even on this issue, right? Correct. All right, any other questions? I guess we did have another one other question on legal. Commissioner Bryan, do you want to reference that? It was looking again at the money set aside for the contracting, right? Third party contracting. And I know we had to spend a substantial amount on legal fees to get the regs up and running. And that number went down. Obviously, we're coming out the other side of the reg drafting, but, and I mentioned this already, kind of when I was thinking about sports, way during the concept of having to hire a contractor maybe help with monitoring advertising compliance, that sort of thing as we got going. And Derek, you answered this, but I don't know for the wider five of us, whether you want to be more, you know, give that same response in terms of, if that number would need to go up because we need to contract out with third parties to do things like compliance, auditing, that sort of thing. Is that something we need to flag now or how do we handle that going forward? So that would depend. We dropped that down to 200,000. If we got the ultimate flexibility proposal of, you know, three quarters of a million and six to 10 FTEs, then we could just come back to it and update and say we've spent part of that for a contractor. If we have to come back with a specific plan based on comments coming in by June 29th and then come to each time we want to increase it, then that would impact how quickly we can respond. I mean, we can pull up a public meeting pretty quickly we've shown. So we could come forward if it were a quick request, but it does take away some of that flexibility of staff to be able to just do the work and then update the commission at a subsequent meeting. Yeah, I'd like it to be in a position where staff can move as quickly as they can. I don't know myself, but that was the last area, I think that you and I spoke about, Madam Chair at the briefing. I think we also, there's a new position set aside for legal and. The legal assistant. Yeah, yeah. Yes, so we, yeah, we were talking about that because you did flag that they were asking for a legal assistant. And Madam Chair and I were wondering actually if it should be another attorney given the volume of work that's coming in the minutes that need to be prepared. All of that, that whether that legal assistant position was gonna be enough to really give support to legal that we thought might be necessary going forward. Correct. And I think this went around the job description drafting because we have two new attorneys in for this budget and one assistant, but the job description that I saw come across had notes, meeting notes for the legal assistant. And I think your question was whether that person would be able to do the notes because of the frequency we have in meetings as well as do the administrative assistants help that we need and should the notes reside with an attorney. And if that's the case, we should just hire another attorney. Right, and that was as the person who was the secretary before Commissioner Hill and we were trying to get the backlog cleared. We came from a structure of the secretary and one paralegal trying to do the lion's share of getting the minutes out the door. And there was a couple of challenges to that, one of it being just the level of work that fell on those two people's shoulders respectively, but then also just getting into a rhythm and fulfilling the expectations that we set out for what we wanted for the minutes. So where I saw it and where I've seen it going, I would prefer to have an attorney involved in the drafting of the minutes. And so that's why my preference was to get more administrative support to legal if they need it, but also in the form of an attorney to continue to assist with the minutes. Correct, that's the essence of the conversation. Yeah, and I was in agreement with that. I know that there's some debate about that, but I do believe that the minute taking should light with an attorney. So I don't know how that figures into the budget for Todd and Karen, but that was, I think, our last point of discussion. Very rare, two by two. Right, did I talk about this too, yeah. Correct, so I can circle back with Todd and Karen on this and HR to make sure that the job description accurately reflects, and if so, then we can come back with a recommendation for an additional attorney at whatever levels the legal department feels is right for those meetings so that we get outside of the contracted help, which is more expensive than in-house personnel. Sorry, quick interruption in this discussion. I'm having some internet connectivity issues. I'm gonna stop my video for a minute and see if that makes a difference. I might have to log out and log back in. Of HD meeting. Okay. Thanks, Commissioner Skinner for the update. Our technology is, we're challenging it today. Oh, good. All right, so I think that's a good idea to swing back, Derrick, with Karen and Todd and Michelle Brown, you're all right with that, right? Right, any other questions for Derrick and John and Doug and Commissioner Skinner? And of course, Executive Director Wiles, who was for all of the discussions. Karen, are you also, anything that you'd like to add? Nope, I think we're good. Okay, Commissioner Hilly, you're all set. Yeah, I thought you were leaning in. All right, so we don't run on this. It goes out to have a comment, we'll wait and see and we've got some good time to turn back to this before the end of the year. All right, it is still before one o'clock and I'd love to be able to get down before we have to break for lunch. So I'm gonna turn to item number nine. And then we do have just a couple of minor things to ask about after we get through this issue. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. This matter relates back to section 243.11x, you'll recall. Excuse me, Todd, I'm sorry. Can you just, can we pause for just a second? I'm gonna call in by phone because my issue has not resolved if you don't mind, Chair. No problem, thank you. Just let us know so that everybody knows we're turning now to page 141 of the talk, right at the end. I guess it's actually, I don't know, 39, sorry. Join the meeting. Mr. Skinner, are you on now? Mr. Skinner? I'm here, I'm here. I'm here. Okay, I'm here, I'm sorry. Okay. It's not a hit song, but it's something. She's definitely here. There we go. Okay. How's that, Commissioner Skinner? I'm off that, thank you. Okay. I didn't know if the Reds had that hit or the Reds song. Okay, Todd, thank you. Okay, thank you. So again, we're in 243.01, it's section 1x, which you'll recall, talks about sports wagering operators getting a technical security control audit within 90 days after commencing operations. Those audits have to be performed what the regulations refer to as a qualified independent technical expert. In order to ensure a uniform and diligent review of these experts, the team has put together an application, if you will, and sent it out to all of the entities, I believe there are three that we are aware of that are interested in performing these audits or already have for some of the operators. That process has not been completed yet. I believe it's underway and hopefully will be completed shortly. And at that juncture, we'd bring the experts before the commission for final approval so that they could finish the audits and then submit the reports. So ultimately, what we're here for today is seeking an extension of the 90 day date that is referenced in the regulations so that we can get these experts fully approved by the commission. We proposed an additional 90 days. I don't know that it'll necessarily take that long, but just to be on the safe side, that is the proposal on the table. And ultimately, that is the crux of it. The regulations also talk about in paragraph X2, the standards for qualifying as a technical expert. And then further on here in X1, they talk about what the audit actually has to look at. But again, today we're just looking for additional time for these audits to be completed. And I know Christian is here if you have any specific questions about the status of that review. So they're asking for an additional 90 days still. Is that right? How much time do they need? I don't know, Christian, can you speak to whether the applications have been received and are being reviewed or are we still in the process of gathering the information? Yes, we have received the one application filled out completely, we're waiting on the other two. Any questions? How much time did we grant under the initial waiver? It was 30 days. 30 days, okay, thank you. That would be 120 days since the initial, I mean, collectively. Correct. And I understand most of that time is precautionary. Most of the time under the request so that the team is not back before the commission requesting any additional extension. That's right. Again, it doesn't feel like we'll need a full 90 days to bring this back before you, but that is just precautionary. Commissioners? I have no problem with the request and making it 90 days, Madam Chair. Right, I'm in support. And we'll just maybe get a little bit of an interim report, Karen, if it looks like they're not gonna make the next 90 days, because there's, you might wanna get a little bit more information should there be anticipated additional requests. Is that fair? So just if you could put it somewhere as a note that the question, if it looks like they're on course, it'd be great. Understood. Thanks. All right. So do I have a motion? Are there no other questions or comments? Madam Chair, I move that in accordance with 205CMR 202.023, the commission issue a temporary waiver for an additional 90 days to all sports wagering operators from the requirements set out in 205CMR 243.011X. That requires operators within 90 days after commencing operations in the Commonwealth to have a technical security control audit conducted by a qualified technical expert as granting the waiver meets the requirements specified in 205CMR 102.034 and is consistent with the purposes of general laws chapter 23N. Second. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. Any questions or edits around that motion? All right, Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Mr. Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes. So five, zero. Thank you, Todd. Thank you, Christian. Thank you. Christian, thank you for all your good work that you've been doing along the way. We hear reports, so thank you. Thank you. So just a couple of comments before we close out. Commissioner O'Brien, do you want to just give us a quick update on yesterday's public safety meeting? Sure, short and sweet. So was the meeting and so will this be? It was a presentation of Justice Research Associates 2022, the COVID impact study that we did at a public meeting earlier this year. I know Fritz came in, presented to all seven of the members of the South Committee along with is it Dean Serpa? Grace, did I say that right? The G-PAC chair. It was very helpful. I think we meet the new Chiefs of Police, head of the Chiefs of Police Association, got some connections with him, D.A. Galloni for MDAA, talking about human trafficking in addition to what we talked about in the report. And then I also had Grace pull a list of all our regs and electronically getting into the hyperlink so that that committee, as an extension of the requirement of 23K could give comments back to legal and Grace would be the point person on any of the regs that are out there. And acknowledging some of them are sort of in the process or done already, but knowing that we would want to hear from them, regardless if they had thoughts on what's out there. So we did sort of ministerially make sure that was distributed with the idea that the next meeting we're going to put that on to make sure any comments that needs further discussion by the group, we can talk about it. Great, thank you. Thanks Grace too for your support on these subcommittees. And I just wanted to point out that we talked on briefly about the need to update the mission statement I'm putting together a working group and I've asked Commissioner Maynard to help. I think that he's newest in will be really helpful and we'll have a working group and circle back to the commission on that you know probably in a few months. And then to Commissioner Maynard earlier you raised a point that really I think when you said the pipeline where we really need to bring in and let folks know that this is a great place to work and where your career can develop and evolve and it's interesting. You're really pointing out that I didn't need for an internship program. Commissioner O'Brien you have always favored that and you've looked of course in terms of North East. As music to my ears. Yeah, North Eastern program. Of course it doesn't have to be just a co-op. It could be, I'm familiar with both using co-op students and interns from other universities. We are really blessed to be in the Boston area. And so if I could, I'd love to have the two of you work together and perhaps help Executive Director Wells, she certainly has had that but you know it's extra hands could be really helpful, right? Commissioner Wells? It really would and it's very timely because Chufti Banda, our HR manager has sent me a whole proposal for the internship program. So why don't I forward that to Commissioner Maynard and Commissioner O'Brien. You can take a look at that. That would be a huge help because that's already on the way. Yeah, they're great. They're a little more work up front getting them going but then once you get in the rhythm they're great programs. Yeah, and of course you're thinking I know about the co-op but Commissioner Maynard, you and I have had great experience with respect to the co-ops and those all the universities, right? I think that I would just say and the reason I brought it up in terms of the budget we don't have to visit it here and perhaps it's one of those quarterly updates that we can do. I put a little money behind it only because. Oh yeah. Only because I would say in my previous job one out of every two employees that went into our office came through an internship program. That's 50%. And I know that MIMA has a program. I can see her name every state agency that has a program that they get a large chunk of their entry level hires from an internship program. And so I really see this as a competitive advantage for us if we've done properly. So happy to join. It's a topic, it's a topic university. And Grace, you of course were nodding your head and you had the same experience many of your, you came in directly through as a college graduate who governs the office but you stayed eight years and you did see that pipeline in action. So we've all had our experiences I know in the legislature, the prime young people coming in through. So everybody's had that experience. And I think it's a great one. And I like the acknowledgement that you made, Commissioner Maynard, that there is opportunity to grow at the gaming commission. We've seen it, we've experienced it. And why not help get this, help Troop D&T with this initiative. And it will require everyone being generous mentors. So great. Anything else, commissioners that you have on your minds? If I could just add to the current discussion, Chair, when I spent time at the Boston Public Health Commission a while back and also at my state agency, we had significant interest in an internship, a co-op. We were able to find some extraordinary talent in that way. And the best part about that was it was a part of that student's financial aid packet. So the agencies didn't have to throw any money behind it. It's a good idea to do that if there is not a way to supplement any additional funds that we might put towards this effort. So I'm all on board. I think it's a great idea. Right. And I do, I think you're right. Sometimes they'll just say, they have to just get certification that they served in a public service capacity and it covers. So, this is a- Yeah. And some students are available full-time. They would work a semester full-time for a particular corporation or entity and then go back for the second semester to complete their courses. And we did that for a number of years. It's a great opportunity for the students. Right. Good. Sounds like we're all on board with that, Karen. Yep. Help keep it going. All right. Anything else, commissioners? 113, that 9 a.m. start was pretty smart. So, with that, I think just need a motion to adjourn if there's nothing else. Move to adjourn. Second. Okay. Michelle Bryan? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? I vote yes. Five-zero. Thank you, everyone. Thank you to the team. Thank you for all your input and great job on that budget to our finance groups.