 in a virtual format, I'm going to do our roll call. Please, Commissioner O'Brien, good morning. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, I'm here. Commissioner Skinner. Good morning, I'm here. And Commissioner Maynard. Good morning, I'm here also. Okay, we're all set to get started today as Thursday, August 11th. And it is public meeting number 387. And we'll get started with approval of our minutes. Commissioner Hill, Secretary Hill, please. I'm going to turn this over to Commissioner O'Brien, Madam Chair. Thank you. So this goes back to February. I believe this is only myself, the chair and Commissioner Hill who was present for this one. I would move that the commission approved the meeting minutes in the packet from February 10th, 2022, subject to any necessary changes for typographical errors or other non-material matters. Second. Any further discussion? I presume all three of us have had the chance to read them. Okay. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. And I vote yes as well, 3-0. Thank you so much. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien and Commissioner Hill for teaming up to get these done into the legal team. Thank you very much. Anything else, Commissioner Hill? All set? All set. Thank you. Thank you. Then we're going to move to item number three on the agenda, the administrative update. Good morning, Executive Director Wells. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the commission. So for the administrative update, the commission had requested an update from the Gaming Agents Division on the status of table games and poker. So that team has provided that and Assistant Director Band will be updating you now. So I'll turn it over to Bruce. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. I'm going to share my screen with the fund, the report. And can everybody see that? I will go... If Bruce, if you're able to make it slightly larger, that would be helpful, but it may be hard. Yeah, I don't wanna... There you go. Yeah, okay, let me see if I can make sure I keep everything on there. This is a chart that kind of summarizes everything and I will start with Encore's. Their RFA-2, they said that they would have 150 tables on the floor. In the beginning of March, 2020, they had 167 with 17 more than they said they would have in their RFA-2. July, 2020, they had 186, which is 36 more than the RFA-2. And then in July, 2022, they had 184 plus 15 poker tables, which added up to 199. As far as poker during that time, the RFA-2 said they would have 25 poker tables. In March, 2020, they had 74 tables, which was 49 more tables than they said in the RFA-2. Of course, during July, 2020, we didn't allow poker. So they had zero tables. And on July, 2022, they had 15, which was 59 less tables. I will add that later on, I don't wanna steal the thunder, but Encore will have some announcement on poker. As far as slots, they are at 2,756 slots. They said they would have 3,072 with it. As far as number of employees, in March of 2020, they had 1,064 table game employees. In July of 2020, they had 883. They were down 181 from July of 2020. As of July, 2022, they have 1,001. That's up 118 from July of 2020 and down 63 from March of 2020. The wait time for the poker games is an average of about 45 minutes going in there. At this point, do you have any Encore questions so far? Commissioner Stum, any questions? Bruce, remind me again the hours, or are you gonna get to that later? I go in right now, it's 10 to 2 a.m. And that's Monday through, excuse me, Sunday through Friday. And what was it pre-COVID, do you remember? Previous, in there it was 24-7 back in March. Any other questions? I think you're gonna get to time and wait time and everything in your presentation too. Yeah, with MGM, there are, if they too said that they would have 100 tables. In March of 2020, they had 79 tables, which is 21 less than they had said in the RFA too. July of 2020, they had 43 tables down 36. In July of 2020, they had 48 tables, which is five more. As far as poker, they said they'd have 25. March of 2022, they had 22 tables, which is three less than they had said in the RFA too. Of course, July of 2020, they had zero because we didn't allow poker. In July of 2022, they had 14. I will add on their table games that even though they had 43 tables, they often did not have all those tables open. They closed all their table games around 4 a.m. during the night and had nothing open till 10 a.m. So they didn't have any table games available to anybody in the public. As far as number of employees, in March of 2020, they had 440 table game employees. In July of 2020, they had 210, down 234 table games employees. In July of 2022, they had 269 table game employees that's plus 59 additional. Any questions on that so far? I think you're all set, Bruce. Okay, great. As far as wait times and stuff, it really kind of varies. The average time for wait times on poker at Encore is about 45 minutes. And it really depends what time of day that you get there. If you're there early in the morning, they have started to stagger the times that they open the tables because for example, yesterday I was there watching it and there were two tables with nobody there. So they started to stagger it for as people come, they can fill the tables up, which therefore they don't have a dealer sitting there with nobody at the tables. There is demand later in the day for the tables. And it's sometimes that there's a longer wait, sometimes there's no wait. So it really doesn't matter. If you look through the chart, there's steady play at the tables, there's demand for it. I don't really think that there's anything really outstanding with it. You can probably fill a lot more tables on it. If you have any particular questions with these, I'm certainly willing to answer it. And I also have Lewis available to answer any questions for you with this. So can I ask you either Lewis or Bruce? What's the time period where you get the longest wait? I'm assuming it's nights and weekends. Well, weekends, they're not open at Encore. They're closed Friday and Saturday. All right, so sticking with just Encore, what time of the night or day? I'm assuming it's late in the evening. Probably at six or seven o'clock, wouldn't you say, Lewis? Yeah, there's some long wait times during that. We also observe some longer wait times above the 45 minutes around the 2 to 3 p.m. mark, too, as well. Yeah, with it, you can actually reserve your seat remotely after, I guess, I think it's around 11 o'clock. The very first thing in the morning, you would have to actually be there to reserve your seat. But as you go on in the day, you could do it remotely and reserve a spot. But that wait time is probably about 45 minutes in the morning. When it gets longer, what's the longest one you've got normally? Sure, Brian, would it be helpful for us to direct our attention to, I think, packet page 20? Lewis, is that where the information starts? There's so much good information here. But I didn't mean to interrupt your question, Commissioner. I'm trying to get a gauge of the longest. Now what you gave the average? Yeah, I think we what we've seen the longest would be an hour and a half to two hours. And that's in that six to seven o'clock at night or maybe two to three in the afternoon. Yeah, and it also I think also depends on the type of game, too. Right. And the table wager average, you know, and it's a different story at MGM as well. If you look at the chart on page 15, which I can. Yeah, 20 is for the encore and now page 15 is is MGM. Yeah, which kind of spreads it out during the day. I like how you marked out the times very much. Lewis on encore. Yeah, let's see page 15. I don't think it's page 15 of the packet. I think that's all on course, still am I wrong? Yeah, this is all MGM right here. Let's just see if we can get back to the on core. So on core on page 20 of the packet, right? Shows the the various times. Just what Commissioner Ryan was asking. So two to three. They've got some observation times ranging from zero to 60 minutes, average time, and then that six to seven p.m. That's right here. I have to 30 minutes, right? Is that where you're Lewis? So I assume that you had your team go out and do some observations. Yes. And then there's the chart on page. This is the average. This is on course, wait time right here. Yeah. With an outlier of what you said, an hour and a half, maybe that you've seen the longest, right? Yes, Bruce, can you tell us why we don't see poker happening on Saturdays and Fridays? Right now, it's because of they say because of lack of dealers and also parking space. Thank you. And I think I think Director Ban did indicate that in our next presentation on the quarterly report. Which I know we may get we may get more details on that. Yes, stay tuned, right? Correct. And then did you just want to go through MGM as well? Yeah, yeah, I I'd actually mentioned what MGM did. But there you know, time as far as that is is more they they offered poker first there and with it and their wait times really aren't horribly long. If you look at this right here. Yeah. Their longest is really late at night, an hour and 15. With it. Their table games just, I guess, it was two or three weeks ago. This is the first that they've gone 24 hours with table games. I think it's like six games. Is Angela on? Or maybe I can ask Bert, is that correct, Bert? They're going 24 hours, but it's the limited supply of table games open that hour based on a patron. Yes, numbers also. And their total number of table games. I know I just took them. There's 48 on that plus 14 poker tables. Forty eight total down from an early high of about 79 in July. Yes, of March of 2020. And how many are in this 48 now? But what you're saying is that they're not all offered. They're not 20 hour period. Yeah, a good bit of those have been closed. They have the games on the floor, but not not available to the public to play. So commissioners, this is important data for us to think about. Do you have comments or questions with respect to the data? And then in terms of the policy implications, maybe we could discuss that a bit, too. Do you want to take, do you let me take down the screen now, sir? Sure. Thanks, as I can see everyone. Commissioners, do you have questions on the data itself? Commissioner O'Brien, Bruce or Burke, as far as MGM, in terms of how they decide which tables are open, could you elaborate more on that? Based on what customer demands, what they happen to have for dealers who are available. Like it's more customer demand. If they have a large player in or something, they'll make sure that they have that table open. But I would say they probably have Blackjack open the most. And, you know, but if they have a player in their larger scale, they will make sure that whatever game that he would or she would be interested in, that that table would be certainly available. And what if a group came in that wanted a table that wasn't open? I mean, how do you know how they go about that? Other than sort of the high roller VIP walking and that they self identify? I would assume that they would open if they had a dealer available that could deal that game. Yes. But how would the customer know to ask, like, you know, how that works? Would ask the shift manager to, you know, open it. I don't know if that's happened. You're aware of that, Burke, at this point. Yeah, traditionally, after weeks of information, you know that Monday through Thursday, you're going to open X a number of games at 10 a.m. You're going to have three or four more dealers come in at noon. Summer months are different than the winter months. They always can pull. They have a couple extra dealers that might be assisting, for instance, on the roulette game and they can be pulled to open another game weekends and holiday weekends. They're opening up just about the full floor based on 10 a.m. 12 o'clock, 4 p.m. Spark, of course, 4 p.m. through probably 2 a.m. Just about all four pits or rolling three pits. Yeah, but that's not what is necessarily occurring in MGM. This that they're not opening all the tables. So if a group came in, it would they have limited staff available to open up new tables. OK, so it's somewhat of a staffing issue as opposed to them selecting at that hour that they've assigned staffs, correct. And I'm sorry, could you walk me through a little bit? I'm I'm I like the chart in terms of you're talking about the dealers and how that shifted. But can you have an actual number in terms of pre-COVID? There were this many, particularly the poker dealers, and then how many of those are no longer there, like taking out the people who've shifted over to other games, how many what's the drop? Bruce, that might be a question that could be answered to at the quarterly report if you don't have that. Yeah, I don't necessarily have how much they had. I know they've had trouble rehiring dealers there from what we've been told. You know, they will get some people and then they'll leave for some other position. We said to it is our understanding with, you know, a lot of the problem. But I can't give you the exact numbers on that. I'm sure that we could get that information for you, Eileen. OK, yeah, because you have the opening stats, I know. So. You've got that. He's got the on that first chart, Commissioner O'Brien. It looks like MGM. But your question is between how it's divided among or between poker and table games. And it looks like a thousand one for on court this in July and two hundred and sixty nine MGM down from four forty four. And I guess to be more quite with the question, I'm curious as to. Pre shut down and COVID, how many poker supervisors and and dealers and then what's that number now? Yeah, but I mean, and I was with a nod toward because there's a nod toward certain poker dealers that retrained and shipped it off to do table games. So I'm just wondering in terms of that, Commissioner O'Brien, can can you table that question and ask perhaps both that we have both of those presentations coming up? They may be able to. Yeah, so the stats, the stats were in that in this. I didn't know if they were easily accessible, but we can table it until the quarterly. Right. Thank you. Any other questions, Commissioner O'Brien or others on the data? I have a question. Commissioner Maynard. Is it possible to drill in on an average on those MGM tables? So, you know, if they're putting a certain number to us, forty six or so, and you're telling us that only a certain number of those are actually open, I would be interested in knowing in the data what is actually what the average is, how many table games are actually open. That's something I'd be interested in. You know, we would have to go back and get their schedules with that, but we can get that information from them. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm getting some information relayed to me that six to twelve games are open after four a.m., for example. And like Bruce said, we can break it down further for you to get those exact stats. Now, sir, did you say six to twelve? Six to eight. Oh, sorry, six to eight. Well, they're saying six to twelve are usually open through four a.m. and that would be a lingering number until the 10 a.m. group comes in from traditional staffing. That's table games. Yes. But you would want to know the numbers prior to that, correct? Commissioner Maynard. Yeah, I mean, my point is, is there ever a time where there's forty six tables going at the same time? And if so, when is that? Yes. Yeah. In other words, is it 80 percent of the opening time or is it 10 percent of the opening time? You'd like to understand that, right? Yeah, it's so other questions about the data. And then let's talk about next steps on this issue. OK, so this is really helpful data we asked for it. I think it's this is data that. The licensees have been providing us different forms. We really appreciate today's format because it it sheds really helpful light. The RFA to questions are now in black and white, which is really helpful for us to understand. And as I see it on Corbaston Harbor initiated with one hundred and fifty tables now at one eighty four poker twenty five and now fifteen. Of course, the reason why this is important is is the less table games they have, the more they look like a slots parlor. And that's not Commissioner Hill, but you and your legislative colleagues envisioned back when gaming was expanded. And then the table games number just began to reach RFA to for MGM was a hundred. Now they're hovering about 50 percent at forty eight for table games and twenty five the RFA to for poker. Fourteen now in that they've got open in, of course, bearing hours to complicate things further. I guess I'm wondering, commissioners, should we ask the legal team for assistance on next on next steps or or how we we visit this issue? I'm looking for some thoughts on how we. Bring to light our concerns if they are concerns, Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Skinner, we haven't heard from you, Commissioner Maynard, Commissioner Hill. Any thoughts? In terms of the quarterlies, too, I know Joe has conversations and his team may have conversations sort of getting ready for the orderlies. I think it's probably time to have a deeper sit down. Our staff with their staff in terms of. Particularly the employment numbers on the table games. And I'm curious again to dig a little deeper on the poker in terms of what happened to those dealers. And then maybe they can circle back to us with some more information that would lead to give us a little more clarity on next steps when you might want to consider. And you're saying Joe's Joe's capacity as compliance and compliance capacity. OK. Other thoughts on, in other words, maybe incorporate some of these issues on a regular basis in the quarterlies. Joe here, you turn up your volume. What do you have a suggestion? No, I just I mean, that's certainly we can certainly do that. I think it will will probably need to sit down with our licensees and talk about what we want that reporting to look like. Other thoughts, commissioners. I think that we're all empathetic about hiring. Mr. Hill. Without a question, and I too think we have to have a deeper discussion with our licensees at this point. We've been bringing this issue up for a few months now. And I'm I'm not satisfied with some of the answers we've been receiving in terms of how they are looking to increase the numbers back to where they may may have been or were pre-COVID. How those conversations take place. I'm still learning, Madam Chair, whether you do that in public or if we can sit down with them through staff, as was suggested by Commissioner O'Brien, or how commissioners can be part of those discussion with our licensees as well. So this is a this is a learning moment for me on how to have those discussions, but I do believe they need to happen. So the discussions for us are going to happen in about five minutes when we start turning to the quarterly reports. And this will be an opportunity for you to message. I think what the suggestion was from Commissioner O'Brien and through Joe is that our team works regularly discussing these matters for the licensees and they they are they listen to these conversations. I guess. What I'm hearing is it's a good idea for Eileen is saying, let's have Joe and his compliance capacity work with them. Find out more information and Joe will work with Bruce's team and IEB to help on that. For at least initially in terms of conversations that we would have with our licensees on this. And other than a public format, I think our staff is really well equipped to have those conversations with the licensees, unless somebody suggests otherwise. Mr. Maynard, Commissioner Skinner. Again, I don't want to put you on the spot, Mr. Skinner. But I think among the four of you, you've covered it all at some combination of hearing from the licensees directly about what their hurdles may be to accomplish the things that they set forth in their ARF A2 along with, I think, Madam Chair, you suggested this, having our legal team take a look at, you know, what might be the next steps for commissioners in terms of considering the broader issue. So that's where I stand. Thank you for that. So a combination of Chief Delaney working with the legal department and Bruce's division in support of the licensees, getting back to it really is, as Commissioner Bryan points out, we want the full complement of games, not only because that's what our patrons want, but also the jobs that are attached. And that's why Commissioner Bryan, I'm looking forward to you asking those questions in our next, you know, the next presentations. Commissioner Maynard, what are you thinking? I think it's been covered. I do want to say that if there's a wait time, wait time equals demand. And demand means there's a patron on the floor that doesn't isn't gaming in the particular game they want to game. And I am concerned about what that patron's doing in those 90, 60, 90, 124 hours waiting on the game they came to play. So that's something I'm concerned about. And I think Commissioner O'Brien getting more information and getting these data points is going to be help help us address the next steps on that concern. Yeah, Commissioner Maynard at a tour of Encore yesterday asked exactly that question. And it's a really important one. What does a patron do during the wait time? And there's a variety of activities. But if they're there to play over. You know, the point of demand is a really good one. Commissioner Hill, any other further questions? Not at this time, but thank you. Thank you. Okay, back to Executive Director Wells. That was a really helpful update. And congratulations and Bravo and thank you to the Lewis and his counterparts at the other properties for giving this important date of work. Bruce, thank you. Yes, yes. So big thank you to Bruce and his team as well. So that's all we have on the agenda for the administrative updates. We'll turn it back over to you, Madam Chair. Okay, then we'll get on to exactly what we've been referencing. Chief Delaney, good morning again. Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. So today we have two quarterly reports to be presented today, Pine Ridge Park Casino and Encore. And so without further ado, I'll turn it over to North Grannisell from PPC to start the Pine Ridge Park presentation. Good morning, Madam Chair and good morning commissioners. Pine Ridge Park is pleased to present our Q2 2022 report and joined this morning by Kathy Lucas, our Vice President of Human Resources and Heidi Yates-Baba, our Vice President of Finance. I will present to you the slides on compliance, but I will now hand the presentation over to Heidi who will cover the slides on the financials. Heidi. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Also, congratulations, Commissioner Maynard on your new role. We welcome the opportunity to work with you as you settle into your new role. Thank you. As you can see our Q2 for 2022 remains very consistent with how we performed in Q2 of 2021 with net revenues of net slot revenue of $366, state taxes of $146, race tax at 3.2 and total overall taxes at $179. This represents an increase in total revenue of $278,000 over Q2 of 2021 and $136,000 in total taxes. Next slide. Lottery sales. So you will see that we in 2022 Q2, we had 485,744 versus 2021 which had 578,000. This is a decline of 93,000 over prior year. At the request of the lottery, we were asked to deplete our inventory as low as we could get it at the end of April and beginning part of May, so that they would be able to come in and roll out some new games and put in some new equipment and they requested that inventory be lowered so that they could complete their work in one day as opposed to the two or three, it would take them if we were at full inventory. So total qualified spend for Q2 is actually 1,074,000 for 2022. 714,000 of that was spent in the Commonwealth and 361,000 was spent in states outside. I apologize, there is a slide that is out of sync here. I'm just gonna wait, I will speak about local spend. Thank you, North. So you can see that of the 714,000 that we had spent in the state of Massachusetts, 617,000 was spent in communities outside of our radius. 97,000 was spent in our host and surrounding communities with a lion's share of that being spent in our neighboring community of Brentum. We are very pleased to share that we have surpassed our vendor diversity spend. The goal is 21, we've hit that goal of 20, we've hit a higher goal of 25% for Q2 with a 1% increase in our women-owned businesses. And this is a metric that we're very proud to share as well. And because we last year lost one of our major women-owned businesses, that business was bought out by a non-diversity owner. So we're very proud and pleased to share that we have replaced that spend and surpassed our goal in Q2 of 2022. Minority spend remains flat at 6% and then we're also very pleased to share that we beat our veteran spend of 3% goal by 2% hitting a mark of 5%. So how the hard dollars were allowed on this one is we've spent 144,000 with women-owned businesses, minority 67 and veteran at 55-8. Our total diverse spend remains very consistent quarter over quarter with an increase of 4,800 over Q1. The qualified spend of 1,074 that I referenced earlier is a decline to Q1 of 126,000. And this is related to capital projects that did not repeat in Q2. You will notice that the minority spend, despite the fact that we hit our 6% goal, it did decline over Q1. And this is related to also purchases in Q1 that did not repeat in Q2, the largest of which was a very large Tito ticket purchase that we did in Q1. Great, thank you, Heidi, on the compliance side. All right, North, can I just ask one question going back to the state spend for Q2 this year? Do you know what that number was for last year? Was it what the Delta was or any difference was in that mass number? I do not have that with me, but I can get that to you, Commissioner. Great, thank you. Maybe before we move on, North, it might be helpful for the commissioners to ask, Heidi, any particular questions on the slide? She just went over. Any questions on that? I guess I'm curious if, and I can't see my fellow commissioners if you're leaning in. So before I go on, is anybody leaning in? Okay, I'm just in, oh, sorry, did somebody lean in? I said no. Sorry, thank you, Commissioner. I am curious and congratulations on, I don't know if we've seen the vendor diversity goals all be exceeded on the spend, so congratulations, it may have been a while. So you said that you lost, Heidi, an important contributor to the WBE spend for the sale, which is probably kudos to the company for being able to sell its company, but how did you, did you find multiple news vendors in different areas or how did that piece get taken care of? Yes, so we have a really great purchasing and receiving team and they go out and they source those vendors for us. And as requisitions for purchases and those types of things get put through our system, they go out and source and they are very dedicated and they are very committed to getting those diverse goals. And as they are able to find a vendor that supports what we, the purchase we need to make, if it meets and matches something with one of our diversity vendors, they go out and they make sure that we're spending in the area that we need to spend, they've done a very, very good job of sourcing new vendors for us. So it was multiple, that's great, not necessarily in the same area. That's correct. That is correct. Thank you. Thanks, Heidi. Any other questions for Heidi? Then we'll move on to compliance. Thank you, Nora. So on the compliance side, in the second quarter, we prevented a total of 226 patrons from entering the gaming establishment. 18 of those patrons were miners, 45 were underage and 163 had expired and valid or no credentials. There was one instance of an underage access to the floor, this person did gamble but did not consume alcohol during their visit. So Kathy will now walk you through our employment statistics and community efforts. Thank you Nora. Before we move on to Kathy, any questions on compliance? I don't have a question. I just wanted to say a thank you for breaking down the underage and the minor. I appreciate you. I've been asking for that. I really appreciate that you guys do that. You're welcome. Thank you, North. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. On our employment side, you'll see that we had 342 team members for Q2. With that, we continue to exceed our diversity goal of 15% in Q2 with 22% of our team members being diverse. As well, we exceeded our veteran's goal of 2% with 5% of our team members serving as veterans. And in Q2, we remained at 42% of women similar to Q1 under our goal of 50%. We're projecting 50% of our management team and 75% of our support team for our casual restaurant and banquet department over the next six months to be women hires just based on our past history. In Q2, you'll also see that our local team members were 36% exceeding the goal of 35. And then from a time in position, 68% are full-time, 32% are part-time. Next slide, North. In Q2, our supervisor level, we had 62 leadership members of those, 21% identify as diverse, 3% are veterans and 31% are women. Just wanted to share a couple of updates on some development programs for this leadership pool. We launched our ELP program, which is the Emerging Leader Program for team members who aspire to move into a leadership role at Penn. It's a 12-week program of e-courses and live trainings and webinars to help new leaders get tools that'll help them in their current positions and also future positions. And these are for non-management and supervisor team members. We also launched Leadership Foundations, which is a 180-day program for newly hired or promoted leaders to provide skills to help them be successful in Penn also. And then we also have a high potential program for team members who are currently in leadership programs that have the ability to move to the next level. Some of you may be familiar with our Women Leading in Penn program. This has also some similar components with folks getting self-assessments and then also learning their critical skills and doing some TED Talks and other podcasts for continued learning. Next slide, North. So can these be slides? Before you move on to that, could I ask the going back to the women numbers? I know you've talked in the past about the challenges you guys have faced in terms of trying to get that number up. So when you talked about the food and beverage part, do you anticipate more amenities coming back online that would help with that number in the coming quarters? Absolutely, and I think North will share a little more in regards to the timing of it. As we shared in the past, our sports bar or sports restaurant still hasn't opened and we are now launching back our banquet services for the fall and the winter. So with that, we're able to kind of project out that it's not that we're challenged to find women, I think because there's a significant segment of our business that hasn't reopened, that has that pool number in it that leads heavily towards women management and then women support teams. That's kind of keeping us stagnant where we've been for the last year or so. We've increased steadily, I think by one or two percentage points, but I think as soon as we're able to open up our sports restaurant and also banquets, we'll definitely add that back. North, I don't know if you wanna add to that. I think that probably is a fair representation of where we are. Just out of curiosity, if you can tell us, Kathy, what type of banquets are being set up on their weddings? Yeah, more holiday parties and meetings. Right now with our food and beverage director, Damian, is capable of doing our breakfast meetings and lunch meetings until we're able to bring on a catering manager, a full service catering team on the culinary side. We're supporting it with our Slack's team and also some of our other managers to manage these meetings. So as soon as we're able to bring back that full team, we'll be able to do the larger events. So can I follow up and ask you? I know we had talked about the culinary team that you were hoping to get. If it wasn't last quarter, it was the quarter before. And we had talked about reaching out to some of the colleges in the area and some other educational facilities to help with the culinary. Folks coming into your business, can you just tell us how we're doing with that? Absolutely, absolutely. So in one of my slides, you'll see one of the things that we've done with Johnson and Wells with those recruitment there. So I won't go into that segment, but Damian is our food and beverage director has had great opportunities going out. One in the local community, where we've had some of our area local restaurants that are shutting down and providing opportunities for that team to come in. So we've gotten some folks from those restaurants, local areas shut down. We've also have done a lot better with our online recruitment. And that was simply just kind of redirecting our ads and providing more information in regards to benefits and salaries and what opportunities I think sometimes the casino industry, at least in Massachusetts, is not, it's not top of mind for folks coming out of the culinary school because we are so new to market. So we've had a lot of success with changing our direction in regards to how we advertise. We have been very fortunate. I wanna get ahead of myself with being able to staff within the last two months that we probably had over the last 12 months. So we're pretty excited that we have the opportunity to do, we have more of a selection pool than like I said in the last 12 months or so. Well, you know what I've seen and I'm gonna speak to the North Shore part of the state especially where I live. I've seen our catering businesses really, really ramp it up. I'm seeing their trucks all over the place. People seem to be having more functions outside than they obviously had the last couple of years. So it sounds as though you're seeing that as well in your neck of the woods and people are really starting to get back out there and have their holiday parties which they didn't have before. One particular catering company in our neck of the woods, I've seen their trucks in their facility double over this summer compared to the last a couple of summers. I mean, their trucks are everywhere. So I'm assuming. We have one too now. So this summer we relaunched our food truck program outside in our patio along with our internal components. And so we've done significantly well on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays with positioning our food truck outside. And again, we were able to bring in a culinary team to help support that over the last six months with just being out there in the field, recruiting for that. Very nice. Thank you. And some of that will shift as the weather changes shift to banquets inside. Very nice. Happy good morning. Good morning and Heidi. I too want to offer my congrats to you on meeting and or exceeding your diversity goals both in employment and vendor contracting. That's fantastic. I had a question, Kathy, a couple of questions on your ELP program. What is the eligibility criteria for that? Is it pretty much open to any employee? Absolutely. So team members can self nominate themselves and also their managers can nominate them for the opportunity. It is a selective program. So right now in this first cohort, we have the ability to put in 10 team members. Those team members have to meet certain criteria in regards to performance and attendance standards. And then after that, they're provided a leadership coach, which is usually an experienced manager in the building that will take them through the program and be their mentor once they graduate out the program. The goals of the program are to help them get ready for leadership roles, doesn't guarantee them one, but the readiness culture is there. And then it allows them exposure internally into the property in areas they may not have had before. And then also with pen and entertainment because some of the classes, some of the virtual classes allow them to congregate with other team members from the other 40 or so properties. And north, go ahead. I was gonna say just to add on to that, the primary audience here is for hourly team members who are considering moving into a management role. So it's primarily folks who are entering the business and we have a good mix in this group of folks who are fairly new to the property, fairly new to pen, and then some folks who have been around for a long time and nobody really ever maybe put it in their head, hey, you really could be a manager, you could be a supervisor. And so it's been really touching to watch some of those team members go through this program. I had one of them come in to Heidi about two weeks ago literally in tears of one of the sessions they attended of hearing words of encouragement from people who had been able to make improvements in their career and to just say, gosh, I didn't know I could do it. This is so wonderful, thank you. So it is a good program and we're excited to host it. No, it sounds like a really great program and it's up and running now. Correct. And what are the stats on enrollment right now in terms of diversity, if you have that? Mekisha, I can give you just top of mind from, I think we're kind of split 50-50 with women that are in the program and then for diversity, we're probably at a third of the group. So right now we have about 19 members that are in there and we also looked at our sponsors too and utilized that to making sure that our sponsors included gender and then also diversity so that we'd have a very good mix. Sounds like it, thank you. Well, it sounds, as I said, like a very good program and I'm looking forward to hearing updates in the future in terms of promotions that were made possible because of this program, so thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Maynard, we haven't heard from you. Are you all set for right now or do you have a question for Kathy or North? Well, I just want to echo the congratulations. I know that it takes a lot of intentionality to get to those numbers. I guess my question would be, and what I'm thinking is, will these goals adjust since you have exceeded and done so well, will the goals adjust going forward? I'm going to let North tackle that one. I think at this point, Commissioner Maynard, we want to focus on being able to reliably hit the goals that we have in front of us. I mean, obviously we want to make sure that the hiring profile that we have matches the community that's surrounding us, we want to make sure that we maintain the commitments we have there. But I mean, we're certainly not in a place where if we meet a goal with a minority or a veteran or women owned business or encounter a great candidate who happens to hit one of the categories, but we've already hit our goal, we're not going to back off in those areas. Certainly want to continue to find the people and the vendors who provide great service for us and make sure that we meet our commitments. That's our name to hear and North, it's good to speak to you and I know that we spoke in my prior position and prior life, so it's good to be reconnected. Thank you. All right, next slide, Nori. So again, just want to share what we're doing around our community initiatives and also our team member initiatives. As you'll see here, we were able to support two organizations that align with our commitments to local diversity and women's organizations with our Tito box donations. So New Hope, again, ending the domestic and sexual violence by engaging their survivors and their community stakeholders for building anti-violence movement. And that really focuses on a lot of women-led households and then the Sturdy Memorial Foundation dedicated to providing safe and high quality cost efficient healthcare right here in our local community. On the other side of the slide, you'll see we were able to make donations and also extend volunteer hours for working with Habitat for Humanity, Rolling Thunder and also the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce. And we actually had an opportunity to game in Massachusetts, although it was play gaming. Next slide, Nori. And then finally around some of the incentives that we've had with our team members, we had our LEAP program, which is our internship for our professional students, so to speak. So Emily Sousa is a Johnson & Wales University student. We met her at one of the recruitment bears we went to in the fall and brought her on as a LEAP intern focused on events management. So she was interested in doing sports management and events management. So we had her shadow us in marketing for our community and also promotional events. And then in HR for our team member events and then with food and beverage for our events under the banquet umbrella. She is doing amazingly well and we'll be headed back to school in a couple of weeks, but she's gonna stay with us part-time while she's in school, she graduates in December. So we're super excited about going through the recruitment process that we shared with you and I think Q1 of 2021 and then having her here now. We also celebrated Pride Month in Asian American Pacific Islander Month on property with some really great celebrations. And then we had the ability to do some more recognition with our ACEs of Penn Award. We were able to give Liz Norberg who is one of our casino host recognition for going above and beyond in her services. And then finally, we acknowledged our 2022 Diversity Scholarship winner, which is Nicole Vita. She is actually, if you remember, we did this program last year and we've done it again. We have a team member on property, their children get to submit for these scholarships through the Penn Entertainment. And so again, this year we had another scholarship recipient and her mom is Amy Silver who is our HR and risk analyst here at PPC. So we're super excited to be able to give her daughter the scholarship that'll allow her to work on continuing her degree with less financial burdens. And so I'll just turn it back over to North unless there are more questions. I'd like to be nosy for 10 seconds if I could. Can you go back to your community and team page? I'm just curious, cause there's two organizations that I absolutely love. One's Habitat for Humanity and the other of course is Rolling Thunder. What project are you sponsoring for Habitat for Humanity? So we have a build out in the fall of a house right here in Attleboro. So we're super excited to be able to sponsor by donating the cash and then putting together the team to go out and work on the build. And I know it's pretty close to North too. So that's awesome. Heidi is actually joining their board as a member. So she'll be on the old Colony Board for Habitat. I just had my first board meeting last Tuesday. That's such a great organization. And if anybody's ever had a chance to work on a house and believe me, I'm no construction guy, but I did it once. It was so fulfilling to see the family that we were helping, that we're gonna be living there and also helping as you know, that's how Habitat for Humanity works. And then the Rolling Thunder, did you just have like a Memorial Day service that you're at? Absolutely. So we've been partnering with Rolling Thunder for about two years now. This is our second Memorial Day event with them. We do the Veterans Day event too. This year was extremely successful. Last year we had rain, so that kind of turned away but we had chapters from four of the local states. We also had partners from other biker groups and literally just an amazing morning being able to recognize the work that they do. We also had our formal program with them and another touching event for us. We have team members here that are veterans that rode with them from here down to Fall River. So just a pretty great day. And I just wanna say thank you for your recognizing the domestic violence. It continues to be like one of the top crimes in Massachusetts and the fact that you are working to try and make it better for those who have been involved in that is great. So a big thank you for that one as well. That's all for me, Madam Chair. Well, those are really important observations. Commissioner Hill and anybody else want to chime in on what really are kind of the commission's favorite slides that we get on a quarterly basis. Is that the, that's the end of the presentation, correct? No? Yeah. Yes. Here we go. So if you wanna bring down those slides, happy or not, we can see everybody's faces. Commissioners, do you have any questions or comments or observations you wanna share? Am I seeing all set? It looks like it. Thank you very, very much for the comprehensive reporting today and congratulations to surpassing some important goals. Thank you. Thank you. And Joe, thank you. Before we turn over to the next report, I need to clarify that I made an error because I indicated to Commissioner O'Brien that we'd be hearing on the tablegames from both Angkor, which is next, and I just made a mistake. MGM will be presenting, I believe, in September, our September meeting. Yeah, we've got them penciled in for the meeting on the 8th. Right. And honestly, that was just a slip because I read every slide last night, Kathy, and enjoyed them, particularly those last two slides. So thank you. My apologies for the need to correct the record. All right. All right, well, thank you, PPC, and North, I'll be in touch to make sure that you have a proper introduction to Commissioner Maynard. Absolutely. Looking forward to visiting the property as well as the horse racing track. So thank you. We can't wait. Good. See you. Bye. All right. There we go. Okay, so next up, we have Angkor for their quarterly report. We're joined by Jackie Crum and Juliana Catanzaridi. And I'll turn it over to you, Jackie. Thank you, Joe. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners, and thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. As Joe mentioned, I'm joined by my colleague, Juliana Catanzaridi, and we have a special guest appearance today by Tom Coffey, who is our head of security. So Tom, thank you for joining us from Las Vegas. I know it's still early there. I will turn it over now to Juliana. Jackie, can I just intervene? I think I saw Tom joining almost an hour early too on my screen, so he's been up very, very early this morning. Welcome. Thank you. Okay. I'm just gonna share my screen. Is everyone able to see that? Perfect. Madam Chair, commissioners, good morning. We appreciate your attention this morning to our quarterly report for the second quarter of 2022. So beginning with our gaming revenue and taxes. During Q2, our total gross gaming revenue for table games, as you can see here, was around $83 million. The gross gaming revenue for slot machines was around $98 million for total gross gaming revenue of about $181 million. This resulted in taxes to the commonwealth of about $45 million. Here is a year over year comparison. Q2 2022 is highlighted in yellow and you can see the previous year Q2 in the chart above. So turning to lottery sales for the second quarter, we had a total of about 128,000 in lottery sales, which is actually a 14% increase over the same quarter of 21. And again, here is the year over year comparison. You can see that increase in the chart. Moving on to a workforce update. So at the end of the second quarter, we had a total of 3,390 employees. 2,349 of those employees were full-time and 1,041 worked part-time. During Q2, 51% of our workforce was comprised of minorities, 2% veterans, 45% women, and 88% local residents. Here is a breakdown of the diversity categories of supervisory and above employees. As you can see, actually in the minority and veteran categories here, the percentage of supervisory and above employees is actually greater than the percentage of the total employee population. So if you look at the chart here for minority employees, 60% are in supervisory and above rules and the total for all employees is actually 51. Moving on to operation, sorry. Julie, before you do that, can we go back to the slide that has the minority veteran, the women numbers? Yep. So the goal for women is 50 or 45. Can you just speak to what, if any, efforts are being made to get that closer to 50? Sure, I think Jackie made better equipped to answer that, if I will. Sure. So we review the numbers on a weekly basis with our recruiting team and we try to brainstorm ways that we can reach out. So they're very aware of the numbers and the open positions. So we are reaching out to our local groups as well, but it is something that we do review on a weekly basis. And it's, as you know, we've always been slightly behind on the 50% mark. And so we're really, really trying to push that to make it up because we're competitive and PPC just did better than us. So. All right, thank you. Were there any other questions? Okay, so turning to our operating spend, all percentages here are based on the quarters total discretion I spend, which was about $21 million, the bolded number below. So 9% or about 3.7 million was spent with minority business enterprises, 2% or about 500,000 was spent with veteran business enterprises and then 18% or about $1.8 million was spent with women business enterprises. So here's the local spend breakdown. So as you can see from the last column in this chart, more than half of our total discretionary spend was spent with businesses in Massachusetts. That includes about 1.8 million with Boston businesses, 2.8 with Everett and a little over one with summer businesses. So as Jackie mentioned, before we move on to compliance, I wanted to introduce Tom Coffey. He is our executive director of security investigations. He is joining us from a visit to Las Vegas today. Tom has been with us since 2018. And Tom, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that before that, you'd spent more than 35 years with the Massachusetts state police. So Tom and his team are dedicated to ensuring that we do everything we can to prevent minors from entering the gaming floor. So we thought that it would make sense to have him available today to answer any questions. So as you can see from this chart, these are the minors entered the gaming floor during Q2, broken down by month, and then by fake IDs and all that. Tom, did you wanna? Sure, I could break this down a little bit more. So the chart is what it is, but I know on the number of IDs not checked, they're resulted in minor on the gaming floor. If you subtract the three individuals who crashed emergency doors, that number would actually be seven. So again, most of those involve the officer failing to check an ID. I would like to, if I can elaborate on what we're doing at the time to correct those situations if I have time. Please. So some of you know, I've been with the company since holding, I was director of investigations. I'm acutely aware of the issue with underage and minors on the gaming floor. And I know the company supports our efforts in that in a lot of ways. I was recently able to hire a training manager. So we're training our security officers. We've gone from a one day training to a three day training with a training manager who I brought in from a law enforcement agency who's an extremely accomplished trainer. We've increased our field training for new security officers from 40 hours to 80 hours. Out of those 80 hours, 20 hours documented is going to be dedicated or is dedicated to ID posts. So that's something we can measure and correct mistakes as they happen. There'll be a senior officer working with the new officer. We did install a, we've had some issues at red eight in the past. Jenny Holiday authorized a new post at red eight. And we have a security posted there at red eight. We've had some issues in the past with underages and or minors sneaking out of red eight onto the floor. I believe we've corrected that. We also installed a policy. Anybody under the age of 35 will, we've been IDing them all along, but now all the IDs will be placed into the Veradox machine commonly known as a toaster. I think the technology's really good there. We did discover a glitch though. Those machines have to be rebooted each morning. Veradox pushes out software based on the IDs that they're encountering throughout their entire Veradox system. They're constantly playing catch up with these new fake IDs there that are being developed. So if you reboot the machine every morning, the machines every morning, it updates the software. So we document that, we do that each morning. If an officer does make a mistake and allows someone in, we document it. And depending on the egregiousness of it, if it's an officer that just failed to check an ID, we issue discipline on that. If there's mitigating circumstances, it's a really good fake ID, which is pretty tough to detect sometimes. That would be more of a record of conversation, but again, all documented. We recently brought in GU and IEB. We conducted a two-day security management training. And one of the points of interest for all of us is always the ID checking and the coaching on the fake IDs. And then lastly, just as a note, since January, we've secured over 198 fake IDs, you know, being in the greater Boston area with all the colleges that prevents, I mean, that certainly has some challenges for us. And Madam Chair and the commission, I'd certainly want to take any questions or we're always looking for suggestions. I don't prove things to them. Thank you, Tom. And I'm sure that my fellow commissioners do have questions. Commissioner O'Brien, I see your audio is off. Yeah. So Tom, I can't believe that you had to go to Vegas so that you and I could see each other remotely. I can't remember the last time we've seen each other face-to-face. Good to see you this way, anyway. You as well. So I have a couple of questions for you, Tom. One is on the chart, there's a reference to two under the age of 18 being on the floor. Were any of those, can you tell me what columns those people fell in in terms of, were they gaming, were they drinking alcohol? Sure. There were actually three, Eileen. I was behind her, courageous. And two of those were door crashers up at the Black Tear Lounge. They crashed a door, which I actually met with the Everett Fire Department. The door is problematic for us, but due to fire regulations, it has to be there. Those were two of them. They jumped on a slot machine real quick and they would stop shortly thereafter. The third one was an officer mistake where a very old-looking 17-year-old walked in with two older gentlemen. And basically they just talked their way through and they convinced the officer that the gentleman was 21 when he wasn't, so. And he did make it into the casino. And then the longest length of time on the floor is almost three and a half hours. Can you talk about the circumstances of how that was so long? Yes, I can. That young man went up to memoir directly from the floor. He spent the majority of the time at memoir. And I believe he spent 40 some odd minutes after he was in memoir and then was eventually tried to get back in and was detected by us. So did he mistakenly get into memoir as well? So in the review of this memoir, I checked his ID. So his ID, that was one of those Veradox glitches. And again, I think the Veradox system is great. It's not a thousand percent. So the ID scanned as passed in our Veradox system. And then that gentleman went to memoir and reviewing it with memoir security. The ID was checked, but I don't believe they dropped it into their system. And I'm not a hundred percent on that, but that's my room. All right, great. All right, thanks. Good to see you. Rosewell. Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Maynard, questions on the compliance piece or anything that we've heard so far? One time I have a couple of questions. Commissioner Skinner. Sounds like you kind of almost completely overhauled your security training program. Is there a reason for that? I mean, is it just in response to the compliance numbers over this last quarter? What was the impetus for the revision? I took over this position in January and that was a deficiency I picked up right away. And our president allowed me to hire some training staff and gave me some more resources. So I was able to beef up that piece of it and we're gonna do better at it. Really had nothing to do with the compliance, but as a result, certainly I take notice of this and we're gonna get better at it. That sounds good. Looks like you're off to a great start. Thank you. I'll select Commissioner Skinner. Yes, I am. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. I do not have a compliance question. I actually had an employment question and I couldn't hit my button quick enough before we got into compliance, but I can wait till the end of the presentation if you want to go back to it. No, we wanna go back to employment for you, but can I just check in on Commissioner Maynard? Do you have questions for Rick Tom Coffey? They were captured by my fellow commissioners. Excellent, thank you. Commissioner Hill, let's go back to employment. So, Juliana, if you can go back to page eight of your presentation and I believe it's page 53 for us, I'm not mistaken. 15. Yep, so Juliana, we heard from one of our, the last licensee about the banquets increasing and hoping to be able to get the minority veteran and women numbers up through the banquet proposals that are happening there, bringing more employees in with culinary expertise and they had been reaching out to Johnson's Whale, things of that sort. So I was just curious what it is that you folks might be doing in terms of seeing an increase in banquets and other maybe restaurants or whatever the case may be that would help in seeing some of these numbers increase from, for example, from 45 to 50, things like that. Can you speak to that at all? I can answer that. Thanks. So absolutely, as we are looking at the third quarter, we've seen a huge increase in the number of banquets conventions, the use of the facilities. We even have, at one point, one week, we have 640 of our 670 rooms sold for a convention. So definitely, that's an evergreen job posting. We continue to hire on that all the time. We're hoping that our numbers, as I said before, we're hoping that we can focus on that and move our numbers. It requires quite a bit to move at the 5% and we are focused on that because of the large number of employees, but it is a primary focus. Okay, thank you. Any other questions on this? So I'm going to turn it over to Jackie for our promotions and marketing update. So as you know, we implemented a system on our TRU machines, enabling our guests to donate change, their change to one of four nonprofits. During Q2, this amounted to almost $40,000 in donations from over 200,000 separate transactions. As of August 2nd, we rotated the four nonprofits and we're pleased to support the following new ones. So Casa Mono, which is the largest provider of domestic violent efforts and shelter and supportive services to survivors. Last Hope K9 Rescue, that's a favorite one of our employees. They are dedicated to saving abandoned, neglected and abused dogs from high-kill shelters. We're also going to be supporting the PAN Mass Challenge, which is a bicathon that raises funds for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. And finally, the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, whose mission is to enable adults in Eastern Massachusetts to overcome racial and social barriers, economic inequities, sexual and domestic violence, to employment and economic development opportunities. And we are working closely with the Urban League, not only in this regard, but also with respect to hiring new employees and getting our information to their database. So the Wynn Employee Foundation awards up to 15 scholarships to Wynn Las Vegas and Uncle Boston Harbor employees or dependents. The recipients must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 and volunteer 20 hours during each academic year. We feel like the volunteer component is a really important one because we want to encourage that civic and community service. We do have a dedicated team that checks in with all the individuals who receive the scholarships to make sure that they're staying on track. If they need any other assistance, if they need money for books, whatever it is, so that we can really keep everyone in the program. This year, we had recipients from Uncle Boston Harbor employing a career, pursuing a career in hotel administration, another employee attending the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a dependent of an employee attending Salem State University. We're very pleased to have relaunched our STARS program. So this program recognizes and rewards team members for exemplifying our core behaviors, values and promises. Candidates are nominated and somebody will write a short story demonstrating some way that they demonstrated those values, behaviors or promises. And then the winners receive gift cards, branded attire, their portraits displayed back in the heart of house and most fun they get dinner at Rare with hosted by Jenny Holiday, our president. This was kind of a unique initiative. It came up organically. One of our employees reported that she, much like a lot of other people in the U.S. was unable to procure a baby formula. So our procurement team jumped right on it. They called for hours and hours and hours and they were able to procure 2000 cans of baby formula which we immediately distributed to team members with infant children. So coming out of our COVID haze, we made a determination that a number of our managers, many of whom had been promoted internally, did not necessarily have all the tools required to be the best managers that we knew that they could be. So in conjunction with our learning and development team, actually I think our executive team drove the learning and development team completely crazy as we had some very, very specific ideas about how this program should work. We developed an eight module leadership development training program for managers and above. It includes an introduction to management, situational leadership, which helps leaders adapt their style of leading to suit the current work environment and the needs of their particular team, performance management and feedback, employee relations, effective communication, conflict resolution, setting the table. This is actually a module based on lessons from a book by Daniel Meyer, which focuses on the difference between providing hospitality and service. And we changed the focus a little as this book is really focused on interactions between guests and employees. And we switched the focus to how we relate to other team members. Same philosophy, making a connection, having team members feeling truly valued and appreciated, not just going through the motions. And finally the last module is time management, which we all know is a very valuable tool. And then I think we're gonna skip to poker. Juliana, if you just want to. I'm sorry, I meant it appears to be frozen. Oh, okay. Well, I can talk to poker. But I thought we had, I thought I saw. There were slides. There were slides, but at the beginning. Now we're good. There we go, okay. So, thank you. I know I direct a band. I gave you a lot of detail at the beginning of this and I don't want to repeat everything you said. I appreciate that he took the laboring ore on that piece. But I did want to let you know that we do intend to expand our poker offering. We want to almost immediately expand the hours of operations and push it back to three or possibly 4 a.m. And then as we hire and onboard and train new dealers, we will go to seven days a week so that that will be available for all of our poker players. Again, this is subject to our ability to hire and train poker dealers. In response to the question that came up earlier about where the poker dealers went or how we can get them back. As you know, during COVID, we didn't provide poker, but some of the other states did. So we saw a huge number of our poker dealers move to the Las Vegas area and the Texas area where poker was put in place much earlier. Cost of living being what it is, I think a lot of those people are happier where they are now. So that created a new challenge for us. And what we're doing is we're going to, well, we've continued to do this is to train people through the dealer school. We've also found, frankly, that the dealers that we do train through our dealer school who are local to the area tend to have the highest retention rates. So it's a good model and program for us to continue to roll out. We have posted for poker dealers right now. We have a current posting, we're interviewing. And as soon as we can get people on and onboarded, we'll make that expansion. So, Jackie, just to go over the expanded hours, I'm sure my fellow commissioners would like the clarification. It would be the time, the current schedule, expanding in hours, and then eventually extending to seven days. Could you just go over that again, please? Sure. So what we hope to get to in the immediate sort of immediately is to go to 4 a.m. And then as soon as we can get the dealers in place, we'll go to seven days a week. So currently it's Sunday through Thursday. Correct. Jackie, is there any thought to giving weekend hours, even while you're ramping up to seven days a week? It's a scheduling issue. We can certainly look into it, but it's more of a scheduling issue because of the way that they're working. That's why we were able to flex to 3 or 4 a.m. by starting some people later. But with the number of dealers that we have, we can't make them work seven days a week. In terms of raw numbers, how many openings would you need to fill to go into the weekends or get to seven days? 15 tables. We need two shifts, approximately 50. So 50, and that's keeping the table count where it is. Correct. Okay. And then the accompanying staff as well. Hi, Jackie. Hi, Juliana. Pleased to hear that you're gonna be expanding your poker hours, particularly since that's what the commission has been hearing is almost demanded by Massachusetts residents. So I'm sorry if I missed this, your recruitment efforts for dealers to staff these poker tables in anticipation of the expansion, what have those been? So the primary issue is obviously poker dealers aren't sort of sitting at home in Massachusetts waiting for us to post. So the primary issue is to get them into the dealer school. So we have been covering the costs of that dealer school, telling them if they get through the program and they're able to take their tests at the end, which most of them should, they will get a job offer. Where are you finding them? Where are you searching? All the different resources that we currently use, whether it's through the websites, we've pushed it out through our local community partners. So I think there's a, the biggest issue is a lot of people feel like you need substantial math skills and we can train if you have basic math skills. So I think just educating people about what we're looking for. But we continue to work with all the usual suspects in terms of recruitment. And I know this might be a tough question, but any idea how long it would take for you to sufficiently, excuse me, sufficiently staff for the additional tables? We think we can be fully up to speed seven days a week by on or before October 1st. Oh, that's fairly soon. Thank you. Madam Chair, I have a couple of questions, I believe. Right ahead, commissioner. So what I'm hearing, I wanna make sure that I'm clear is that with the additional dealers, we'll have additional hours of operation. What I don't think I heard was that with additional dealers that we could see additional poker tables. So right now, and again, I'm not advocating for or against what I'm about to say because I don't have enough information or data to back what I'm about to say. Do people like coming in at 3 a.m. or would they prefer to come in at 7 p.m. and have more table opportunities? I don't know the answer to that. I think it's probably a combination, but yes, we do not currently have any intention to increase the number of tables. Our feedback from our poker players is that they would very much like to see poker on the days that we are not currently offering it on the popular days. So that's what we're trying to do with our current response. And our wait times sort of early in the morning and late at night, there are people playing, there is a demand, otherwise we wouldn't offer it. So there would be no need to expand the hours. Not quite the demand that it is at prime time, but we do see that demand. So I'm going to be blunt, Jackie. I don't know how else to say it except to be blunt is you're hearing that from your consumers, but I'm hearing from our citizens that they want to see more poker tables there. And I would just refresh everybody's memory and it says the rate in the slide you gave us, you know, in June of 2019, you had 88 poker tables and now we're down to 15. I think as one commission, I'll speak just for myself, not for the commission. I had hoped to see that number go up considerably. And I think I'm hearing that that's not even being proposed. At this time, we don't have the space for it. We've reconfigured the entire floor and a lot of the slot banks that we did have prior to COVID were all right next to each other. They had less than a foot and a half between seats. And as a result of COVID, we changed out all those slots or not all of them, but a lot of them to put in slot machines that had the greater seating distance between them, which have turned out to be unbelievably popular. I don't think that we're, and I know there's concerns about us becoming a slot parlor. I don't think that we're there. I think that we have more tables generally offered than we initially proposed or even had prior to COVID. But, you know, we certainly understand the concern and we'll continue to look at that. It's a concern that I have, Jackie, but I also have a concern that we're only gonna have 15 poker tables when 88 were offered at one point. And I think it was, has been being talked about now for months that we are concerned that we're not seeing more poker tables there. I'm bringing it up. I'll bring it up until I'm happy with the amount of tables. I think 15 is considerably lower than what I think was anticipated by the mass gaming commission when licenses were given out way before my time. Commissioner Hill, I just wanna clarify some numbers that we did see. First off with respect to the slot parlor, I wanna clarify Jackie, on the table games you are exceeding the RFA two number by 34 tables. And that's significant. It's up from 150 to 184. And that's really been maintained pretty much steady since July, 2020, or at least it's the same as July, 2020. With respect to poker, Commissioner Hill, the RFA two that was behind the license was a number of 25. At one point in March, 2020, they did have 74 poker tables, but the RFA two was 25. And now it's at 15. I'm glad that you asked a question about clarifying the number of tables, though, versus ours expansion. I just wanted to make sure we had the record stat in terms of the numbers because that isn't here. You did note this is from the RFA two, the slide in front of us. It does bear pointing out though to Commissioner Hill's point that the drop, there's 34 more table games in general, but there's a decrease of 59 in poker. That's right. So it's about total tally. There is actually reduction in favor of slots. And so I know they're more profitable. I know that some of the spacing issues, et cetera, but that is for me, the overarching concern. There's the services in terms of this resort destination casino experience for the clientele that we are hearing from, they want more of in weekend hours. And then there was also that balance while some extras went into the table games, there is overall this favor of slots. And I think that's, to oversimplify it and say concern, you're going to become a slots parlor is one way of saying it, but then there's also just striking a balance as well. So just to get a little bit, what Commissioner Hill was saying in terms of where my concern lies. Yeah. And I think that we have stated that over time, but I think one question we had outstanding was what the RFA two did say. And this does help put some perspective on that number. But again, I think I heard Commissioner Hill was saying 88, I just wanted to say, I think that their height was 74, which is like Commissioner O'Brien pointed out substantial. And that was March 2020 before the suspension of operations for the pandemic. So we're hearing Jackie mentioned space allocations. Perhaps we could ask for some clarification on that in future meetings. Again, that might be a discussion for the licensee to have with Chief Delaney. Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Maynard, we haven't heard from you on this issue. And Commissioner Hill, I wasn't diminishing your point at all. I just wanted to clarify the numbers. Understood. Thank you. Jackie, the number for me is that sticks out most prominently is 25 because that's the number that's referenced in the RFA too. And the number that was relied upon in granting the license to Encore. I'm uninformed right now as to what the implication of Encore not meeting that expectation is. But I would like to at least from liminarily hear from you what are your plans? What are Encore's plans? If any, get back up to that 25, that minimum number there. Sure. So we're constantly adjusting the mix on the floor whether it's bringing in new slot machines. Juliana, I think the other day you were telling me we're looking to sell 600 slot machines. Is that right? More? Okay. Anyway, so it's a constant balance of creating new product, bringing in new product, making sure that we are offering the right mix of table games, the right mix of slot machines. There's certainly an opportunity, more than an opportunity for us to, this is, we appreciate where you're coming from and this is something that we are focused on. We're just balancing it with everything else. So it's 100% not to say this can't be done. It's just a question of when and timing and what else we have to adjust to get there. Understood. I think for me though, I would be looking for more detailed information about plans to move forward in that direction. So. Understood. I just wanted to add another piece of interest that might be valuable is we're actually down in terms of slot machines. Currently we have 2,712 slot machines. So it's just indicative of the fact that we're, this is a constant balance in movement. We understand, we fully appreciate and understand your concern as well as the concern of our guests. There are players as well. So we will pay attention to it and give you more detail. And I did note, Jackie, that there is a difference in the number of slot machines offered now versus DRFA too. But I don't think any of my fellow commissioners, I'm certainly not hearing from, you know, residents about, you know, complaints about the lack of slot machines being offered. Thank you. Commissioner Maynard. I think Jackie, first of all, thank you for taking time to introduce me to the property as a commissioner yesterday. I appreciated that. My major concern is to the slot parlor piece that it's a little more nuanced than just turning it into a slot parlor, but using the idea that someone could play poker as they form an advertisement to get them to the door and have them wait. And while they're waiting, of course, they're going to do something else and likely, because of the availability, they're likely going to do to gamble with a slot machine. And that's just something that I'm concerned about. I understand totally what you're saying about space, what you're saying about the difficulty in recruitment. And I actually was thinking while you were speaking that this sounds like a great opportunity to increase your gender balance with these new positions and get more women in this bill. So it sounds like a great opportunity, but my concern is making sure that what's going on with the patron in those 60 to 90 minutes while they're waiting on a table game specifically poker. Sure, and thank you for coming by the property yesterday. It was a pleasure to meet you and I'm glad that we were able to chat briefly. One, in response to your question, what do they do? So most of these poker players actually book ahead of time. We have an online app that allows you to see what the wait times are and to make a booking. It's called Poker Atlas. And so they're not necessarily standing around or we're not diverting them to other games or anything like that. I think for at least a portion of them, and I'm not gonna say all of them, but a portion of them do use that tool quite frequently. They do have to physically be there to get called, right? That is what I learned yesterday. To get a seat, yes. So there's still some in-person component to the application. Right, but they have, you know, they can do, yes, they have to be there obviously when their slot comes up. Otherwise they can't take their seat. Juliana, were you going to add in now, or unless there are other questions for Jackie on poker and table games? I'll go through the last few slides but I think these were already spoken about just to make sure we didn't miss anything. All right, any further questions for Juliana on her presentation or for Jackie? We appreciate the poker update and look forward again to the continuing conversations here. Questions for Juliana? One thing to add, not a question but a comment. Very nice touch on the baby formula initiative to employees. I think that's fantastic. It always makes a difference when you feel like your employer cares and taking that added step to demonstrate that is really a nice thing. Thank you. I'm gonna give the credit to Ellison Rankino at CFO. She was really the, she spearheaded that. She recognized the problem and got honored right away. Any other comments or observations? Okay, well, thank you. I know we ran a little bit long. That third component of the leadership program on timekeeping, Jackie, I'm noting carefully. So commissioners, we ran a little bit long. It's 11.45. I think it's important for first, thank you, encore folks, I do wanna excuse you so you can get on with your day. We are gonna be turning to item number five but I thought it's important for us to take a break now and stretch our legs. And so we'd be returning, would it be okay if it's not a lunch break, but rather a short break because I know we have an important convening this afternoon as well. So we do have some time issues for our own work. I will suggest that we come back at, it's kind of at noon proper. No, it's fine, excuse me. All right, then Dave, if you wanna just put up a time preservation, for those of you who are joining really to hear the next part of our presentation, thank you for your patience. Okay, we'll be back at noon. Dave, I think we can take down the slide. Thank you. All good to go. No, great, thank you so much. Okay, because we're holding this meeting virtually. Oh, I wanna just check. I think I'm waiting for one commissioner, let me go. So welcome back. We are reconvening public meeting number 387 of the Massachusetts Game and Commission and because we're holding this on a virtual platform, I'll do a local commissioner, Brian. I am here. Thank you, commissioner Hill. President. Commissioner Skinner. I'm here. And commissioner Maynard. All right, we're all set to proceed and thank you again. We're running just a little bit long, so we're gonna turn straight to director Mark VanderLinden. Thank you very much. Okay, good afternoon, Madam Chair, good afternoon, commissioners. I have what I believe will be a brief item for you today. I wanted to just provide for you an update on the status of Play My Way, especially as we march forward towards the launch of Play My Way at Encore, Boston, Harvard. I have in your packet a memo, but unless you would like me to pull that up, I can just address it verbally too. I think it's okay to address it verbally. Okay, great. A key priority of the commission and embedded in our mission statement is a commitment to reduce to the maximum extent possible the negative and unintended consequences of expanded gaming and the commonwealth. And this includes, but certainly it's not limited to the mitigation and prevention of problem gambling or gambling related harms. Over the past several years, the gaming commission has implemented a number of measures to that end. What measures to reduce, to prevent gambling related harm. These are all clearly outlined and justified through the responsible gaming framework that the gaming commission adopted now a number of years ago and revised in 2018. One of the key measures that the gaming commission has chosen to proceed with is what is considered a pre-commitment tool. Pre-commitment tools are tools basically intended to help people commit to an amount of money, a budget and or time before they commence gambling. In 2016, the gaming commission in cooperation with Plain Ridge Park Casino launched a first of its kind budget setting tool called Play My Way. It's a voluntary play management tool that allows slot machine players to set a daily, a weekly, a monthly budget and track their play over time. All players can adjust their budget directly from the slot machine or from a kiosk. They can change, so they can change their budget. They can unenroll at any time as well. It's completely voluntary. So since we launched Play My Way at Plain Ridge Park Casino in 2016, there have been, there were actually right now, there are almost 29,000 individuals enrolled in this program and those are individuals that hold player cards at Plain Ridge Park Casino. The unenrollment rate at Plain Ridge Park Casino is roughly 13%. Marching forward now several years in March, March 31st of 2022 and in close partnership with MGM Springfield and the Game Sense team, we launched Play My Way at that site. Since that time, we've enrolled 2,542 individuals. Actually, that's the number that are active. The unenrollment rate is roughly 6% or 170 individuals have unenrolled from that site. Now, here we are in August of 2022 and we're preparing to launch Play My Way at Encore of Boston Harbor next month. We've in similar fashion worked very close with our Game Sense team. We've worked very close with the team at Encore of Boston Harbor in order to ramp this up. And we have many lessons learned in terms of technical considerations and in terms of communication considerations. And at this point, I feel confident to say that during National Problem Gambling, we're in this month, the week of September 12th, we are scheduled to launch Play My Way at Encore. I won't go into great detail, but I do want to just step back. This is a significant milestone. The commission many years ago now expressed a commitment to offer persons who choose to gamble in Massachusetts with a uniform platform in order to set a budget and to track their play. And with the introduction of Encore next month, we will have met that goal. This is a program that, as I said, is the first of its kind. And what I mean is that there is no other casino in the United States that offers this type of technology, let alone a state that offers a uniform platform across all casinos that exist within the state. So my hats off my sincere appreciation to the Game Sense team for their steadfast commitment to this and promotion of it, but also to each of our licensees and helping us kind of navigate a way to do this so that it does have appeal to patrons and it does advance this commitment of the Gaming Commission, which is to reduce to the maximum extent possible the negative and unintended consequences of the introduction of casinos in the state. One final note I would like to say, we are evaluating this. I think that as we have with each of our key responsible gaming initiatives, as we do in many, many ways, research and evaluation is an important piece to this. And we're really fortunate to be working now with Dr. Michael Wall of Carleton University in Ottawa. He secured funding through the International Center for Responsible Gaming in order to conduct an evaluation of Play My Way with two key goals for us to have an understanding of how well we are at helping players sustain recreational gambling by establishing feasible parameters and to eliminating regret arising from loss of control of gambling. So we are working with Dr. Wall and with MGM Springfield in order to continue with this evaluation. We should have information and hopefully valuable feedback about how we can continue and improve this program within the next fiscal year. So with that said, I look forward to coming back to the commission hopefully in late September or October with an update about the successful launch at Antwonport. Thank you. Questions for Mark. No questions except a big thank you to him and his staff for pulling this off. This is wonderful and I too can't wait to see what happens in September. Good job Mark and to everybody else under you in this division, great job. Commissioner O'Brien? Just on a little bit of a non sequitur in addition, I just wanted to point out I was at an online training the last few days and there was an entire section on responsible gaming particularly how it goes into sort of the online area et cetera and several times the speaker pointed back to Massachusetts, the website, the work Mark's team has done as sort of the pinnacle of the jumping off point and how great it was. And so I know people have said it repeatedly but I thought I'd take the opportunity to just publicly laud Mark and his team and what he's done again. Thank you Commissioner, I'd love to hear that. Excellent, excellent. Commissioner Maynard, Commissioner Skinner? What's that? Thank you Mark and thank you all on the team for all the work that you've done and I look forward to the next update. Right, I guess I'll just add again that's the commission's gratitude for the really the collaborative nature of this work with the three licensees they've led they've been leaders in Massachusetts. Our enabling legislation really was the charger behind that leadership but they haven't wavered and for that we're grateful. Mark, can I just follow up on one question On the evaluation, Dr. Wol will be looking as you say sort of to see about the effectiveness of the program for achieving two goals. When you say sustained recreational gambling by establishing feasible parameters, I wanna make sure I understand that that our goal here is to get to be able to evaluate this tool to ensure that those folks who are gambling in a responsible recreational fashion and not moving into what we understand to be a two to 3% problem gambling area. Is that what you're looking at there? And we're short on time but if you could give a short answer and if I need further guidance you and I can connect on that. Right, so helping them to gamble within a predetermined budget. So the amount of money that they can afford to spend and setting that budget in a way that is logical and works for them as a way that keeps it recreational. Gambling is on a continuum. We have research that supports that about 2% of the population would be problem gamblers about 8.4% would be at risk and 60, 63, 67% are recreational gamblers. What we want to provide tools and information a range of resources for individuals to help them to support recreational gambling if they choose to gamble at all. So for individuals that would be at risk helping them move down that continuum. For individuals who are problem gamblers they move down that continuum or find help and resources within the community. So the parameters are really the budget. Correct, yes. And the budget can be changed at any time and it's daily, weekly and monthly that they're able to set those. That is correct. Excellent, thank you. Really exciting and thank you Commissioner O'Brien for noting that we can't escape any kind of conference or any interactions with our peers across the country without really being noted that we are leading in this area and with Mark's leadership and his team's leadership. Thank you. Okay, moving on then to item number, please. Good afternoon, Councilor Grossman. And thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. We're going to turn this one right over to Carrie Teresa who's going to walk through this recognition. Thanks, Todd. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. So we have one regulation for you in your packet today. It is 205CMR 116.03 related to waivers. This is a small change that the IEB brought up during the reg review process that will bring the language in the regulation in line with the language in the statute. So just a little refresher on what this change is. The language in chapter 23K section 14C reads that the commission may waive the licensing requirements for institutional investors holding up to 15% of the stock of the applicant company or holding intermediary or subsidiary company of the applicant company. So in contrast, the existing regulation reads that the commission may waive the requirement for institutional investors holding less than, et cetera. So of course less than and up to have different meanings. So this amendment just changes the regulation language to read up to rather than less than. This regulation came before the commission on May 25th and you voted to begin the promulgation process at that time. We held a public hearing on this regulation this morning and that was presided over by commissioner O'Brien. We did not receive any comments at the public hearing and we also have received no written comments on this change. So at this time we'd be looking for a motion to approve this change along with the required amended small business impact statement to finalize the promulgation process and to file the regulation with the secretary's office. Any questions for Kerry on this matter? Okay. Now, Councillor Turner, you see you do need a vote today. Do I have a motion on this matter? Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the amended small business impact statement and the amendments to 205, CMR 116.03 as reflected in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. And further that the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth and finalize the regulation promulgation process. I second. I think I go to commissioner Skinner the second. Any questions or edits? Okay. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes, five, zero. And thank you, great work, Kerry. And again, a testament to the REG review process. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anything else today, Todd? No, that's all, thank you. All right. We're going to move on to item number seven and welcome David McKay. There you are, nice to see you. You as well. Good afternoon, Chair, Madam Chair and commissioners. Hope you're all doing well today. It's a pleasure to be with you. Yeah, and we welcome you in your new position and role. So congratulations on that. Thank you so much. It's a religion and honor to be working in this new capacity. And I look forward to collaborating with you all as well as my peers in this new role. Right, thank you. What do you have for us today? Sure. So Encore Boston Harbor has requested that the commission allow four new exemption positions. This request is being made under the statutory provision and enacted in 2017 that authorizes the commission to exempt certain job positions from the 23K registration requirements. I believe the commission has been provided these documents starting at page 78. If you'll permit me, I would recommend the commission reserve. It's right to vote on the positions until after I have summarized all four as opposed to a pining on each one individually. Certainly. Okay, great. So the first position is the lead forest and the second one is florist two and the third one is lead gardener. In summary, these three positions are part of the team responsible for installing, maintaining and cultivating the plant life located on the property. The final position is called irrigation tech. In summary, this position will be responsible for the maintenance and operation of the property irrigation systems and other supporting systems. This position requires an understanding of automatic irrigation system installation, operations and system management. For each position, Encore has responded in the negative to all criteria identified on the gaming licensee certification. I also wanted to clarify, these are new positions within the horticulture and floral department and not reclassifications. And to the point I just made about the gaming licensee certification, I also wanted to note that these positions won't have any supervisory responsibilities or access to the backup house or gaming floor without the proper escort. Additionally, I also wanted to highlight for the commission that the following positions were previously exempted within the same department. The florist, there's the florist SE and the gardener one and two positions as well as the supervisor for this department is already exempt as well. So with that being said, I'm happy to try and answer any questions that you may have, but in summary, those are the requests before you today that the division of licensing is asking you to vote on. And also the division of licensing worked with Cara Henson, the assistant director of recruiting and employment at Encore Boston Harbor to obtain the necessary information to develop this request. And she's also present on the meeting here today in case you have any specific questions for her as well. Excellent, thank you. Let's go through any questions on any of the four positions or questions generally for David. Commissioner Skinner, I credit you for establishing some nice policies and procedures that support David's good work today. David, it was very clear to me, you do need votes though to go forward. If there are no further discussion and commissioner Maynard, this is new to you, this process. If you have any questions around the factors that were outlined or anything. I would like to think David, there's spending some time with me yesterday. Excellent, excellent. I'm glad that you got the benefit of that guidance. Any questions? Okay, then if I have a motion, we'll move this forward if we're in agreement with David's recommendations. Okay, I'm happy to move. Thank you, commissioner. I move that the commission exempt the lead gardener, lead florist, florist and irrigation tech positions at Encore Boston Harbor from the commission's registration requirements in accordance with 205 CMR 134.031B for the reasons discussed today and described in the commissioners packet. Great job, David. Thank you, I appreciate it. And I'd also like to recognize and thank Kara Henson as well. So Kara, I'm not sure if you wanna give a wave and say hello, but thank you for your assistance with this. Thank you, David. Hello everyone, good afternoon. I second the motion, madam chair. Thank you. Any questions or edits? Okay, commissioner O'Brien, commissioner, oh, sorry. Did you have questions? I think there's just one thing. I think, was it florist two, the position or just florist? Florist two. Okay, great. Thank you. Hi. Okay, thank you, commissioner O'Brien, commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes, five, zero. Excellent work, David. You've got your first unanimous vote from the commission. Thank you all, I appreciate it. Excellent. So now, and thank you to Kara. If we could move on then to item number eight. Good afternoon, counselor. How are you today? I'm doing well, chair. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and commissioners. Just with respect to this agenda item, the IED of the, some of the commissioners will recall, we gave a presentation to the commission on its process, the IED's process, with respect to enforcement council actions, and I think that was back in April. And during that presentation, we discussed the graduated process for addressing non-compliance issues that the, and that the IED's overall goal in that process is compliance from the licensees and the registrants. So with respect to the instant matter that we'll be discussing today, after issuing two prior notices of non-compliance from the chief enforcement council's office, the IED has assessed big night entertainment group, the operators of memoir, which is a nightclub on the premises of Encore Boston Harbor, a civil administrative penalty in the agreed upon amount of $25,000. The fine was assessed following alcohol over service incidents on five separate occasions between October of 2021 and this past June of 2022. One of the incidents involved over service at the bar in memoir, and four of the five incidents involved over service during bottle service. And the over service was the result of improper administration of bottle service during those times. So for those of you who are not familiar with bottle service itself, it essentially occurs when a party of patrons reserves a specific table at the nightclub. And that table is attended to by a dedicated bottle server. And only the bottle server is supposed to pour drinks from the bottles and dispense them to the patrons of the table. This restriction is designed to ensure that patrons are not over-served during bottle service. The over service incidents involved service of excessive amounts of shots in relatively short periods of time and over service related to improper bottle management. And so that's essentially a brief summary of the factual background. Now with respect to the corrective actions, in addition to the assessment of the fine, the IEB has required that memoir follows several corrective actions which they have agreed to. And they include but are not limited to more staff training, adjustments to bottle service and alcohol service policies that include that bottles of alcohol which include hard alcohol and wine and champagne shall not be left on the table. That if the bottle server leaves the table, they have to take the bottle with them. Patrons are not permitted to pour alcohol from bottles at any time, including bottles of hard alcohol and wine and champagne. And no patron is permitted to drink directly from any bottle, including wine and champagne. The conditions also include a provision that free pouring alcohol into a patron's mouth is strictly prohibited and that this is considered egregious conduct and that memoir has agreed to discipline its employees accordingly. There are also provisions with respect to more manager oversight. And I think one of the key pieces with respect to the corrective actions is that managers are required to remind staff of these requirements during every pre-shipped briefing. And that happens before the nightclub opens for business each night. So I just want to also note that memoir has cooperated with the IEB and they were an active participant in developing the agreed upon corrective actions. And as I noted above, they talked about the, they agreed to pay the assessment and that means that they've waived the right to an adjudicatory hearing on this matter. So in addition to agreeing to pay the fine and to the corrective actions, memoir also has purchased enhanced security cameras and they're paying for two police details. So specifically, they have installed four new high definition cameras on the first floor and they have two additional cameras on order for the second floor. Those cameras will enhance visibility and make for easier review of the situation that's happening in memoir. They've also hired the two police details for Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. And I also want to note that the alcoholic beverage control commission has also increased its presence in memoir. So in mid June, after communications with the IEB, the ABCC increased its presence and ABCC investigators have been regularly communicating with memoir managers before each shift. And they have reported back that memoir has been responsive to the corroborated with the ABCC investigators. Another piece of this is that EVH has had involvement as well. They have agreed to take corrective measures and also to ensure that memoir is in compliance. They will be reviewing and having their security team review any medical incidents that occur for potential alcohol over service. They'll also be conducting at least quarterly audits of memoir for compliance with alcohol service policies and regulations. And EVH has expressed its commitment to ensuring the nightclub's compliance. So with that, I know there may be a fair bit of questions or perhaps that's the summary that you are looking for but I'm happy to answer any questions about any of this that any of the commissioners might have. Before we turn to questions, I just want to point out a clarification. Heather, you did mention that with the agreement, there was that the licensee of waived their right to an adjudicatory hearing. I just want to clarify that that was waiving the right to appear before the commission, the gaming commission in through an adjudicatory hearing. So that's just a clarifier. And I know we talked about that as we went through the policy and procedures in the last few months of the IEB's investigation and assessment policies. Right, and that's absolutely right, Sharon. And ultimately, if there was an appeal, it could end up with the commission in this particular case, given that they are a registrant as opposed to a licensee, it would start at the hearing observable. Yeah. Yes, sorry. And they certainly could then have further review with respect to before the full commission. So I do agree and thank you for pointing that out. So it's registrant to hearing officer, then to us. Yes. Okay, thank you. So with that clarification, that was important and obviously I misspoke, so very helpful, Heather. Questions for Heather on IEB's action taking here? Michelle Bryan. I just had a couple of comments. Heather, thank you for taking the time yesterday to brief me on this and just to sort of share with the other commissioners, one of the comments that I had made at that time in reference to our regs that relate to these episodes and this fine that I had suggested that IEB and Lee will take a look at 205, CMR 136.077A. And I did not get that off the top of my head. Heather was kind enough to identify that one for me but I do think that's language that needs to be added in connection with that section. Heather suggested some when we were on the call but I'll leave it to IEB and legal to discuss whether language to the effect of well-seeded for food service or something to that effect needs to be added to that reg to make it very clear in terms of bottle service going forward. And one other comment just based on what we learned today during the compliance discussion with EVH, Heather. It appears there was a 17 year old male who got into memoir for some period of time during the last quarter. And I know three of these episodes happened during the last quarter. I don't know if any of the ones you describe relate to that individual or whether that's another incident but it's consistent to me and I wanted to ask if you knew or if not whether you could look into that. Absolutely, thank you, commissioner. And just with respect to your first point I have reached out to legal and flag this issue with respect to the regulation for them. I'm sure I'll be communicating with them on it. Now, with respect to the director of security, Tom Coffey's presentation it raises a good question. And I will say the first incident that I just referred to that was at the bar. That was an underage individual that was back in October of 2021. Now that individual had actually had a valid ID. He was checked as he entered EVH and then checked again at center bar. There was I think one drink at center bar but then he went up to memoir where he was also checked. And again, valid ID. And in that particular circumstance the over service at memoir was significant. So we focused on that particular element of the situation. Now with respect to the two incidents that I think that Mr. Coffey was referring to there was a circumstance and we actually noted this in a footnote not as a separate instance of non-compliance but there were two times when an underage individual had an invalid ID but it happened to pass through the Veradox system. And then that individual ended up in memoir. That was noted in our assessment. We had discussions with memoir about it. And also the fact that EVH now knows that they need to reset the Veradox system. One of the additional conditions that I don't think I mentioned in my summary above is that memoir has also agreed to run. So they have their own, I wouldn't call it Veradox. They think it's ID science scanner. So they have agreed that any individual that presents an ID for the age of 25 or below they have agreed to enter that ID through their own scanner as a double kind of stopgap measure in terms of, in the event that it somehow made it through the Veradox scanner. But hopefully that won't be the case going forward because I know that through the EVH has addressed that issue with the Veradox scanner. So hopefully that answers your question. So I guess it may have and I may not have picked up on it. I guess my question is, is the individual, the under 18 talked about by Tom Coffey, one of the episodes that is either specifically cited or footnoted in what you just presented? Yes, yeah. I believe that that individual is the one that we footnoted because he was getting on two different occasions once in late April and then once in May. And that was not, that did not form the basis of the two notices of non-compliance and the fine but it was certainly something that we flagged as an issue that we wanted to make sure that we had engagement with them on. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that wasn't another episode that Ivy was not aware of but it sounds like you are. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. Commissioner Maynard, do you have a question? It would be difficult with my, let me, no, no question. I'll set. Commissioner Skinner. Almost that chair, thank you. I too had the benefit of a briefing by Heather yesterday. So I am good. And commissioner Hill. Oh, there we go. I guess I want to just note, again, I appreciate very much of the comprehension of Councilor Paul's report and the good work of the IEB. I know that it starts with Bruce Vance team and Bruce is here too with any kind of questions. And I also want to note that we have learned over at least the time that I've been here is that as the casino business and industry has evolved in Massachusetts, still relatively young, complying with our standards and in our regulatory oversight can be difficult. It can be a challenge even for the most experienced of operators. And so I am very pleased to hear of the cooperation with this registrant here and the plan ahead for corrective action. Doing business and a gaming establishment is highly regulated and a good challenge. So we appreciate this and the challenge of the bottle service, the fact that there's going to be so many additional resources now applied, I suspect that we will see very few reports going forward on any continued non-compliance. So thank you. I hope so, Chair. Thank you very much. I do hope so. I think this is an inflection point for memoir and I think it's a point of growth. And if there aren't any other questions, I just want to quickly also note this was a lot of teamwork over the course of several months and I do want to thank Bruce specifically and Burke and Lewis and his team on the ground at EVH. I also want to thank former senior enforcement council, Kate Hartigan, who also helped with this. Now this was going back to October through February as well as memoir as attorney Pat Hanley and the folks at memoir who were very helpful in kind of working through these matters and engaging in a dialogue. And that also includes the CEC staff currently, which is Brittany Costello and the new senior counsel Kathleen Kramer. And also just a quick thank you also to Jackie and Juliana at EVH. This was a long process. And I do, like you said, Chair, I hope that going forward, this is a point of growth for memoir and that they will be set up for a position of success going forward. Thank you. Executive Director Wells, do you have anything to add to that discussion? Didn't mean to catch on the spot. That's okay, she's all set. Well, maybe she's gonna add in. I'm trying to do sign language. Okay, she's waiting. Go ahead. Okay, then I think we're all set with questions and no action taken from the commission on this. We again understand clearly the process. I'm very pleased that we've been able to look at this recently. And if you could, if you haven't already update Commissioner Maynard with that policy and the memorandum, Heather share that with him and perhaps you've already done so. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Excellent. Okay, then I'm going to move forward to our next item on the agenda and that's preparing for matters relating to sports wagering and it will allow me. I'd like to just set the stage a little bit before I turn it over to Executive Director Wells and actually invite my fellow commissioners to comment before Karen gets into her report. I wanna begin by addressing our meeting last Thursday where we began to discuss the sports wagering legislation that the governor now has signed into law as of yesterday. First congratulations to Governor Baker who filed the first legislative proposal in early 2019 when our fellow commissioner then representative Hill was in his elected position. And then I wanna congratulate the legislature for its work taking into consideration a multitude of interests to produce a product that will bring sports wagering out of the shadows and into a regulatory landscape offering. We understand to be critical consumer protections and integrity to a gaming experience that reflects the values of this commonwealth. The various legislative proposals consistently designated the MGC as the prospective regulator. And with this understanding over two years ago I asked Executive Director Wells to develop a work plan with the assistance of her talented division leaders for the implementation of legalized sports wagering that reflected the best regulatory practices from across the nation. Without a law in place, their work could only be based on prediction and not science. This early leg work has positioned the commission well for today's additional responsibility. We appreciate the confidence the legislature and the governor have in naming us the MGC officially the regulator of this new industry. As a reminder to those who are eager to place the bet here in Massachusetts. While the governor has now signed the bill into law we at the MGC must now work with our current and prospective licensees to set up the requisite operating framework. So that sports wagering activity here in the commonwealth is ensured the integrity you expect and the consumer protections you and the sports community deserve. All legitimate sports wagering operators want that for betters in Massachusetts. Our work with ultimate licensees will be swift and thorough and we will keep everyone all stakeholders in the public apprised every step of the way. We know that you are all eager for an exact timeline and development of that is responsibly underway. As the steps performed already and ongoing over the past few years and as recently as this week the Massachusetts gaming commission has for example reviewed various sports wagering proposals including the bill that was just signed into law to fully understand our responsibilities. This is a critical point. The commission is delving into this law. It's very complicated and we may find that there need to be adjustments as we go through the planning process. As those come up we will work with the legislature and the governor's office on any necessary fixes. As noted we have worked with regulatory partners from jurisdictions across the country to learn about best practices and challenges when implementing sports wagering. Those conversations continue and we are grateful for their continued generous support and expertise. We included studies in our annual research agenda to examine the social and economic impacts of sports wagering. We did so in conjunction with the gaming policy advisory committee that includes expertise from subject matter experts across the commonwealth and elected officials. This deliverable legalized sports betting in the United States and potential impacts in Massachusetts was shared with the legislature in draft form to assist this past month. Our team developed white papers offering insights on the sports wagering landscape across the nation and considerations for responsible gaming and gambling advertising. The commission recently approved for our IT division a proposed framework to utilize industry recognized technical standards to get going a critical first measure. We have approved for executive director Wells a new role of director of sports wagering to be hired by the commission. Our talented legal team has developed and presented publicly a process for regulation promulgation including the creation of a regulation grid to track the progress of what has anticipated to be approximately 225 regulations governing the operation of sports wagering in the commonwealth. We have commenced the inspection and assessment of technology including electronic sports wagering kiosks. We at the MGC are committed to a swift and thorough implementation of sports wagering in the commonwealth keeping in mind always that the integrity of gaming in Massachusetts remains paramount. Commission plans to carry out our responsibilities without delay understanding fully there is much work in front of us that is both complex and of public interest. As most appreciate we operate under the open meeting law. This commission looks forward to engaging and learning from stakeholders and appreciate already how many have signaled their interest in supporting our work. This will be an inclusive and transparent process. As we move forward, we will keep the public updated regularly. Our website and social channels will be accessible with timely information on our public meetings and with relevant documents. I personally appreciate the work that has already gone into this issue by Executive Director Wells, my fellow commissioners and a talented team of the MGC. And I'll continue to express that appreciation as the work continues as I'm sure my fellow commissioners will join me in doing so. With that, I wanted to extend again my thank you to Executive Director Wells but before so I invite my fellow commissioners for comment. Commissioner O'Brien. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really don't have anything to add beyond what we commented on at the last hearing when we brought up, we voted on the position, we talked about the timing and the effort that has gone into this and still needs to go into this to get it live. And then I'm eager to hear from the Executive Director and to start moving forward with the plan. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. No comments at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. Our objectives and intentions are very well and clearly stated, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you. And Commissioner Maynard, again, it's been a big first couple of weeks for you. August 1st was your official first day and with that came the sports wagering bill. What I explained to Commissioner Maynard is we are all really starting at the very same time with him. Commissioner Maynard. I just appreciate, Madam Chair, your comments. And I want to thank the general court and the governor for entrusting this commission with the responsibility of navigating this new frontier. Thank you. And I thank you for reinforcing that important point. So with that, thank you, everyone. And we'll turn it over to Karen. Thank you. Now it's time to get to work. So I have a certain number of things for you this morning, updates and some requests for guidance. Number one on the job posting, which the chair referenced. We have categorized that in our internal structure as a grade seven, put in a salary range for that. We'll put final eyes on it, final tweaks. I will send that out to the commissioners before it gets posted as a professional courtesy, but we expect we'll be able to post that shortly. So that is a very important position and we are hoping for a robust response to this posting. So anyone that has anyone in mind that might be a great asset to the commission, we are interested in a diverse pool of candidates and looking for the best person to help us implement this important legislation. The second two things I wanna talk about are certain areas where some commission feedback and would be helpful to me in implementing this in the most efficient manner. I know there's a lot of interest in the timeline and getting things going. So there's a couple of things I'd like to bring to your attention and get some feedback on it. If you're comfortable, we can go in that direction. So the first thing, particularly with the mobile operator. So as you know from the legislation, there's this category three, which is the mobile operators that you can either operate independently or with a casino or a racetrack or a simulcast facility. And what would be helpful to staff is in evaluating the most efficient way to move that process forward and to evaluate what kind of resources we're gonna need and be able to assemble those resources would be a process for some kind of notice of intent. So the request would be a public that we would put out some public request for potential applicants who are interested in getting one of these category three licenses to file with us a notice of intent. That will give us not only their contact information and we can take a look at what companies we're potentially going to be dealing with but it also gives us a sense of what is the universe of potential applicants as far as numbers. So that's my first request. I'll pause here for some feedback. If the commission is generally comfortable, I can work with legal about the best way to go about doing that. But doing that in short order, I think will be helpful to us to efficiently roll out the process. Commissioner's questions for Karen on that action. Proposed action. Commissioner Hill. I don't think I have a question, but if you're looking for our opinion. On opinions. On how to move forward. I think that's a great first start. Let's see what universe is out there that actually wants to come and do business here in Massachusetts. And I think that would be very helpful to you and your staff in getting regulations up and running. If we have a thought of who and what might want to come to Massachusetts. So I'm okay with that first request and moving forward with it. Commissioner Skinner, I think may have enough. Are you leaning in? I'm also on board with that approach. I shared with the executive director yesterday that I was also thinking of some sort of notice of intent process just in a different context. I think it makes perfect sense to move forward that way. Excellent. Commissioner Bryan. No, I agree. And obviously the messaging in terms of what this means for our future competitive process is distinct from the notice of intent. But I think what you've described makes a sense right now. Excellent. So Commissioner Maynard. Wrong idea. There we go. Check. All right. That's very helpful. So I will work with our legal department and our communications department to work that out. My expectation is that we will certainly put something on the website. So any applicants that hear about this or happen to be watching the live stream right now that are interested in that, please look at our website. We are working on a website page. That's another update I have for you so that we will have a central location for information related to sports wagering. So the communications, I've seen a template of that. Looks very good. We'll look at rolling that out in short order. And that will be the location for external parties to grab information from the commission. The second item for feedback is more, I guess it's this point, is on the licensure of vendors. So the legislation as you have seen does not give a specific direction regarding licensing of vendors to sports wagering operators. However, there is broad language which would allow the commission to do so. Currently, we have a process where we license both gaming vendors and non-gaming vendors. The gaming vendors are companies such as the slot machine manufacturers, table game manufacturers, dice manufacturers. And we have a process right now where they submit for licensure once the applications is complete. There is a process for a temporary license which is granted by the IEB so they can get going and the companies can order their equipment. That seemed to work very well during the rolling out of the casinos. And then for non-gaming vendors, most of those are just registrants where they have to submit an application for registration once that's deemed complete. They can do business with the casinos. And then certain of those that the IEB has discretion to sort of elevate that type of vendor to a more thorough background check through the secondary vendor process. In the past, for example, the construction companies have gone through that secondary vendor process which has a little more of a background. So, and then there is also within the statute in under 23K the ability to exempt certain vendors from either the registration or licensing process and it's generally for these non-gaming vendors. So, given that that is the framework we're comfortable with and my research and understanding what's done in other jurisdictions, my suggestion to the commission and I'm looking for some feedback is that we work with the legal department in short order on regulations for vendors to sports wagering operators. So, for example, I'm particularly concerned about vendors that provide goods or services that relate to the integrity of operations. So, for example, at a sports book if they're purchasing a kiosk to have in the sports book which takes bets from players, should that company that provides that be licensed by the commission? Similarly for vendors that supply goods and services to online or mobile operators who have an app that you can bet on, there are vendors that provide services such as know your customer. Those are regulatory requirements to know where your money's coming from and know who your clients are. And also the ability to do geolocation usually comes from a vendor, the company that operates it will contract with an outside vendor to geolocation that's critically important in the regulation of mobile sports wagering. So companies like that being licensed. So that's the universe and my recommendation at this point is that if the commission is so inclined to get the legal department some guidance to get going on those regulations. And the reason that this is one of the first things I'm bringing up is we've had conversations with our licensees. And as far as timeline, it is very helpful for them to get these companies need to be licensed to get that going as soon as possible so they can plan and they can procure goods and services. And that if we go forward with this temporary licensing process similar to what we do in gaming that will help them as well. As we're seeing across the nation and other areas there are supply chain issues in every facet of procurement. So the sooner we can do this the better. So that's why I'm bringing this up at the beginning. And at this point, I'm just looking for some affirmation whether or not to go forward with developing regulations in the immediate future on vendor licensing. Questions for Karen. Commissioner Hill. No questions, just a statement and I agree with what you've proposed to us right now and think that's how we should move forward. In my comments that were made last week, I think I made it very clear that I don't wanna see the mass gaming commission lower any standards of any type during this process. And I think moving forward with developing new regulations that I believe would mirror the rights on our current vendors in the casinos and things of that sort is appropriate. And I think moving forward, that's what I would like to see. I wanna make sure that the vendors that are coming here are licensed in a way that we can be proud of. So I'm absolutely okay with you moving forward with the development of these new regulations. And at the same time, and I'll say it again, not lowering our standards in any way, ensuring that sports betting here is gonna be, one of the best in the nation and we're gonna be a model as we have been for so many other things. Commissioner O'Brien, your audio is on. So I would agree with what Commissioner Hill said, both reiterating the comments that I made the last time that the timing of this came up and then also in terms of the standards, I agree with him wholeheartedly and having the executive director and the people who are gonna be doing the licensing and the screening help prioritize for us in concert with the licensees, the people we know according to the statute would be moving forward in this arena. I think it makes perfect sense then to prioritize that particular reg. Excellent. Commissioner Skinner, your videos off. I'll wait to hear from you. Commissioner Maynard, do you have any comments? Director Wells, you can't build without a cornerstone and it sounds like this is a cornerstone to accomplishing this goal. So I'm very supportive of it. Karen, I of course echo my fellow commissioners' remarks. I'm also really glad that you've already been having these conversations with our licensees and positioning them well because of the potential supply chain issues. So it makes great sense. I'm also thinking that we'll get into this in our next piece of business, but with respect to our round table discussion, perhaps then reflecting on these licensee requirements to the commissioners in public will be really helpful so that we understand if in any way our goals, presented today and present an inadvertent roadblock. I'm not hearing that and that's a good thing because I'm of course echoing my fellow commissioners' comments that we don't want to lower our standards. So thank you. Okay, so is that enough? Do you need something further on that point from us? That's very helpful. So this will all come back before the commission. So it's not as important as an opportunity to be more specific. Commissioner Skinner, did you have comment? I didn't, I'm sorry. I had to step away for an emergency, a slight emergency, but I'm good now, no questions. Okay, thank you. My apologies. Okay, thank you. And go. So Karen, next. Next point. Just to bring up before the commission, as you are aware with mobile operations in particular, there's a huge IT component to sports betting for your farm. And so in an effort to really expedite the implementation of this and make sure we're doing it correctly, we are going to be looking at some assistance on regulation development. So as a threshold matter, I would like to give my own thank you to the legislature in the way they crafted the bill. They ensure that there would be the resources for the commission to get this done and get this done quickly. So I'm going to take advantage of that and we're going to work with legal finance and the IT department on, we have an idea about some assistance on particularly the regulation development on the IT side of the house. We do want to make sure that any procurement we're doing is in compliance with the law. We'll be looking at the best value procurement is an option that may be the fastest way to do it and the only way to do it. We'll have to make a final assessment on that but I just wanted the commission to be aware as, it's tough because the commission can only meet as a body in an open setting. So I want to be able to give you information simultaneously. So this is one of the things I just want to let you know that's how we're proceeding. Anything that I mentioned either here today or it's going on, I am very open to any feedback if you have any comments or any suggestions either in public meeting or if you want to catch me in the office but I just wanted to let you know that that was going on. And then as we discussed in the public meeting previously, we will have to come before the commission again and discuss what is the model we'd like to implement for testing or on the IT side of the house, whether that, as you know, we had a brief memo on that, a brief discussion. The commission decided to hold off and get more information on that. So I just want to put that on your radar screen that the methodology for testing, whether we do it in house with our own lab, whether we contract or whether we have the licensees contract, these are going to be some options. So I just want to put that in your radar screen and if anyone needs more information on that before the next meeting, we can have staff provide that for you. Karen, and I think it might be helpful to reduce that to a good memo for us to digest that. Yeah, we have the other memo, which we can probably just shine up and... I think so. Yeah, because based on timing, we may have some different recommendations from the staff for the commission. I understand. Okay, excellent. Thank you. The next thing to put on your radar screen, obviously one of the critical components of getting this moving is the actual application for licensure for sports wagering. We do have three categories of licensure within the statute. So we'll have to look at those independently and how you want to do them. I just want to start the conversation about the criteria for the evaluation of those applications. We have potentially both the competitive and a non-competitive process that we'll have to evaluate and the commission will have to decide on. But I wanted to remind the commission when we did the original casino licensure, the commissioners at that point had to be divided up the application process or what we called the RFA-2 process into five categories. And those categories were one, general sort of a general overview or general evaluation of the application. Two was finance. Three was the economic development that the licensee would potentially bring. Four was building in site design. Obviously that may be a little different here given the type of licensure we're dealing with. And then three was mitigation. So my expectation is that we will come before the commission and then it's up to the commission how they want sort of to drive this, whether the commission wants to discuss this amongst themselves in public meeting, give staff direction to go back and create this kind of application or whether the commission would like the staff to come up with a recommendation, bring it to the commission and you approve it or not. So these are some considerations on how you would like to do it. But I wanna make sure that you're aware of a prior example of how we did this and get some feedback from you. If you have any thoughts on what criteria you as commissioners would like to look at when determining a license or sports wagering, we can incorporate that in any kind of documentation that we're creating for you. Any feedback on that? I have a little feedback and then I'll turn to my fellow commissioners. In terms of context, Karen, and we do need to be looking at legal for guidance on this, I'm imagining that the competitive assessment might be confined to mobile sports wagering operators. Sports wagering operators, am I wrong? The category three has the license, the current casino licensee are allowed to have a mobile, was it two mobile operators? No, I think two mobile operators. But they must be licensed as a category three, similar provision for one under the simulcast and horse racing. And then there's an additional seven, but there's a cap on the seven, which potentially could create the necessity for a competitive process. So, and so what you're thinking of is the criteria that we would employ in a procurement process of, let's say the field is, and you're gonna get input on this through your notice of intent. Let's say it's 15, and it makes sense to put a little down what criteria is important. Commissioners, I think it's, like Karen is suggesting, does she start with us? Does she start with her team? Do we, you know, lean to the team first? I guess it's important for us to be thinking individually what will be important. And I hear the five categories that were done for the casino gaming, they might be very different. They might be more nuanced, but I think it could be a combination of us having a conversation where the team comes to us with, you know, what do you think is important criteria? And then we weigh in with what we think, and maybe rather than us telling you without really full context of the benefit of your expertise. But that's my sort of thinking about the process. I turn to Commissioner O'Brien who has her audio off. So I think what would be helpful to follow up on the chair's comments, Karen, is putting in writing a general description of each of those categories in terms of what were the parameters of each of those five, seeing if they're transferable to this and if they're not, is there something else that's missing? So your point about the physical building itself may not be as relevant as maybe the strength of the platforms, you know, there might be another category that goes in there in low of the physical category. That might be a good jumping off point that then allows us to talk amongst ourselves and gives you further guidance in terms of where to go from there. What also might be helpful is we have the draft application that Jacqueline put together, which had the different sections with your non-competitive versus competitive process. So she has also identified some things in there. So cross-referencing all of that. I think would be a good exercise in the interim before we get back to the commission. Right, that'd be great. Thank you. It might be iterative too, Commissioner O'Brien, you agree, it might take a couple of meetings for us. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Hill, or Commissioner Maynard. In a vacuum, that's kind of a nuanced conversation, but I think as we get more and more guidance through memorandum public conversations, we'll be able to really forge forward. Commissioner Hill. As outlined by you, Madam Chair and Commissioner O'Brien, I think that's a nice jumping off point. So that would be fine with me. Okay, great. Commissioner Suminard, you're nodding your head. Just on the record that I agree. Okay, great. Commissioner Skinner. Yeah, unfortunately, I missed the majority of Karen's presentation. Everything after the notice of intent discussion, just dealing with a slight emergency as noted earlier. So I had to be in and out, but I will have the opportunity to review the presentation as it's recorded at a later date. Thank you, have any questions? Great. John? Yeah. Thank you. You can get caught up through me or through Karen. The good news is that what Karen is proposing is going to come to you. We're not deciding anything, but it is the process that she's outlining. So thank you. Second Director Wells, what do you have next? The next thing just somewhat of an obvious one is that the legal department is working on regulations and a schedule for regulations. We're gonna meet this afternoon to just go over that and cross-reference what we would need for licensure against what the schedule is for regulations with the legal department. Obviously, here are going to be many meetings bringing forward regulations in front of you and I know the team's hard at work. So I just wanna point that out. I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that that regulatory process is a backbone for how this is gonna work. So compliments to the team for all the work they've done already and very happy that they're getting going on this right now. Okay. Then the last thing, I just wanted to open it up because as I mentioned, given the open meeting a lot, this is the only opportunity to meet with the commission as a body. If there's any direction you'd like to give to me as the executive director or the staff, obviously you've all read the legislation independently. If there's anything you would like for your team here that is here to work for the implementation of sports wagers, anything that you can think of at this moment. And I'll continue to ask the same question. I just wanna have the opportunity to ask you, if there's anything you'd like me to do now, anything you consider a priority, anything that you would like happening that you have thought about when reading the legislation, let me know. There's certainly a lot going on behind the scenes as far as digesting the information in the statute and cross-referencing that with the work we've already done and we'll continue to do that. But I just didn't wanna end this conversation without at least putting out the opportunity for you to give me some direction here. Commissioners. I think I have a question more than a directive. And it's a two-part question in terms of timing for some of these things that are happening in terms of promulgating regulation, things of that sort. Now, this is in my own opinion and the way I read everything. So please correct me if I'm going in the wrong direction. As I see it, we have three licensees currently in Massachusetts that when I say automatically, meaning through the regulatory, it can come before us and get a license for a sports bed, as well as the two Simon Casting operations. So in terms of timing, are we addressing those facilities first and then dealing with the seven other licenses? Are we doing this all at the same time? I would think without knowing all the facts that we would want to get up and running as quick as possible, the five entities that are already here. But understanding that does that get us in trouble if we give them the M5 and then we take our time with the other seven? So I know there's a lot of questions that need to be answered, but despite my comments last week, Madam Chair, no one wants this to happen more than I do. It is as quickly as possible. I know, I know. But so what's, go ahead. I have had that conversation with Executive Director Wells and this is just my thought. And I know that Karen is working on, as I said earlier in my comments, a timeline and she's working with her team on exactly that issue. You did, I think, frame it right. And that's why, and I will get to this in more detail briefly, but we can say it now is that's why we are inviting for our first roundtable just our current licensees because they are positioned differently, right? So I think that there is a real question about who stands up first. And my recommendation, if it can work out with the team and their bandwidth and all of their workings is to kind of do it simultaneously where the team that is doing in person, the licensees that are doing in person, they can be stood up for retail, but at the same time working on the mobile operators because our current licensees are going to be very interested in the mobile app. And I think Karen, there is a question just for the commission, you know, if we stood up the mobile sports wagering operators that are attached to our licensees, do we want them to be in a position that might be ahead of the up to seven awards of licenses that we make? So there is an equity thing. So Karen, you've thought about this commissioners. I don't know if you want to add in before Karen answers but my inclination is that to the extent that there can be simultaneous work done with an ultimate goal at the end, that would be ideal rather than sequential. Karen, that's my opinion right now. And that's something that we had some conversations with our licensees is certainly a question. That may come up at these round tables that you have coming forward. And the question was, you know, will the commission want one launch date for everyone or will the commission want, you know, as companies or operators are ready, can they get going as they're ready as long as they're in compliance with the regulations? Will retail be able to be stood up before mobile sports vetting, either retail without the mobile app that's connected with the casinos or the casino and the mobile app before the other seven? These are some of the questions. And ultimately the commission has a lot of authority over this whole process given their broad discretion and powers. So I think, not to put it back on Commissioner Hill, but that's why we're having these conversations and this is actually really helpful to me because if there is a commission directive to do this, so there's one launch date, that's one thing. But there's also, I think what the chair might be getting at just because we may be able to implement retail faster because we've already are familiar with the company that has any kind of suitabilities, obviously much easier and they don't have that mobile component. That doesn't mean we would wait and do all the retail and then have that day X and then day X start on the mobile. I think the plan is a lot of this stuff, there's some synergy so we would move forward as we go and then it'll be up to the commission if an entity were ready to give them the green light, can they go ahead? That'll be your call, whether you're comfortable with that. And I think our round table that will be scheduled for next week may be really helpful on these issues because I'm not sure Karen too, if we really know what it's gonna take for the three licenses if they choose, right? We're making assumptions here, choose to do the retail. You know, what is their timeframe? They have a lot of work to get done too. I wanna turn it over now though to others for Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Maynard, do you have thoughts on this at this point? For sure. No, I think that your comment about trying to do parallel tracks if possible is where my thought process was. The reality on the ground is the established three brick and mortars have a leg up in all likelihood in terms of, the foundation to keep going. But that doesn't mean we don't work on the others but I do think you're gonna be, we do have the resources Karen as you pointed out to try to do this but there's a reality on the ground. So ideally you're doing parallel tracks but you also have the ability to get this to fruition into the market probably faster one way rather than the other. Commissioner, I'm sorry Karen, I can't hear you. I'm so sorry, that was me. Except for Director Wells. Try speaking again, Karen. Can you hear me? Yeah, you're just a little bit. Very soft, right? Maybe soft. I'm not muted. Oh, that's better. We can hear you but it's your volume now. And some of this, that's why that notice of intent is still helpful to me because if we're talking about 40 potential Africans, that's a lot different than if we're talking about five potential Africans. So I'll be more informed and then I'll be able to work on that with the commission a lot more efficiently once I have some additional information. Commissioner Skinner, I'll set for right now. Commissioner Maynard. Director Wells, I think that I made this point last week. I just wanna make sure that I know the legislature provided the funding and we're appreciative of that but I wanna make sure that IEB has the people power that they need to do some suitability and background checks because you are closer to that 40 number than that five number. I'm thinking about potential abilities to be expeditious on not just the front end which obviously we're thinking a lot about but also the back yet. And just wanna make sure that they have that and that's something that I would like the team to focus on from my perspective. And again, it's understand that universally helpful and we are looking at statewide, German office statewide contract list. There may be investigators at CPA firms things like that that can help us. So if we get a general idea what we're gonna need then we'll be able to do that but we are gonna need some additional help. I think that to do this efficiently we cannot just rely on the staff that we have now and if we waited and you wouldn't really even hire people for that sort of temporary bump in all this work. So that is the strategy we're using. We did use that when we did the casino licensees we, the commission went with two contract firms. You know, at the time I was the director of investigations enforcement and we had, I think I had a hundred investigators to do all of them. There's help out there and it's just a matter of the most efficient way to do the procurement. Great. One thought on that because that's such a critical point and I have had the benefit of speaking a little bit with the executive director Wells on this is that if there is a, let's say it's a wider field but let's make up the number of 20 interested perspective, mobile sports waging operators through a procurement process we couldn't maybe narrow down that field to a perspective, whatever number it is if it's what, you know, zero through six, seven, I'm sorry. Then if we have that field narrowed down then we could decide and work on suitability. And if, you know, and then rather than doing 20 to 40 if it's a large, large field suitability that they're never going to rise to the top seven then we haven't used unnecessarily, unnecessary resources or put perspective licensees through that process. So that's something for Karen to think about too as you lay out options Karen for the process and how it might work. But I think that notice of intent is I think it was you Jordan who said brilliant it's the smart move. Find out what the landscape is of interest. Karen, did you want to elaborate on that at all and then we'll move on. Yeah, I mean, I think that what the chair has described is basically the inverse of what we did with the RFA one and RFA two process for the casino. So really the ultimate vice to the commission has, you know, the options of doing them simultaneously and having suitability and sort of that RFA two or competitive process at the same time, doing one then the other to potentially narrow it down either by suitability first or through the evaluation process first. So these are also additional considerations and the commission has wide discretion on how they'd like to handle that. But once we get more informed on the universe of potential applicants you'll be in much better shape to make some decisions there. Okay. So then that's what I have for now. I just think I really want an open door that any questions or concerns or anything you'd like us to look at we will be happy to do so. And I'd like the idea of at the public meetings to agree to chime in and tell me things and that way you can have discussions among yourselves and get back to us on the direction that you'd like us to take. Any further questions on for Karen before we just move on quickly on to commission updates. Okay. I know we're closing in our time frame or well past what we expected but this has been a very helpful meeting. I just want to point out that next week the gaming commission will convene a public roundtable to continue discussing sports wagering legislation that now has been passed into law. August 18th, our team has been working with our current licensees to invite representatives from Encore Boston Harbor MGM Springfield, Plain Ridge Park Casino, Rainham Park and Suffolk Downs to join us and the MGC staff at the public meeting to discuss their plans for sports wagering. We're going to ask the representatives from these questions to be prepared to answer questions focusing on topics that they prioritize. I know that Karen you've already started to meet with them about those topics. It will help us frame our discussion to be efficient and productive. They may include consumer protection. They may include their security and operational issues. There's a wide range of topics. And as I mentioned last week, Commissioner O'Brien and I had the benefit of doing that with our COVID guideline developments and it was pretty efficient. She's nodding her head. We're going to also welcome these groups to pose questions to us as we prepare to launch our regulatory role. And then weeks and months ahead, we're going to plan on convening similar round tables with prospective sports betting operators that include that are aiming to offer as we discussed just now the digital and mobile sports wagering experience. We also have a round table as I mentioned last week on responsible gaming and advertising. And I think that's requires different stakeholders that we might touch on that with our licensees next week as well. And these meetings will all be publicly announced. Tom Mills is really working on a communications strategy so that we keep everyone informed. If you have any ideas, I know Tom welcomes that on that. And he would want me to stress that our meetings are all on our YouTube channel. They're streamed that way and that all materials are available on our website. He and Dave and Crystal are working with Burke on FAQs and other strategies to make sure we keep the public informed. But the 18th will be a really productive start on these important conversations with our licensees. And then I just want to add because I'm hearing Karen say how important it is for these conversations to be public. And this is the reality that we deal with. We have to do this publicly. And we just have to decide and make our licensees, prospective licensees comfortable with these conversations. We never seek to embarrass anyone. We're fair, we're rigorous regulators but we really do invite our stakeholders to participate in this open forum because that's really gonna be most efficient for us. With that said, I also want to note that I'll be working with Karen to my fellow commissioners to come up with the areas of sports wagering that we can break down somewhat into buckets for the lack of a better word where our involvement on an individual basis or maybe two because we can do that. We'll help Karen get commission perspective along the way as our team is working. We do that now in an informal way. I just want to be working with Karen to identify those areas. And it's important that all of us recognize that any individual involvement in this case won't be a substitute for the commission's collective and judgment and action down the road. But for instance, Commissioner Hill has been involved in community mitigation, has expressed his viewpoint along the way as we made important decisions as a commission. I imagine that for instance, down the road where Joe Delaney is involved on capital investment discussions and having commission involvement, whether it's one or two of us will give perspective that's really valuable to achieve Delaney. And I'm imagining that continued kind of involvement and Karen, I think it's very important for me to say that you welcome that and down the road will be important for us to share our perspectives as that we gained working with the team with recognition that the commission will still collectively make decisions and take actions. Does that make sense? But first we'll go back to the round table and then on the involvement down the road, just stay tuned as we work with Karen to be really, we want to be helpful and effective and efficient with our involvement. Commissioner's on the round table. Any questions? We've got Crystal and Mills is here or here and Burke probably is somewhere. They've been working on setting that round table up for next Thursday, my apologies. Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Maynard. Commissioner Skinner's looking all set. Commissioner Maynard, do you have any questions about that round table? Commissioner Hill's giving the thumbs up. All set. Commissioner O'Brien, do you have any questions or suggestions because you've got the experience of dealing with it? No, all set. Yeah, so that's next Thursday. What time, Crystal? Going to start our usual time right around 10. Okay, so around 10. And again, we thank our licensees for being so collaborative in this public forum. It's just how we work. Okay, anything else on commissioner update? Commissioner O'Brien, you mentioned the training that you did. Anything else besides our accolades and our responsible gaming that you want to share? No, just thoughts. And I mentioned this to Karen already. Thoughts on when you're talking about licensing, vending, vending, registration suitability, that sort of thing. And I'm going to comment of how third-party marketers are potentially used to push out and get, and there's different ways of compensation which may affect how they might be treated in terms of licensing or a vetting. So I had a quick conversation with Karen about that in terms of, you know, some get a percentage of revenue that comes in with that client, some get a flat fee. It reminded me of the junket regs that we used to have that kind of concept. And so that's something I think, I've already heard of that, that I think it's something I'd like to know more about. We can talk to the licensees about that too, because that might go into some of the regs we need to write. Very helpful. So we mentioned that maybe the vendor licensing process might come up next week. So can you keep that point in mind? Maybe let the licensees know in advance, Karen, so that they have a little bit of detail on that. Excellent, thank you. Anything else, commissioners? Okay, a long meeting. I know we do have another briefing, a silent briefing to our legal department. It was scheduled for right now, but we need lunch and a break. I think, Crystal, you were recommending that maybe we condense it a little bit to a one and a half out silent briefing and start at two with that work for our legal team and with that work for my fellow commissioners. Everybody? I'm asking for a 210 if that's all right. I don't give it to you. If I have any say in it. We're at 135 now, and I wanna run out and get something quick. Yeah, I second that one. Okay, so we would start around 210, legal team, and we should be able to get it done before even 330 maybe, right, Todd? I'm gonna shut, absolutely. Well, because we must be silent. So that helps you out. That's a starting, a starting. And you're laughing. Oh dear. All right, then what we need so we can get to lunch is a motion to adjourn and I appreciate everybody's input today. Thank you. Move to adjourn. Thanks. All righty, commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. And commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. Thank you everyone. Thank you to the entire team and all those who have contributed from the outside. Appreciate it.