 Chair Dodd-Stein is attending to a medical matter with her husband this morning, but she does plan to join us as soon as she's able, whether that's going to be by phone or as soon as she can get to her laptop. In the interim, Commissioner Maynard was asked to chair in her absence, so I'm going to hand the meeting over to you, Commissioner Maynard. Thank you. Thank you, Crystal. Good morning all. We are live, correct? Yes, we are. We are convening this meeting using virtual connectivity. We apologize for the delay. Use of this technology is intended to ensure then adequate alternative means of public access to commissions deliberations for any interested member of the public. If there's any technical problem, which we've already started out with this morning once, with the remote connection, an alternative conference line will be noticed immediately on the website and on our social media pages. Because we are convening this meeting using a virtual platform, I will now conduct a roll call. Good morning, Commissioner O'Brien. Good morning. I'm here. Commissioner Hill. Good morning. I'm here. And Commissioner Skinner. Good morning. I'm here. And Chair Jett Stein, are you... I'll now call this meeting to order. Today is November 10th, 2022. This is the meeting of a meeting of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. And notably, it's public meeting number 400. Moving on with the business, Commissioner Hill, I believe we don't have any minutes for today. No, we're all set for today. Thank you, though. Are you okay with me? Moving on to the first item on the agenda. Yes. All right. I'll now turn to Executive Director Wells. Do you have an administrative update for us? Yes. Good morning. So we have two items. Administrative update. I'm sorry to interrupt everybody. All right. So it looks like we're streaming on my end, but when we're all going to the live area, nothing is displaying through here. So I just don't want us to continue to not have this. That was a really good drive run. Yeah. I mean, everything sounded so great at the start. I really thought we had it. Yeah. I was just getting some messages. I think it's safest to just record. Yeah, because it's even saying that it's connected and rolling, but then when you go on the live page, it's like, oh, it's going to start. So I'm going to start with an apology and acknowledgement that we're doing this only be at home. Okay. I'll meet. I'll work with Crystal and put a notice up on the website and social media to direct people. And I think if we're going to do, if we're going to record, do we have to start over? I think we would want to get the roll call on. I think so. I think that's right. And also we can keep trying. And if this ends up a live stream at a later date, I think a later time, I think that is fine. I don't think we can record and live stream though. I believe you can. You can do both. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. Um, let us know when we're recording and We are now recording. Okay. Thank you. So for anyone who is just joining chair Judd Stein is a medical matter with her husband this morning. She will join us as soon as she's able. And in the interim, she has asked commissioner may turn to chair this meeting until she's able to return. Thank you. Thank you, Crystal. Good morning. We are convening this meeting. Using telephone line and also recording it. We apologize for any inconvenience that that may cause. We are having technical difficulties with the streaming service this morning. Because we're convening this meeting using virtual beans and telephone. I will conduct a roll call. Good morning, commissioner O'Brien. I am still here. Commissioner Hill. As am I. Commissioner Skinner. Morning again. I'm here. Good morning. And chair Judd Stein. Okay. We'll call this meeting to order today is November 10, 2022. This is a meeting of the Massachusetts gaming commission. And notably it's meeting number 400. Commissioner Hill, I believe we have no minutes for today. Correct. Also. All right. So we're going to turn to executive director Wells executive director. Do you have an administrative update for us? Yes. Good morning, commissioners. We have two items on the agenda for the administrative update. The first one I'm going to turn it over to David Meldrew, our chief people and diversity officer just to discuss the vacation and carryover policy. Thank you, David. Good morning. Thank you, executive director. Good morning, commissioners. Regarding the vacation rollover. First, we built down and we obtained the following information. Currently, MGC is following the Commonwealth's rollover policy. I mean, there will be, and there is a December cut off for the user to lose it for vacation. So that will occur. So we're going to be in April, but if there is one scheduled in December, our research shows there is not anyone in an MGC any employee that is in danger of losing their vacation or personal time as of yet. However, our reports from HRD stop in October. So we still have November and December. We're not going to be monitoring this, but as of right now, there was no any, any danger of losing a vacation. So right now it's pending. We may want to consider a recommendation of extending this possibly to June, but not having all that information. This is where we stand now. And we'll continue to monitor. Thank you, Dave. Any questions from any of the commissioners on that? Given what we're asking people to do between now and the end of the year. What presumptions are you putting in there in terms of saying nobody's at risk of losing anything. I think what they do, they tabulated by projecting the usage of each person. And as I'm yet based on how folks have been using their vacation. We're not any danger, but things could come up. There are no guarantees. Something could come up. That's why we're monitoring it closely. With the schedule we're asking staff to take particularly Thanksgiving Christmas week I can see people being some people getting into trouble with losing stuff. Just for more I standpoint, I don't think somebody should be in that situation, but I'm glad to know you're monitoring it. No, absolutely. I agree 100%. And I don't want to put anyone into that situation whether we whether it's coming down the pike or not. So hopefully I can come back with better information as a deliverable. For November's report and make a recommendation request recommendation to the commission. So there will be a right day. There will be an update. Yes. Commissioner Skinner. I'm just curious to know what the Commonwealth policy is around you use it or is it time. The policy is folks are allowed to you before I say that I'd like to check on that. I'm not quite sure of the amount. I'm sorry I don't have that information but I'd like to check on that and get back to you on that as to what the exact amount is of what can be lost. I don't want to speculate. Okay, but surely there's a baseline if we reviewed people's time and we're able to determine that no one's at risk there has to be a baseline what can be lost. I'll identify that baseline and be able to get back to you on that. Okay, thank you. The reason Dave's pausing is because historically it's two weeks but last year they extended it a little more so I think what Dave wants to check to see is if they've enabled those additional 37 and a half hours on top of two years so two years of whatever you're allowed to accrue, you can carry forward but then they allowed an additional 37 and a half hours on top of that last year. I'd like to see if that's in those baseline reports and they're extending that or if it's just back to the two years of what you currently have. What can currently accrue. Thank you Derek. In none of the personal time carries over so you want to make sure you use that before the end of the year. Any other questions. The next item I'll turn over to Derek that's the F 123 Q1 budget update. Thank you Derek. Thank you. Good morning chair and commissioners. I'm joined today by Douglas O'Donnell and John Scully. And we are here to provide you with the first quarterly budget update for the gaming control fund. The Massachusetts gaming commission approved a FY 23 budget for the gaming control fund of 35.7 million composed of 29.34 million and regulatory costs and 6.36 and statutorily required costs. The control fund required an initial assessment of 29.3 million on licensees. After balancing forward 1.84 million from FY 22 in correcting for an overstatement of revenues which I'll get into a little bit later of $1.2 million. The assessment is reduced down by 600 and 638,000 approximately to 29.88 million. As a quarterly update staff is recommending increasing spending control fund projections of by 213 points 213,000 of the increased amount 32,000 is for invoices for the independent monitor received and paid in the first quarter. The independent monitor historically is revenue neutral. So as the expenses come in we bill for the for the revenue for from on car Boston Harbor. We're also increasing parallel estimates and fringe estimates by 181,000 in March in April and in March April and May of fiscal year 2022 the commission underwent a thorough review of our salary structure. In addition to the review we made adjustments to salaries for positions to better align with other Commonwealth agencies and quasi governmental agencies while acknowledging we want to provide a great place to work. The adjustments went into effect in late June of 2022 and therefore we're not included in the FY 23 budget projections. To us bad news to a lot of our divisions, we've experienced a high turnover rate in the agency, and we've already made up for all but 127,000 of the salary restructuring cost. Therefore we're not recommending addressing the assessment for this current shortfall in preparation for our monthly web postings and this meeting it became evident that I made a mistake in revenue projections. Since the inception of the independent monitor we did not budget or budget the expenses or the revenues in our annual budgeting process and we only recognize both expenses and revenues as actual costs were incurred. This year and preparing for this for the budget we developed two options to review with the licensees one to budget for it so that our budgets weren't constantly increasing in a second that would just do it the status quo. The ultimate decision was to continue doing it the way we did so that encore is solely responsible and it's not built into the assessment. However, my mistake was I took out the expenses but not the projected revenue to correct this mistake we've to decrease the independent monitor projected revenue to match the actual costs through 930 2022 and increase the assessment by $1.2 million to balance the budget. The combination of the $1.8 million balance forward from FY 22 and the increase of $1.2 million in the assessment is an overall decrease of $638,000 in the assessment. The, all of the changes discussed here, which are hard to walk through are actually laid out in tables on page two of the memo. We are not increasing spending projections. We are increasing spending projections as detailed in the memo but we are not recommending increasing the assessment, as we do believe we can make up the difference over the next three quarters. The mind was still tracking, you know, our litigation costs, as well as our mass state police overtime costs, mass state police is also experiencing high turnover rates, and we're actually projecting an under spending overall for them right now because they have had small increases in overtime, but they're averaging over 60 to $70,000 and savings on straight time every month. And that concludes the presentation, like to apologize for the $1.2 million error. That is something that we don't like to carry forward but the good news is we had 1.8 balancing forward from last year so it's not dipping deeper into the licensees pocket this year. Thank you Chief Lennon. Hello commissioners, do we have any questions? Seeing none, Karen. That's it for the administrative update. Thank you very much. Thank you for the updates. We appreciate it. We are going to move on to agenda item number two. Good morning, Director Vanderlinden. You have a report for us today. Could you please introduce our guests and set the stage for us. I certainly will thank you. Thank you commissioners. Good morning everybody. I'm joined this morning by Rebecca Lovelin, who is a senior research manager and Kazmira Brits, I'm sorry, who is a research analyst in the Economic and Policy Research Group at the UMass Donahue Institute. This morning they're going to present to you the Encore Boston Harbor new employee survey report. So before I turn it over to Cassie and Becky, let me just kind of set the stage a little bit. So the Expanded Gaming Act was created to provide avenues for the creation of new jobs, revenue, and economic growth in the state. Through the MGC's Economic Research Agenda, we strive to understand to what degree these goals are being met and what the impact has been on the people of the Commonwealth. The report being released today by the Social and Economic Impacts of Gaming and Massachusetts team provides information about the jobs created by Encore Boston Harbor before it opened in January 2019 until December of 2021. More importantly, this report paints a picture of the people seeking jobs in this new industry. Analysis shows that casino employment has been serving several purposes for the Commonwealth's workers, including those who have been under-employed, younger workers, women, and workers of color. For many, casino employment is a way to leverage existing experience in other fields such as the food, retail, or hospitality industries and continue a career with the potential for growth. Casino hires also include the unemployed, new workers joining the workforce for the first time, retired individuals, and some workers needing non-traditional hours. The Encore Boston Harbor New Employees Survey follows identical surveys that were completed at the other two Massachusetts casinos, MGM Springfield, that report was released in October of 2020, and Plain Ridge Park Casino, and that report was released in June of 2019. So with that, I'm very pleased to turn it over to Rebecca and Cassie. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mark. I'll get the slides started here first. Can everybody see that? Yes, we can see that. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. And good morning to the Commission and others in this meeting. My colleague Cassie and I are here today from the Social and Economic Impacts of Ambling in Massachusetts Project, or SIGMA. Today, we will provide a summary of our analysis of a recent survey of new employees, new hires at Encore Boston Harbor. Next slide. Since 2013, our team at the UMass Donahue Institute has monitored and reported on the economic and fiscal impacts of expanded gaming in Massachusetts as part of the larger SIGMA project. We obtained data in a number of areas to analyze and report on conditions at the Commonwealth's three casinos. Examples of recent topics we have covered include economic impact assessments of construction phases and regular operations, considering other types of impacts, for example, on the state lottery and on things like community real estate. Some of these are special topics including pandemic impacts on the casino industry, and as in this presentation, using survey data collected from newly hired employees to characterize and analyze the casino workforce and the jobs the industry offers workers. Next slide. Data collection activities are a regular part of the SIGMA project. Project activities like the patron survey involves primary data collection by the SIGMA team. Others involve using secondary data collected and provided by the MGC. For example, administrative data collected from operators, and in this project, data from surveys of new employees at each of the three casinos. The purpose of the new employee survey and studies of its output is to provide a better understanding of the workers themselves and how casino jobs fulfill worker needs and the broader goals of the legislation. The survey provides unique information, particularly about past employment experiences and other background information about workers hired by casinos. This presentation summarizes findings about new workers hired by EVH during its first three years of operation from start-up hiring in January 2019 through December 2021. The survey is given to newly hired workers as they are completing their final paperwork. All employees hired between January 2019 and December 2021 were invited to take the survey, but not all employees participated. The survey asks 55 questions, including about the workers place of residence, past work experience, and in which industry sectors, as well as demographic information and aspirations for casino work. Next slide. Of the more than 3,000 workers who responded to the survey, 86% provided usable complete responses. This group represents 37% of the total workforce hired by EVH over the same period. Although a subset, our analysis found that survey respondents were closely representative of the total workforce hired by EVH during the survey period. This allows us to generalize from the survey findings to workers as a whole. Related to the overall response rate, we do note that survey distribution was disrupted for a spell during the pandemic, during shutdown periods, however, hiring during that time was minimal. Next slide. What did we find? For our survey of EVH new hires, we analyzed survey data in three areas. We assessed new worker demographics, and we found that EVH had hired a highly diverse set of workers, made up of people of color, local and longer term Massachusetts residents, and the workers included a large proportion of people born outside the US. We also assessed opportunities related to casino work. We found that EVH has offered many of its workers improved pay, benefits and full time work, compared to their past work experiences. And finally, we looked at aspects of diversity. To start with, EVH has met and exceeded its hiring goals for minorities, veterans and locals, but fall short of its goal for female workers. The infographic at the bottom of this slide speaks to the diversity of the workers who responded to the survey. You can compare the dark gray bars representing survey proportions, and the light blue bars representing proportions of all workers hired to see that the demographics of survey workers are very similar to the demographics of the entire group of workers hired during the study period. This next section reviews some high level findings about EVH workers from the survey. Survey tells us that new hires at EVH were mostly existing Massachusetts residents at the time of hire, and a large majority of workers were local, living within 30 miles of the casino. 57% were male and 65% were people of color in line with the administrative data from EVH. Worker demographics were similar to the demographics of the host and surrounding communities, and we know that many of the new workers were from those places. Some of them came from diverse work backgrounds and industries, and some were hired while unemployed or working multiple part-time jobs, which is our definition of under-employment in this particular study. Next slide. This map illustrates the towns where employees lived at time of hire, color graded to show the number of respondents from each. Survey data show that 86% of workers lived in Massachusetts communities at time of hire. This was the highest proportion across Massachusetts casinos that we found in this survey. Reflective of EVH's hiring goals, 83% of surveyed workers resided within 30 miles of the casino at time of hire. Nearly half or 48% of new employee hires were from host and surrounding communities. The survey also shows that nearly 80% of workers hired had lived in Massachusetts for at least one year before they were hired by the casino. The other 21% moved to the state less than one year before hiring. EVH is similar to what we see in the casino's administrative data. People of color made up 65% of workers survey, and with the largest groups being Hispanic or Latino workers, Asian workers, and Black or African American workers. 53% of workers of color lived in host or surrounding communities at time of hire. And the workforce is mostly male and similar proportions to what we see in the MGM and PPC work courses. Next slide. EVH's goal to hire local workers has led worker demographics to be very similar to the communities in the immediate vicinity. Some of the demographic characteristics are very similar to the population of the city of Everett. For example, 43% of surveyed workers were born outside the US, the same proportion as in Everett. Nearly two thirds of workers hired had less than a college degree, slightly less than the proportion of the population in Everett. Workers, however, were also less white and more Asian than the population of the city of Everett. For example, the Asian population in Everett is 8%, whereas 20% of new hires at EVH were Asian. Also, the survey shows us that workers had diverse work backgrounds and industry experiences with large numbers from the food services industry, accommodations, retail and security services. At the same time, 15% of workers surveyed came directly from jobs in the casino industry. Finally, a small number of workers were hired into their first job, and 7% of new hires were previously unemployed or under employed. This next section reviews findings on the job opportunities offered by EVH from the perspective of the surveyed workers, and Cassie will be covering the findings. Thank you, Becky. So as Becky just described, our survey captured quite a diverse group of new employees hired at EVH. And in this next section, I'll be talking about the ways in which EVH has created improved work opportunities for these workers. In our analysis, we compared details about workers' previous jobs to their new job at the casino to understand the ways in which EVH has created improved work outcomes for its employees. What we found was that EVH created opportunities for stable and flexible work by creating a lot of full-time jobs with low barriers to entry. They offered the potential for increased pay and improved benefits evidenced in the percentage of workers who expect to earn more than they did in their previous jobs. EVH offers training in a number of casino departments, which many respondents are looking forward to completing to advance their careers in the casino industry. And finally, after taking a close look at a couple of historically disadvantaged groups, we found that EVH has offered improved and equal opportunities to minorities, women and the unemployed. Of the about 2,700 respondents that we surveyed, EVH offered full-time jobs to a large majority of them. If you take a look at this donut graph, the gray section here represents those who previously held a full-time position, which is about 70% versus at the casino, there's actually about 80% and during full-time positions. Some of those who previously had multiple jobs were able to find multiple jobs at EVH as well, giving workers the possibility of flexible work schedules. Previously unemployed workers fared particularly well with 86% finding full-time positions. Since casino jobs don't typically require a college degree and certain categories of employees are exempt from the casino's background check, this increases the accessibility of casino employment and creates a low barrier for entry for people who might not otherwise be able to find stable work. Looking at increased pay, this bar chart shows the proportions of workers who made more the same or less than they earned in their previous jobs. The majority of workers say that they'll be earning more income at the casino right here at this 41%, followed by 29% who expect to earn the same and a slightly higher population of 30% who expect to earn less. The population who expect to earn less, however, also reported a higher likelihood of earning tips at the casino at about half, which is a higher proportion than for workers who made more or the same amount as they did at their previous jobs. This tells us that the incentive to earn tips could counterbalance the lower pay in the casino. In our analysis, we looked at the benefits packages each employee received at their previous job as well as at the casino. And we found that EBH was offering some type of benefits package to the vast majority of its workers at 91%. The graph on the left here shows the number of respondents who retained the same type of benefits from a previous job in red, those who are newly receiving a type of benefit at the casino in Maroon. And those who do not receive it all in blue. Most of these workers who didn't receive benefits were part-time workers. As you can see in the Maroon here, there's a substantial number of workers who expect to gain at least one new benefit, with 23% expecting to gain paid time off, 26% expecting to gain healthcare benefits, and 29% who expect to gain retirement benefits. Most new casino workers, or 80% to be exact, are entering the casino industry for the first time. A large number are looking to create careers in the industry, with 94% of respondents expressing some level of interest for a career at the casino, and 65% who chose this job looking for the opportunity of career advancement. EBH offers training in a number of departments from which the plurality of workers expressed interest in casino operations training. This indicates that EBH offers jobs with pathways to advance careers in the casino industry. Taking a closer look at these historically disadvantaged groups, we found that EBH has offered improved and equal opportunities to minorities or people of color, women, and the un- and underemployed. In our analysis, we compared subsets of these three groups to the survey sample as a whole to assess the rates at which they reap the same benefits such as the full-time jobs or benefits or higher pay as their white, male, and previously employed counterparts. What we found was relative parity across demographic groups among those who wanted a full-time job. Male or white employees reported very slightly higher rates of full-time employment, while female or Asian workers had slightly lower rates. Black and Hispanic workers had proportional shares of full-time jobs for those who saw them. We also found that over 41% of people of color and women respondents reported that they are expecting to make higher salaries than in their most recent job, proportional to the survey population. Women, unemployed and underemployed workers and minority workers expect to gain or retain benefits at rates that are proportional to that of the survey sample. In the next few slides here, detail these findings for each group. For people of color, we found that they gain access to higher income at slightly higher rates than in the survey sample as a whole, and there are slightly fewer folks in this group who expect to earn less. So in the survey sample as a whole, this number for the higher range is 41%, and the lower range is 30%. People of color wanted full-time jobs or who wanted full-time jobs, attained them at the same rates as the survey sample with only 0.3% more who did not get a full-time job and wanted it. As a group, they gained access to benefits they didn't previously have in proportional ways to the survey respondents, though people of color are slightly less likely to receive retirement benefits than the survey sample as a whole, according to our calculations. Looking now at women, we found that they gained access to higher income at higher rates than the survey sample as a whole, looking at 48% here compared to 41%, and slightly fewer folks in this group expect to earn less. Women who wanted full-time jobs, attained them at slightly lower rates than the survey sample at 80% here versus 83%. And there was also a higher percentage of women who didn't want full-time physicians to begin with at 7.5 compared to the samples 5.2. As a group, they gained access to benefits they didn't previously have in ways that were proportional to the survey respondents as a whole, though women are less likely to receive any type of benefit according to our calculations. For those who are on and underemployed, we found that they gained access to higher income at lower rates than the survey sample as a whole, here at 36% versus 41%, and slightly fewer folks in this group expect to earn less at 27% versus 29%. We also see in this group more folks expecting to earn the same income range than any other group here at 35% versus 29% for the whole. On and underemployed people who wanted full-time jobs, attained them at slightly higher rates than the survey sample with only 9.3% who did not get full-time jobs and wanted it compared to 12% of the sample. As a group, they gained access to benefits they didn't previously have at rates higher than the survey respondents as a whole, though the percentage who kept their benefits is lower, which is likely because some of these people were unemployed and did not have previous benefits. Looking at these blue bars, though, they aren't any less likely to get benefits than the survey sample as a whole. And that wraps up the findings of our study. To recap, the data show that UBH has hired a diverse pool of local workers, the majority of which are people of color and living within 30 miles of the casino when they were hired. Almost half of the respondents were born outside of the US, and two-thirds have educational attainment less than a college degree, similar to that of the host community ever. A large number of these workers attained the stability of full-time or the flexibility of multiple jobs while seeing an increase in pay and greater access to benefits. From that, we can conclude that UBH's hiring goals have been attainable, given that UBH has met or exceeded most of these goals. It shows that prioritizing this level of diversity and local investment has positive impacts on the host and surrounding community workers, supporting the MGC's goal of creating jobs, revenue and economic growth in the state. And I will pass it off to Becky just before we wrap up. Thank you, Tassie. So as a final note, Sigma's next steps related to the study of casino employment include continued use of the survey data being collected from new employee hires at the casinos. We will also do further work to study jobs and employment impacts within the industry. This includes an upcoming report assessing job quality, including occupational advancement within casino jobs, questions about living wages, job retention, and other topics. So this concludes our presentation about our latest report. The full report will be released by the MGC and posted online after this meeting on the Sigma project research page. Questions about the research. If anyone has a question they would like to ask. Thank you, Becky. And thank you, Cassie. Director Vanderbinden. Do you have anything to add before I move? No, I didn't. Thank you. I'm going to try to get my grid view here. Oh, there we go. Commissioners, any comments or questions? Commissioner Skinner. Commissioner, I'm going to yield to Commissioner Hill. He had his hand up first. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. First of all, excellent, excellent report as you always have done and we appreciate all the hard work that goes into these studies. It was a great one and we appreciate you coming before us today. The only question I have and it's something that kept coming up a red flag, if you will, is the goals of not meeting with the female workers at EPH. And the only question I have is I think during some of the reports that we've gotten over the last few months is due to COVID and reintroducing food services in the restaurant industry. Are you starting to see where those numbers might be starting to increase now that some of those restaurants are reopening or have worked really hard to bring in females into that industry? Are you seeing something different than what the report showing from this point on? That's a really good question. We are working on the data now to look at that question. We had a report that was released last spring on COVID impacts on employment in the industry and we're doing a follow-up look at what's happened during the recovery from the pandemic shutdowns and all of the industry issues that you're mentioning. So we will be looking at women in the workforce across the entire casino industry in Massachusetts, as well as individually in the casinos. But yes, that will be a topic we'll be using operator data for. Excellent. Well, I look forward to those further discussions and again the reports excellent and a great job. Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Skinner. Good morning, Cassie and Becky. First, I want to echo Commissioner Hill's comments around the excellent research that is always produced out of the Sigma team. Much appreciate appreciation for your time and efforts. I'm not sure who to direct this comment to. I think perhaps Mark. I mean, it's clear that the job growth that has come out of the casino industry, particularly on court, because that's what we're discussing today has been significant. There's always in my mind some additional work that needs to be done to get the numbers where I think we all would like to see them. How far off are these findings from what was originally expected during the application review process, not having been around then. We're pretty close to what, you know, I guess what was promised what folks saw in the application as projections on these numbers. Can you kind of compare and contrast the again the, you know, what the expectation was at the time. And what you actually found during your research. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. I believe there's an early slide that talks about what the projections were of what the operator was projecting versus came in. Is that, is that the nature of your question. It is the nature of my question and I obviously missed that slide. Okay. Becky or Cassie, Becky, you, you kind of covered that piece, I believe. I think there's one on the bar chart slide. Cassie, can you find that I think it's actually there's one on the last page as well that we could look at. But Commissioner Skinner, just in terms of numbers quantity of employees across the board. I believe the estimates, the projections were were dramatically impacted by the COVID pandemic and the shutdowns that had to that were required during that time. And there was recovery to, and this is in our report that we released last spring on COVID impacts but employment recovery has as of that study had not reached the, the heights of where the employment base was before the pandemic. So, at that time, we were under what the projections were originally for overall employment. So, were you, were you asking more about, about hiring goals of particular population groups, something along those lines just in terms of, you know, whether, whether seeing, I'm carrying an echo, sorry, I don't know if it's my connection or not, but along the lines of you know what we're seeing what you've seen and found in your research, whether that's kind of on par with what the expectations were originally when I guess the operator was considered as a, as a. Yeah, yeah. This bar chart shows, in particular, bbh's goals, and our analysis of all total hiring over the course of the, from January 2019 through December 2021 so the whole pool of employees that were hired by ebh ended up being 64% in minority and our survey found was 65%. But the light blue bar shows what the actual numbers of of hires were. Now this is different from the percentages that crystals annual report reports on, because this is all hires this doesn't speak to retention or an annual count. Cross all hiring. So the encore Boston Harbor goals. Actually all the casinos exceed their minority hiring goals. So all the casinos I'm looking at crystals report have exceeded or met their veteran hiring goals, but the women hiring goals continue to fall short across all. It's an issue for for all of the casinos, according to the latest MGC annual report. Thank you, Becky. That's that's good information. Thank you for the context was just looking for I think that I think the numbers are good, but was just looking for something to compare them to. Thank you Commissioner Skinner. Commissioner Brian, do you have anything you want to add. My question for you guys is thank you for the information. One of the things I'm trying to call out of this is whether you can differentiate management hires from hourly whether this was just hourly and can you break down at all. The impact and the hiring representation, particularly for women in management opportunities because in addition to them not meeting the marks on the women we've had an issue with bringing in and or promoting from within and some have done better than others and so I'm curious in particular in this report whether you can provide any insights on that. I can take this one Becky. So we certainly can look at, we do ask about hourly and salary status. And in our operator data we get information about the departments that they're in which we're taking a close look at for this upcoming report, so that we can do that kind of analysis and look at. I mean, they've got good numbers for people of color for veterans, almost there for women but what does that look like for these higher positions, that's something we're definitely going to be looking into, we do have the ability to. And I ask in particular because the fact that more wanted full time and then got it was also something that struck me when you're struggling with numbers why you would not be reaching to satisfy when people are looking to get an FTE slot as opposed to a part time. Commissioner O'Brien, the gaming policy advisory committee, it's kind of a similar issue that is a question that's come up through that committee over the past couple years. It's not just what you know who's getting the jobs, it's really what is the quality of the jobs, what's the opportunity for advancement, where is the pay is a full time, what are the benefits and really doing a deeper dive on that and I believe that's that's the kind of this follow up report looking at some of the same data. Great. Great. Thank you very much. Commissioner Brian, I do have a few comments. First of all, I can Cassie I know how hard it is to get someone to respond to a survey. And so I appreciate the work that you do on that front. My fellow commissioners share the same concern about making sure that that gender balance is corrected that everyone is intentional. And all the licensees are intentional on that and I can see really positive patterns and really positive signs. It struck me that one of the conclusions was that, you know, a majority of folks that were surveyed do believe they have a better job than they had before, and they do believe there's room to move up. And that was really, really encouraging. I think that, you know, we are as every, I've heard every commissioner say in meetings were really rigorous regulators, but we're also, we have a mission in 23 K and workforce development is part of that mission. And so I look at this and I see a story and that story is, we're better than we thought we would be. And that there's a path forward to do it. So, I will compliment the licensee and working towards those goals, while still hoping that when we're having this meeting in the future, the goals are exceeded. That's all I have for that anyone else before we move on. Okay. I'm now going to turn to the next time on the agenda. I believe it's Chief Delaney. Good morning, Chief Delaney. Thank you, Mr. Chair and commissioners. So today we have a couple of items before you the first item is the Plain Ridge Park casino third quarter report. And we've got with us, North Brown, so Heidi Yates, Agrabah, Kathy Lucas, and of course, Lisa McKenney as well. I guess with that, I will turn things right over to North. Great. Thanks so much Joe, if you'll give me just a minute, I'm going to get my slide show ready to share. All right, I think we're ready. Good morning, Commissioner Maynard, other commissioners. Plain Ridge Park is pleased to present our Q3 2022 report. As Joe pointed out, joining me today are Heidi Yates, Agrabah, our VP of finance, and Kathy Lucas, our vice president of HR. I'm going to hand it over to Heidi and she's going to walk you through the financial details. Good morning commissioners. As you can see in Q3 of 2022 we've performed in very similar patterns to Q2 of 2022 with net slot revenues of 36.6 million state taxes of 14.6, race tax of 3.2, and overall 17.9. It's a slight decrease to how we performed in Q3 of 2021, just due to some unrepeated softening in the market that we had in August of 2022. Our lottery sales are at 529,000. As you can see, prior year same quarter was 582,981. It is a decline of 53,684 to prior year. There is no rhyme or reason or pattern to this. It's just a decline in year over year sales. So our total qualified spend by state is 1,588,000 of which 961,000 was spent in the Commonwealth, 627 outside of announced states outside. To your point, Commissioner O'Brien when asked last on our last quarter presentation, prior year same quarter we had spent 550,000. This is an increase of 411,000 year over year. Of that 961,400 excuse me 46,684 was spent in our host and surrounding communities, the lion's share of that being spent in our host community of Plainville, and then rent them North Attleboro and Foxboro following behind. I know oftentimes commissioners you mentioned certain slides and information that is your favorite. This happens to be my favorite slide. I think the vendor diversity is an important goal for us to meet which you can see that we have in q3. Our goal is 21 we surpassed that goal in q3 29 and we did that by maintaining our spend with women owned business, exceeding the minority spend by 2% and then the veteran spend by 6% we were able to order award a project to a veteran owned business which we were pleased to do. We held this equates to the graph that was just previously presented, women owned is over in spend to 2022, but q2 of 2022 excuse me by 46,006 or 24.48%. The minority spend is up to prior quarter by 51005 or 432 veteran is up to prior quarter on 93,002 or 62.54%. And you can also see the increase in total diverse spend which is up 191,000 or almost 42%. And the total qualified spend mentioned before which is 1.5 million and 513,000 up to prior quarter. You know we're always pleased and honored to support our host and surrounding communities and continue to support our diversity vendors as well. Great, thanks Heidi so on the compliance side, the property prevented 222 individuals from entering the gaming establishment of that group 13 were minors 63 were underage and 143 had expired invalid or no identification. There was one minor who was escorted from the gaming area and three instances of minors who are underage and gambling at the slot machines. There were no instances of alcohol being served to underage persons. I'll pass it to Kathy and she'll take you. Before you leave this side, can you just talk to me about how long the the shortest and longest in terms of being on the slots for was yep shortest shortest one was around nine minutes and 50 seconds commissioner, and on the longest one. They were in there for over. Over a couple hours I believe there's a group of them that got in together. They were not caught for a little bit of time. And based on either invalid or fake ID, they. I'll have to read the report in more detail but this is some folks who appears that we did not challenge them at the entrance they got on to the floor and were there for a while and then were identified by a team member who was on the floor. That's off to the team member. Good morning commissioners will talk about our employment slides right now. During quarter three, we had 364 team members. If you look at our goals here we continue to exceed our diversity goal of 15% in Q3 with 24% of our team members being diverse. So we exceeded our veterans goal of 2% in Q3 we had 5% of our team members as veterans will recognize them tomorrow and a wonderful ceremony we have planned for them in Q3 43% of our team members were women, they were that's under our goal of 50%. We just wanted to share that prior to COVID when we're in full operation Q4 2020. We had 53% of our team members as female and in Q3 of 2021, we were at 40%. We're excited about getting back to full operations. We're projecting. As we open our new units, we will have 50% of that management team female and then 75% of that support team female for the casual restaurant and as we bring back banquet over the next six months. So we'll be continuing to focus on that I'll share a little more as we talk about the supervisor side on the next slide, but also in Q3, our local team members were at 35%, meaning that goal. You're aware that that area includes Attenborough, Foxborough, Mansfield, North Attenborough, Plainville and Rentham. We have 240 team members that were full time that's like 66% 124 that were 34% that were part time. Let's go to the next slide. So I'll share a couple of things that are important for us. You'll see that 21% of our team members identify as diverse. Our women and 26, I'm sorry, three percent are veterans and 26% are women on the supervisor and above side for us. With that last month I shared a couple of the development programs we had one, the emerging leaders program which is specifically for our hourly team members. We launched that a couple of months ago and we're in the process of graduating those team members at the end of the month. We had 10 slots for team members to participate in the program that was in person and virtual development with presentations from our local team and then also from our corporate team. The 10 slots we had nine invitations and then 18 members that were actually in the program of those 18 members. Five are women and we're super excited that we potentially have the ability to look at opportunities for all five with specifically promoting at least for them in the short term. The next programs that we're working on you'll see there are the diversity series. We have three courses required for all of our team members to complete those include understanding diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging, and then understanding unconscious bias, belonging and allyship builds on those first two. And then we also have a series of programs for our management team, which is level to diversity and inclusion for belonging specifically for the managers, you know, we understand our business is diverse with a customer presentation and a team member base that's diverse so we believe strongly that diverse teams perform better are more innovative, and then also nimbler with that will go to the next slide. So in the next two slides I'll share what we've been doing around pen and plain ridge community initiatives in q3. We were able to support two organizations that align with our commitment to local diversity and women organizations with Tito box donations. I shared we started with sturdy memorial in q2. And then we also support supported the standard bread retirement foundation, which provides humane care and services for horses that are in need of lifetime homes and in crisis through rehabilitation training adoption lifelong follow up, and they offer opportunities for children and adults to have therapeutic interactions with those forces. The next area you'll see, we're making a difference in the communities that we live in. We sponsored the 19th annual machinist new England Charles fully golf tournament which supports the guide dogs of America. We supported the American Cancer Society with making strides against breast cancer we did the Boston lock and will share in q4 that we also did the Providence walk, and then you'll see there in a picture north. Breaking ground for the Attlebarrow habitat for humanity build which is at 134 Pike Avenue and Attlebarrow. Let's go to the next slide. And finally, some of the things that we did with our team members in q3 north hosted the team member town hall with that rocker theme. He shared the property updates and sports betting updates, which was pretty much on every team members mind. We also celebrated national Hispanic and Latino heritage month with the series of events showcasing the many cultures. And we concluded with officially rebranding pen gaming to pen entertainment. And you can see those slides there, those pictures there. North alternate back over to you. Commissioners that concludes our presentation we're ready to take any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you north and Kathy and Heidi. Nice to see your mic is off. Yeah, thank you. Good to see you all. PPC team. First, thank you for the presentation. And north, I'm disappointed we didn't see you in rocker gear and that photo there. Not fair noted. I first want to congratulate you on meeting and or exceeding excuse me your diversity goals both and vendor spend and employment I know there's quite a bit of work to be done on category of women, but I don't think you're suffering alone in that regard. So, so keep up the good work there. Okay, I remember you mentioning the emerging leaders program last time you presented to us. So it's good to, you know, hear that the program is successful. Can you just tell me again, I thought I heard you say there were 10 slots, but then there's 18 members, and then you broke down the number of women I don't think I think I missed something that could you repeat that please. The ability to offer 10 slots or 10 opportunities for team members to participate in the program. When we launched it, we invited nine team members. So we have the ability to nominate, and they were able to also self nominate. So we went through the recruitment process for that we actually had eight team members go into the program, and of those eight, five are female, which we're super excited about because it'll give us the opportunity. Once they can graduate at the end of the month to really allow them to interview for positions and they'll have the skills and the abilities to be ready now for those roles. That's great. So these are supervisor level positions or above correct or absolutely so they're hourly team members right now, and they will actually be able to apply for assistant manager positions manager positions based on their experience here at PPC or even outside. And you said for I think are being promoted and or have the ability to be promoted in the short term what will happen to the other five. Yeah, so in the program they have mentors, which are supervisors or managers that are mentoring them. They also have executive team mentors. So I met with my mentee yesterday to work on their development plan. My mentee just changed department so in her case. You know, she can look at multiple departments for the opportunity to grow it's kind of based on, you know, their desire in how quickly they want to grow with the organization but they're, they're coming out of this program ready now. Well, I love to hear it. Keep up the good work. I'm hoping to hear more success stories coming out of that program. Thank you both. Thank you all. Excuse me. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Hill. Well, thank you I echo Commissioner Skinner's comments and and Kathy I love that the program continues to follow people beyond it seems after the program and so that's that's fantastic. Anything else north. Kathy, Heidi. No, that's everything from us. Well, thank you so much. We truly appreciate it. Thank you. Next time we expect the rocker gear photo. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Chief Delaney, Mary and Lily. We're going to turn to you for the finalization of the community mitigation guidelines. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Mr. Chair and commissioners. So today, what we will be asking the commission to do is vote on the final community mitigation fund guidelines. Once those are approved, we can then put them out for our solicitation for projects, which would be due at the end of January. And it would be great to be done this early with them. There were other occasions previously where they went much further. Beyond this date and, you know, it gives our communities more time to put out good applications together the sooner we get these things out. Just as a background back on October 20, the commission took up the draft guidelines. And after that meeting, we put them out for public comment. And this year, surprisingly, we received a number of public comments. I think in my previous years here, we've never received a comment on the guidelines. We did receive one comment from the city of Malden. And then there were what we're calling sort of advocacy emails. They were all essentially the same email with the name of the group sending it changed, but generally in support of the gambling harm reduction grant that we're proposing. But I did thought I'd spend a few minutes talking about the city of Malden's comments. We are not proposing any changes to the guidelines, but I just wanted to explain why, why we aren't what their comments were and why we aren't proposing any changes. The first comment that they had concerned some language we have in the guidelines regarding surrounding host and surrounding community agreements. And that whatever project that they are proposing can't have been included in their host or surrounding community agreement. And you know the purpose of that and that has been in place since the program started. And essentially what we don't want to have happen is people essentially double dipping on the same project. You know if something were included in the host community agreement. If we were asking for identical funds, we would not tend to do that. In fact, there have been a couple of cases in the past where I think one was the city of Springfield. Their fire department was asking for some money for increases in calls for service and the host community agreement specifically said that the money in the host community agreement is to take care of increases in calls for service so you know we had to say no to an application like that. You know if something is not, you know, we ask that question. Every year for folks saying tell us why this project shouldn't be included under your surrounding community agreement and you know communities have to come up with a good reason why why those are not covered otherwise. So we recommend you keeping that in. I think that just protects the commission and again we don't want people coming in for the same project. That's already essentially been funded. The second item was the city had some concern with our community planning grant with the write up on the community planning grant section and this year we we changed our guidelines to make it a bit easier for folks to come in under the community planning grant section where we said, look the commission realizes that there are impacts from the casino that aren't necessarily quantifiable. So that in this category if you come in under this category, you don't need to go to the ends of the earth to try to document that impact, you know that we essentially agree that there is an impact. But with that said, we have always said, last year and again this year that the community still has to identify what the impact is and what this proposed project is going to do to address that impact and you know the example we've used to saying, if a community is saying that the opening of on course having a negative impact on our local restaurants. You don't have to go and try to look at maybe tax data or something else to try to justify that we agree that this probably is an impact on those. But by the same token, they have to present a proposal that would somehow address that how would they increase folks coming to their restaurants. So that, you know, their, their comment was that they thought our language is a little bit inconsistent but I don't really believe that it's inconsistent at all. We certainly need to have an impact identified and a solution to that impact as part of the grant application so again we're not proposing to change that language. And so in that we added in this year, based on a couple of things that happened last year that the Commission reserves the right to move applications from one category to another if a community applies under the wrong category. And the city of model was actually suggesting we put stronger language in there is saying that the commission shall do that. Again, we like to give the Commission as much flexibility as possible. And, you know, by using the word may. I think that gives the Commission a little bit more flexibility and saying that you shall do something. So I think we wanted to keep it at that. And, and, and I think, you know, the, the issue that they I was saying that, well if it's in one category and you are in the other category and that means you wouldn't get the money. We want to make sure that it goes in the right category so we get the money and I think, you know, our intent would be is if it was filed in the wrong category, and that would exclude them from funding. We would probably move that into the right category. I mean, we're not trying actively to prevent people from getting money, but we just wanted to have this flexibility to do that, if necessary and I can I could envision a case where we might say we should keep it in this category, even though it might not fit perfectly in there, you know, I can't. I don't know exactly what might come up on that but I could see that sort of happening. So again we're not recommending any changes there. And the last one last comment they had was, they suggested that we should coordinate with mass dot regarding traffic studies and things of that nature and, and in fact we already do that I guess the city wasn't maybe wasn't aware that any transportation traffic that comes in whether it's planning or construction, we send them to mass dot for review. And while our guidelines don't specifically say that we go to mass dot we do say in the guidelines. Depending on upon the content of the application commission staff may consult with outside agencies with expertise in various areas to assist the review process and we've been doing this with mass dot. Since, since we've been doing transportation projects, and similarly last year we went out to the agency is escaping me but when we had all the radio requests and they and we had to look at the interoperability issues we brought in some outside folks to look at that. So we always reserve that right to do it we don't spell out every person that we go to in the guidelines but so again I don't think we need to make any changes to the language, but we will certainly let you know more than know that we that we do that. And then on the gambling harm reduction again we had those sort of 10 identical emails, and we asked mark to take a look at that and, and they generally generally seem to be favorable there was one comment that I couldn't really tell if it was if it was being critical or not. So I did address it anyway, and what what the emails said was they suggested that applicants proposals include a clear community based partner and not simply the community as a research object. So, you know what the way our program is set up that communities have to be the recipient of the funds so they therefore have to lead this effort. And really not much that we can do about that because it's it's just the way that the program is established. But I think when we read through our guidelines we did strongly encourage to have municipal partners and community based organizations in their research so I don't think it's at all inconsistent with what was said there. So again, I think you know we were happy to actually receive some comments this year. Not resulting in any particular changes to the language but I think it's nice to have people do some thoughtful review on on the work that we're doing. You know, sort of outside of our regular review processes with our local advisory committees and so on. So with that I would take any questions from the Commission and and then we would appreciate a vote on that at the end. Thank you chief delaying. I do believe maybe some of this could cause questions commissioners. I've seen shaking in the heads. This essentially is marked up for a vote today you do need to vote right. Yes, that's correct. All right. Mr Chairman I would make a motion if everybody's all set and don't have any other questions for chief delaying. I move that the Commission approve the 2023 Community Mitigation Fund guidelines as included in the packet and discussed here today. I hear a second from Commissioner Skinner. All right. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. And I vote yes. It is for zero as chair Judd Stein is dealing with the medical matter. Great. Well, thank you very much. And just before I sign off from this, I just do want to reach out thank Mary and Lily, especially on this and Commissioner Hill for his participation. And also, you know, Mark helped us out with the problem gambling section and you know, so just a good team effort and a lot of hard work went into this and just want to send some banks out there. Thank you chief and thank you Lily and Mary. We are running ahead of schedule. I will not take credit for that when the chair returns, but would we like a break. All right, continue to move. The next topic is the semi annual diversity update. I believe that Dave will drew chief people and diversity officer is going to lead this discussion Dave. Yes chairman man mattered commissioners and executive director. I have the opportunity to work with my team. And we put forth the update on MGC diversity efforts. And where we looked at a few of the past reports, and I thought it was, at least from my own perspective, I went back with some of this information as far back as 2017. The main focus is 20 to current. So as I go through this I'll explain, I may have some notes that you may not have. But let me begin. 2017 MGC set a diversity staffing goal of 25%. And we almost met it for 24.3% back in 2017 on 2019. We had a slight reduction. 21% and back. So basically, how we identified diversity going back. So recently, it was specifically a phrase diversity. There was no breakout as to what is specific thing for so when I say diversity that's, we would have to drill down and get additional information certainly, but that's how it was reported 21%. Moving up to a pre code pandemic in 2020. Again, we were slight reduction of 23%. During the pandemic. We experienced an increase of 24.71% in diversity. And as of 1031 22. We continue to trend up at a 24.99% diversity. Compared to data or where we are. Great Boston diversity as of the US census is 42%. So we have a ways to go. We are located Boston. We have a ways to go being a 24.99 Massachusetts diversity population is 23%. We look at 1031 22 race with demographics. Caucasian 75% African American black 119 Hispanic 1.9 Asian Pacific 8.3. Native American 0% multiple races 3.5 70%. And we are currently sourcing and could not put our hands on veteran unfortunately. Also, at this point in time, and we will get to this, but 1021 has a 1020 22. Our male population, our women population has gone down to 46.43%. Over the last three years, as I went through this, over the last three years MGC Caucasian employee population has decreased slightly from 77% 75%. During the same time period, African American employee population has increased from 9.2 to 11.9%. Although we may be experiencing some progress in the diversification of the commission terms of race ethnicity. So in certain segments, over three year period, MGC possibly longer MGC has experienced a reduction in female staff from 50.57 to 46.43% to 1022. Now, with that substantial process staff female staff. I did some I drill down and do a little research and on 10.1 21 executive office of labor and workforce development put together a study entitled information, the impact of COVID-19 on women and workforce. And there's a lot to this. So I'm just going to touch on it but certainly can pull it up yourself. One of the key barriers that they looked at that they spoke of one is that how COVID affected women with business women based on first of all the infrastructure of the society to childcare. And childcare is inability to staff. And there's a varied closure of schools, which had an adverse effect and there's other multi reasons, but the study itself drew into the fact that pandemic has had a disproportionate effect of female workers in Massachusetts, Massachusetts, across the board. And I think we just saw that in the presentation from the licensees. And I know from other industries I've worked that colleagues. That is that that remains. It's similar reflection on that. The next segment of really pie charts to identify what's better identify some of these changes. It's a lot of numbers coming out. And the main part of this is really what are we doing going forward. In 2020, Madam chair kept Kathy just died created the MGC equity and inclusion working group. This working group was created to do the fact that we value with the first workforce and supply base, and have an inclusive community and among our partners in the Massachusetts gaming industry. And the cornerstone is the MGC is committed to racial equity and justice, diversity and inclusion, and aspects the same of its employees, licensees and other stakeholders. I just want for you to review, but this particular agency which particular committee, which was created by madam chair, which I am a member and other executives are members is the internal gatekeeper if you will, to ensure that we are continuing on diversity, development and growth, diversity, equity and inclusion. So in 2021 and 2020 that was created in 2021. We relaunched because the fact that we had shut down of the licensees during COVID. Folks were working from home. We're relaunting the encore Boston Harbor vendor advisory team which I've attended once already. And we really got some strong traction there along with crystal was really been the lead on educating myself and my departments to where we've been and how we're moving forward. It's really her office been incredible. Chief Mulder if I can interrupt just a second I noticed during your, your conversation that chair jet Stein has rejoined us and I will heal the chair position. Thank you. No need to interrupt they continue please thank you and thank you Commissioner Maynard. All right. In 2021, we relaunching the encore Boston Harbor vendor advisory team, which is responsible for really looking at another side of this of the staffing and employment is critical, but also vendor diversity. How are we, what role we playing as regulators to encourage the licensees and ourselves in developing diverse vendors to have a much larger impact economic impact on the committees we find where we're located. Also in 2022, we're in discussions to relaunch our vendor diversity team with MGM. In 2022 the spring of 2022. We identified and hired a chief people and diversity officer myself. So responsibility is to always oversight of HR operations and oversight of both diversity, equity inclusion about staff and vendor. In addition, a creation of new position HR DEI. It's a professional level position reporting it's myself, which is going to have specific HR business partnership for the internal structure MGC and assisting folks with DEI critical elements that need to take place. We've had some real progress and identifying those folks. 2022 the creation. Our team and HR we created global diversity calendar, recognizing and celebrating the different races, cultures, genders, religious beliefs disabilities, etc. We're not only current MGC employees with folks around the world. And it was a success and people were very excited. We want to continue to do this on a monthly basis to have a diverse driven awareness on a monthly basis we have some folks looking at putting together a proposal as to what we can on a monthly basis where we can afford. How do we communicate logistics. So that is something that is stemming from this. I'd like to refer to my colleague John Skelly, who can now take and identify and review the numbers for the diversity vendor payment from MGC. John you there. I am here David, give me one sec, I was just pulling up the numbers. 35136 the back. All right so MGC is committed to diversity and is actively working on increasing both our spending numbers and the amount of small and diverse businesses that we work with the MGC team works with the supplier diversity office. I would like to refer to as SDO, a state agency dedicated towards diversity, equity and inclusion for small business, small and diverse businesses. And we're working with them very closely to achieve our goals. MGC has made diversity a priority in all of its procurements and is included language stating that it is important as part of the evaluation criteria and the weightings have been increased to be in line with SDOs changes as of 7121. I remember the finance team is presented. Excuse me, I remember the finance team is present at all SDO monthly meetings. Most recently we have gone through trainings on the recent role of the SDO diversity hub platform, and the numbers in the packet today are coming from that platform. The numbers that you see in the packet reflect MGC spending towards diverse businesses for completed fiscal years of fiscal year 2021 and 2022, and a part of our discretionary spend. FY 23 numbers were not ready for primetime yet so they're not, they're not part of this presentation. One thing actually let me jump into the numbers real quickly. So, for our discretionary spends for minority businesses and FY 21, we spent roughly 281,000 with minority businesses for women owned businesses and 2021 spent 297,000. And for veteran and disabled businesses we spent roughly 22,000 and FY 22 spending for minority businesses went up slightly. We spent 300,000 spending for women owned businesses went down a little bit. We spent 281,000 to roughly 282,000 and spending for veteran and disabled businesses went up. It doubled to 41,000. One thing to note that that's not reflected in the packet packet but I thought was pretty noteworthy as far as like you know our commitment to small businesses and diversity. Year over year. There's been a good uptick in FY 21 MGC did business spending with 13 small and diverse certified businesses. And in fiscal year 2022 MGC increased that to 20. So that represents a 6065% increase year over year and the number of certified vendors that we've worked with. Okay. Thank you, John. Yeah. At this point in time that concludes I'd like to answer any questions or comments folks may have. Thank you, David and turn to Commissioner Maynard in a moment but questions for David and john john commissioner Skinner. Thank you madam chair. So I don't know my initial reaction is. I guess some work to do, but I think our starting point is obtaining some additional data. I think we're scarce there. For instance, I think Dave as you already noted. We need to break out those those diversity categories so that we can have a good understanding of where we are. We need to break out each in terms of meeting the 25% goal. The percentages are okay on the employment numbers, but I think raw numbers would be helpful in that regard, and just turning to the vendor spend data in particular. I'm interested in knowing what the, what's the overall spend and so what percentages, what percentage of the overall spend is on the, the vendor diversity side. And, you know, whether consider whether we should be setting the goal there. So that's a general comment on the equity and inclusion working group. I sit on that working group. I'd like to see us resume those meetings we haven't had one in quite some time I think the last one was in June of this year. I think it's a good concept. But again, I would like to see us resume those meetings. And I want us to hold ourselves accountable. We are, we are expecting our licensees we just had a fantastic presentation from PPC and who demonstrated their commitment and their progress and success and meeting their goals and I, you know, want us to, you know, set the example. I appreciate the presentation. As I started my comments, we do have some work to do and I think in order for us to understand exactly what that will entail. We need to just start at the ground. We want to reset commissioner scanner and to the commissioners and executive director staff. Moving forward, we will be putting together a strategic diversity initiative and overall plan, where are we where do we need to get to, not only from posting positions, but also internally for training and creating a culture. So yes, we have a base right now, and the base is where we are with 100 employees we have diversity 100 representation one out of four. But that means absolutely nothing if you don't know what that means, where they are, what's the attrition, and how our folks feel like they're being treated. So, there's a lot of play, but we're extremely excited, and I appreciate I appreciate the commissioner for giving HR we worked on a team to get this information in front of you and move forward. Thank you. John, are you able to give the percentage of the spend that Scherz skinner was asking do we have a sense of that. Yeah, we have some benchmarks for FY 21 and FY 22. Those apparently those didn't make it to the presentation. But I can't give I'll have to do a calculation on on like the percentage of the spend, but we're not very far off those benchmarks and in some cases, we exceed them greatly. Like for our small business spends, we exceed that benchmark greatly, and we're pretty close on both minority and and women business spending. Again, this is, it's, it's in terms of our discretionary spends, like it's not for the entire budget of our agency. There are really difficult situations we face and you know john and agnes have worked hard on this year after year which is why we've joined leaf we've joined pay setters we've joined as many programs as we can we've got very cloud working with us to try and open up our Our central monitoring system, our independent monitor and our outside council, give us basically zero contribution to our diversity spend metrics and those are our three biggest contracts. So, for us to meet the benchmarks we work really hard. I know our divisions don't like it, but john. And I'm not saying they don't like it because of it adds time to procurements right it adds language to procurements it adds criteria. I think john told you we've increased our diversity require our scoring requirements to 25% for diverse vendors or for a good SDO plan. And that's that's in line with what the supply diversity office is doing but we're doing that even on small procurements not just big procurements. So we work hard to try and get to these numbers and commissioner Skinner you're right we have to do better. We continue to we continue to work on this, and we're hoping that this newest thing with the supply diversity hub where they can credit our indirect spend will help push us over the edge but it doesn't mean that we don't keep working on it and I think some of the statistics that john put out where we went from 13 vendors to 20 vendors shows that we're trying to make intentional purchases. We're really trying to increase this participation in the marketplace. And I know very cloud has helped us in the past by bringing in indirect spend vendors or partners with our direct prime vendors. So, we are working hard, we do need to get better, we continue to try to get better at this and you know this has been john and Agnes's goal. And I know that crystal has helped out Dave has been a huge help and commissioner Skinner we look forward to bringing you into the fold on this as well. I want to make an observation about the equity and inclusion working group that group was convened in June of 2020. And by September we did have a unanimous vote of the commission to adopt the five action items. During many rigorous meetings, we were able to deploy the team to work on the the individual action items and executive director wells has been passed with the implementation of those action items I want to credit you Karen for the progress that has been made with to all five of those action items. And, and that work continues and today. First off, October was a successful diversity month and I think HR for its efforts. And that that month of bringing various some addressing very various cultural issues. That's also on one of our action items I want to thank David and your team for that. And I also want to thank Derek and his team, including john for all the efforts that you have done to potentially increase our diversity supply spent. It's an enormous and we have seen results because of that intentionality Derek and I think you are particularly sensitive about that so I want to thank you for that. The, the work has been intentional as we expected it to be when we convene that working group. We knew it takes intentionality and we have to keep our eyes on the ball. And I want to thank the commissioner Skinner for that observation today. So, and today I did ask for chief module to make a report. And this keeps us accountable just as we hold our licensees accountable which David use you started today with that observation. And we ask much of our licensees around this area. And in turn, we want to make sure we do the same for our own agency. So thank you for kicking off that report David, and, and we thank you for your leadership as you come on in this new role. Thank you. Okay, so with that. Senator, thank you so much. You, I was able actually to be on the phone the entire time except I did miss the Joe show. I missed the chief Delaney's report so I'll go back to the recording and catch up and I'm sorry to chief Delaney that I missed the guidelines vote. I missed my full support along the way. So, and I want to thank them, which I made it for somewhat last minute stepping in for me today I appreciate it very much. We'll continue now. Is it commission made or are we on item six then that is correct. And there was no problem at all. Anytime. Great job. And I'm so glad I got to hear the study is really interesting. And now we have chief O'Brien, and I think your first public report. Thank you Madam chair. It is and good morning commissioners. GM Springfield has requested a position exemption from the casino employee registration process and to that end licensing supervisor Dave McKay has prepared the materials for your consideration so I'll turn it over to date. Good day Madam chair and commissioners it's nice to be before you guys again. Can you hear me okay. We can and get started Dave I just want to congratulate you. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that. It's a secret that I can share with the public. Oh, sure, certainly. He was just married so congratulations. So, we'll get started now Dave thank you. Well, thank you for that Madam chair and thank you for the introduction Kara. As Kara noted, MGM Springfield has requested that the commission allow one new gaming service employee exemption. This request is being made under the statutory provision enacted in 2017 that authorizes the commission to exempt certain job positions from the 23 K registration requirements. I believe the materials supporting this exemption start on page 137 of your packet and I'll go ahead and summarize accordingly. So this this position that's being proposed is the lead technician sound and video this position will be responsible for the maintenance and operation of AV equipment and systems to ensure proper operation. This will include but not be limited to performing and providing preventative maintenance and quality control assisting with upgrades and new installations collaborating with other departments during performances held by the property. In addition to rehearsals and maintenance work to ensure optimal entertainment experiences. MGM Springfield has responded in the negative to all criteria identified on the gaming licensee certification as it relates to this position. And the submission from MGM Springfield specifically highlights that the position would have no supervisory responsibilities. I do also want to highlight that this position is intended to be a promotional position from an existing approved exemptive exemption under the same department being the technician sound and video position. And lastly I just wanted to note that I worked in conjunction with Jason Randall the executive director of HR at MGM Springfield to obtain the necessary information to develop this request. Jason had another conflict and couldn't be present here today but I believe Daniel Miller the compliance director for MGM Springfield is on the call and also available to field any questions if needed. So with that being said I'm happy to try and answer any questions you might have but this is the request before you today that the division of licensing is asking you to vote on. Questions for Dave or Kara. Nicely done Dave very thorough report you are looking for action from us today. Correct. Do I have a motion. I think we might need to improvise. I'm happy to try Madam Chair. Thank you Commissioner Skinner. I move that the commission exempt the lead technician sound and video position from the service registration requirements as discussed here today. I'll set with that. Okay. Mr. Brian. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. I vote yes. Five zero thanks great work babe and thank you Kara. Thank you again great seeing you all and thank you again for the the shout out. Much appreciated. Yes congratulations again and thank you. We wish you the very very best. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Okay. I'm just pausing right here to note that it's public public walking for 10 minutes ahead. So, we're going to continue now with the number seven legal division. Regulations. I'm going to turn it to you Todd first. Yes, thank you sorry. Okay, so the first issue that is up is going to be presented by Associate General Counsel Judy young and here she is. Good morning. Good afternoon Judy. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, commissioners. We are set to discuss 205 CMR 2.01 an application for a licensee to conduct a race and excuse me a racing meeting by a new operator this afternoon. This morning overseen by commissioner Skinner and myself and associate counsel Wong with two participants in attendance and no public comments offered. However, earlier this morning prior to the start of the hearing, we did receive a substantive public comment. We would like to be able to provide the commissioners with a chance to review it, and also review it within the legal department prior to discussing this regulation as well. And with your consent, Madam chair, we would go ahead and just ask to table this item for a future meeting. Commissioners. Are we all set with that we want to make sure we get the public comment it's due. I'll set everyone's yep. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Judy. Thanks very much and I'll turn it over to deputy general counsel to receive. Okay thank you and thank you commissioner Skinner for residing this morning. Carrie has indicated that she is having some technical difficulties at the moment. So I'm wondering whether there is, unless she can pop right on whether there, we can move into some of the regulations that are on the agenda, further on down. Do you have a K, are they joining us. Sorry, it was having a bit of a sound issue, but got it back. Nothing you can't manage. Carrie there you go. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, so good afternoon Madam chair and commissioners. I'm sure you recall that in June, the commission voted to begin the promulgation process to repeal its regulation. Phase one and new qualifier proceedings to remove cross references to 205 CMR 103 that would no longer be needed if that regulation were repealed. So as a reminder on this 205 CMR 103 is largely duplicative of the commission's law in that it identifies categories of information that are exempt from public disclosure. In addition, it creates a process by which licensees may request that the commission deem certain types of information to be quote unquote confidential information and exempt from public disclosure. As we discussed over the summer this creates a process that is largely duplicative of the non disclosure agreements that have been entered into between the gaming licensees and the commission and perhaps more importantly in times in conflict with the public records law itself. And of course we don't have authority to declare information or materials confidential beyond the scope of the public records law. So you do have red lines of these three regulations in your packet. I just want to point out one thing with respect to the red line of 205 CMR 102. Sorry, let me just grab my red line of that. So when I had initially brought this I will see 102.02 just the first sentence there read as used in 205 CMR 101.00 through 131.00. When I had initially brought this over the summer, I had proposed striking through 131. I believe that that language is there because this was promulgated as a initial set of part of an initial set of regulations where that was the scope of the regulations that existed. So I had proposed at the time striking that and changing it to read at sec but given now the changes with force wagering that we're going to have different definitions in the 200 series. We do anticipate bringing this back to clarify which definitions apply in the 100 series and which apply in the 200 series so I would propose for the time being. We just leave this language as is, and then we'll come back and modify it later. So you're talking about just the words through 131.00. Exactly, yeah. So just just that note on this specific regulation. So with respect to all three, we did hold a public hearing on these on September 15, which was presided over by Chair Judd Stein. We did not receive any comments at the public hearing but we did receive written comments that morning, submitted jointly from encore Boston Harbor and MGM, and those comments should be in your packet. So I know that you've all had a chance to review those and I'm just going to briefly summarize them and of course happy to take any questions that you might have. So these comments. They note that encore Boston Harbor and MGM oppose the repeal of 205 CMR 103 and they request updating the regulation or adopting a policy governing confidential information to preserve its framework. They note that when the regulation was promulgated the commission recognized at the time that it would be taking in a large amount of sensitive information. They argue that the regulation avoids the commission making determinations on confidentiality unilaterally. They argue that eliminating this regulation terminates notice requirements related to requests received for highly sensitive information, or the intended production of any highly sensitive information. They note that the existing nondisclosure agreements between the commission and the licensees the gaming licensees may not cover everything that they believe needs to be protected. And finally they argue that absence the notice provision in this regulation, the gaming licensees wouldn't know if its records were being sought or protected under the nondisclosure agreement. So I think generally we did address these comments and we discussed this over the summer, but I do want to note a few things in response to these so refresh your memory here. So, first, this regulation was promulgated before the nondisclosure agreements existed so now that the NDA do exist. This regulation really creates a dual process for dealing with the same types of information. And as I noted, it's also inconsistent with the public records law in certain instances so the appropriate process now now that these multiple processes exist to protect highly sensitive information is to do so within the nondisclosure agreement. I want to remind you as well that what this regulation deems to be quote unquote confidential information is actually a narrow definition. And that's within the definition section of 102 which is why this is before you today to remove proposal as a proposal to remove that definition. This is a part definition that includes certain trade secrets proprietary and other competitively sensitive information that is submitted during the course of an application, or those similar types of records which are explicitly covered by the nondisclosure agreement, and both of these categories of information are already exempt from public disclosure pursuant to the statutory exemption to the public records law. Note as well that eliminating this regulation does not terminate notice requirements as notice is required under the nondisclosure agreement anytime we receive a public records request for any materials that are covered by the nondisclosure agreement. Now note that eliminating this regulation does not eliminate the ability of gaming licensees to ensure that trade secrets competitively sensitive for proprietary information is protected. And again the appropriate avenue to do that is to request that it be covered by the nondisclosure agreement. So the, the, I'm sorry, chair. Okay, I did just want to also address the list of requests that is at the end of the comments request for the commission to consider that encore and mgm provided. And of course there are certainly items here that the commission might wish to address like expanding the types of information that are covered by the NDA streamlining the NDA process, or providing notice of public records request generally but these requests are really outside the scope of the repeal of the regulation and have more to do with the NDA and our public records request policy generally so the commission may want to revisit these items as a separate agenda item at a later date if you're so inclined. So summary with respect to this regulation I just want to sort of repeat what we discussed over the summer which really is that this regulation includes three categories of information and includes information that's duplicative of other laws and really is necessary includes information that's better suited for policy language, which the commission did remove and adopt as policy language. And it includes information that's inconsistent with the public records law and creates a redundant or duplicative process for dealing with the production of records, so we would continue to recommend repealing this regulation. I'm happy to take any questions that you might have on that. Any other questions for carry. Can I just point of just a process. I may have missed it so forgive me. I know we rolled this item over from an earlier meeting because we were running long carry. And in that we did include the comments in the packet. In today's packet have I just missed them because I'm coming in. Perhaps not as because I came in late me not be as organized. I only mentioned it because the public might be interested in that they have certainly been made available in an earlier packet. Oh my apologies, I'm just looking they may not have made it in this time. Oh no it is here. Page. 177. Okay, so the security item was in between okay. It's right after the policies. Okay, got it. I just didn't scroll far enough. All right, great. Thank you. So it's all set. And we have had all of us have had a chance to review those comments, you know, over the course of, of time here. I have a question I have carry that I raised at the last public meeting when this was supposed to be on and connection with something else connection with really this 23 and the language around the confidentiality aspect in terms of trade secrets and what is it. It's an information that could put them at a competitive disadvantage. It's tied to the application. Yes. It was never intended to be ongoing. On the fourth wagering side. 23 K. It's also tied to the course. Now the NDA may open up other opportunities. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, that language really is tied just to the application. That's right. That's right. The investigation language comes through the NDA that the straight statutory exemption, as I would call it where explicitly exempt from public disclosure is tied to the application. Yeah. Right, I just wanted to note that. And then we, we learned about this regulation and context of a different matter and I do feel that what you've said is that it's inconsistent. And I would argue ultra various with the public records law. So, from my perspective today's recommendation is is warranted. So thank you very much for today's presentation. Any further questions. Okay. And you would like action on this today. I have a motion. Madam chair, I moved that the commission approve the amended small business impact statement and the repeal of 205 CMR 103. And the drafts of 205 CMR 1.02 and 115.04 as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. And further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of Commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Thanks. Commissioner Skinner. Okay. Any questions on this? And I did my own motion. Do you have one thing, Carrie? Is there any reason we need to do emergency on this in terms of is it creating any confusion going forward for you? It may create some confusion, but I would be concerned about filing timelines if we filed by emergency now because we're at the end of the process. So this would be the final filing where we were to file this by emergency, it would kick off the process again. So I think, you know, the discussion today is your intent is clear. And then we'll file this as soon as possible. And I think based on the filing deadlines, it will ultimately go into effect the repeal in early December. Great. Thank you. Good question, Commissioner O'Brien. So we're all set. We have a motion in a second. Any further questions or edits? Okay. Mr. O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. And I say yes. So five zero, Carrie. Thank you so much. Thank you. So also related to this in your packet, you have two red line policies. So you recall that these, these were three sections in the regulation, the so called purple sections that we pulled out to adopt as policy so that they would be preserved. The versions in the packet today, you've already adopted these as policy. They're just here to remove citations and references to, to a five CMR 103 or this term confidential information or anything about the process created by 103. Questions on the policy changes, which we've seen also before. I'll set, and you would like us to take action on that. Do I have a motion? Madam chair, I move that the commission adopt the amendments to the policy governing information provided in response to request for applications. Phase one and phase two and the security protocols and restricted access policy has included in the packet and discussed here today. Any questions or edits on that? Mr. O'Brien. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. I built yes. Five zero. Thank you. Great. Thank you. So if you'd like, I can just move on to the next item. I think you should. So this would be on October 27th. I just want to bring my, I want to get a line down my packet. So we are now at what page? We are at the memo is on 185 and then the regs begin just after that on 189 and there are clean versions and red lines for regs that had changes. Yeah. Just a big packet. Hard to keep up. Okay. Thank you so much. Of course. So this is the set of six draft regulations related to the sportsway during operator licensing framework. There was lengthy discussion on these on October 27th and we brought them back to today with edits resulting from that discussion. So just a reminder of the overview here. This set includes 205 CMR 212, which relates to additional information that may be requested of applicants by the commission. And the continuing duty of applicants and qualifiers provide certain information to the commission. 205 CMR 214, which relates to application and investigation fees. 215, which relates to suitability, determination, standards and procedures. 219, which relates to temporary licensing procedures. 220, which relates to license conditions. And 221, which relates to licensing fees. So I'm going to turn it over to like maybe Paul commoners from Anderson and Krieger to discuss the changes in more detail. And Carrie, I'm here as well. I'm showing up as iPhone 216. All right. So to me, I'm curious and Paul commoners from Anderson and Krieger. Thanks, Nina. We have both Mina and Paul now carry. Thank you. Good. Good afternoon gentlemen. Good afternoon, ma'am Karen. All right. So I will just start off going through these as Carrie mentioned, there are red line and excuse me, clean copies in your packets. I'm going to refer to the red lines and I'll try to give you the page numbers for each as we go. Because I think it'll be easier to see what has changed this last time. So starting with a fairly straightforward one. 205 CMR 212 on page 192 is the red line. There is only one very small change other than the header here. Which this, this is 212 as a reminder is the additional information cooperation requiring applicants to cooperate with the commission, the bureau and staff, et cetera. Throughout the application process and after licensure, simple remover of it said applicant for sports wagering license. Applicant actually has a broader definition includes applicants for vendor licenses occupational license, et cetera. So that's just a small in a way and knit to broaden who who is cooperating here. Other than that, there is no other change to 212 as you last saw it in there. We, there were some questions about 212 but none that we understood to be asking for a change from the last meeting. So if I'll let you do that each time. Thank you so much. Any questions. All right. 214. You may be wondering where is the red line. This starts on page 198 that they're the red line doesn't show any real changes because there were none from from the last session to this one. This is the application fee portion. The one that I mentioned last time was prepared in close coordination with Derek and Commissioner Skinner and the finance team as well as the IB so that this one is simply just part of this packet which is why we're bringing again but there are no changes to discuss. Questions. All right. Thank you. And so now we are on page 207. This is the suitability regulation 205 CMR 215 is where the red line starts up is again page 207. We'll go quickly through the changes one is the first one is completely typographical you're not issuing sports watering licenses. So we made sure that was clear. Sorry about that one. But the more substantive thing here is you'll see in 2501 what looks like new language but it's actually just reorganized and clarified. There was a discussion at the last meeting about where suitability determinations would happen. And what we captured here is what we understand to have been the result of that conversation that permanent suitability or durable suitability has sometimes been referred to what happened in adjudicatory proceedings in order to among other things to protect confidentiality as needed if the Commission needed to do that. So 2501 one D says that explicitly that it's an adjudicatory proceeding to reflect that decision for durable suitability or permanent suitability or I shouldn't say permanent but full full suitability at that point. The other language there is it was in the in the prior version. This is partly just reorganized is how you issue a negative or positive determination in 2501 two which is on page 208 we get to preliminary suitability and the suggestion and recommendation we understood from last meeting was to separate out the process for preliminary suitability which will be done based on certification by the applicant plus an open source review that that should take place the determination there will take place as part of the licensing deliberations in an open meeting under section 218 of the regs. And so that's what's reflected here in to to see that the quality of the evaluation of the applicant or qualifier for suitability would take place in accordance with and then it would 205 CMR to 1806 as part of of that process we have preserved. This is sort of a truism but just want to make clear that the the bureau's report that the Commission sees for preliminary suitability may still have redactions were appropriate under the public records law. However, this is this is not going to be an adjudicatory proceeding for this portion of the process. Could I just chime in. I had a meeting just before this meeting with legal and this came up. Could you just elaborate a little bit on the conversation that we had about whether subsection C, whether the shall take place during deliberations or be a may. Yeah, because we talked about some executive session as an option. Right. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Brian so the we drafted this or revised it now with the understanding that the Commission wanted to make this determination upfront that these would be part of the temporary license temporary suitability excuse me would be let me back up preliminary suitability. I'm mixing my adjectives here would happen in the course of the deliberations on the license. The discussion Commissioner Brian's referring to is that there may be an instances where even the open source information, or what we what is known about the applicant provides enough information that commissioners want to ask questions. About a particular preliminary suitability application essentially but an applicant's preliminary suitability, and that in those cases it may be necessary to take out at least that applicant or qualifier from having the discussion in the open deliberations. One way to try to address that was to make the shell at the bottom of page 208 here, which is at the bottom of C to a may, which would mean that the Commission could of course take all or some of the preliminary suitability discussions into the discussion on the license itself, but would retain the ability to pull out a suitability discussion that may be more appropriate for an adjudicatory hearing in in into an adjudicatory process. If there is or or to have a separate meeting with an executive session if it's also appropriate for executive session understanding that there are limitations on that that may not capture everything. And I just so I had asked to be I had asked me bring up the may because it has written still presents us with the conundrum that we had a number of meetings about in the spring and into the late spring about how we deal with suitability that may involve is information that's not neatly within the executive session something about that person, but questions we may still want to ask. Can I ask a procedural question, director Leo's and Mina, and I agree with you, Commissioner Brian LeMay is really important. Just to remind me, we're going to be at a certain point. We're going to have cat ones and cat twos that are not competitive. And there's going to be some kind of preliminary suitability decision that's going to be made. And this, that's going to be made by the Commission. And what I'm hearing, and then we're going to have the competitive process. And that's going to have some relative suitability analysis that we include in our competitive process. And I'm wondering if we understand why the adjudicatory hearing, I understand why the adjudicatory hearing wouldn't work in that competitive process because that's this relative suitability. And we're not going to be doing adjudicatory hearing in the middle of a competitive process. Are we going to be making that preliminary suitability what I'm closing on as Mina said, there may be times when we might want to ask questions. My feeling is we should always be permitted the opportunity to ask questions or should never be any procedural obstruction in our asking questions about suitability. And is it because of privacy issues and redactions that you're pausing on that Mina. And so Loretta, first off, you can just explain to me what you're imagining the preliminary suitability decision making process will look like. And then, if I'm not putting you on the spot Loretta. For the cat ones, the, you know, essentially we have ongoing full suitability with the cat ones. So you will have a summary of their status. And, you know, the notion of preliminary suitability is really different for the cat ones than for the cat threes for the category threes. You will have a summary of their self disclosures and some open source information. I suppose there could be confidential information in there your, your finding there is not a full suitability finding. But it's really whether they're allowed to take advantage of this temporary process based on what comes up. It's possible that there could be some self disclosed disqualifying information but more likely it would be a self disclosed information or open source information that you just want more investigation on before you could make a full finding. I don't know is, is that helpful. So, but we, yes, it is helpful. So, at a certain, at a certain point, we're going to, we're going to be asked to make a determination some meaning. I guess, we're back at the same, the same point. And because, once we get done the competitive process on the relative suitability part of our overall criteria, then we are going to be making a preliminary suitability decision on each of those, whoever prevails in that competitive process that right. It's going to be kind of two steps in terms of evaluation suitability that relative suitability it's part of our application process. And whoever emerges from that is prevailing organizations, then they would have, we would make a determination on preliminary basis as to suitability based on the information that Director Williams just described. We'd be doing that in a public meeting. And the reason why I'm mentioning this is that my understanding is from the, the process with the casinos is that everything got discussed in the public meeting. And so we shouldn't be fired from asking any questions right now. Correct. Yeah, I didn't mean to imply by any means that you would be. It's that you'll be doing it in an open session. If you have the, the shall language in there, as opposed to being able to potentially hold the auditory hearing on an individual license that the that's that's really the question but you could certainly ask questions in public and that is what we did in suitability. The Mabel allows to do the auditory hearing the Mabel allows to use an executive session if that works, but the main, the main thing that we can remind ourselves of is that at this stage, you know, we can really ask any questions we want. Unless lawyer really raises their hands and said this would be something we, we need to do in a, in a more private setting. How are you in agreement. I believe that's correct. Madam chair. All right, that's helpful to me. I know I'm a little bit stuck on that but I think Commissioner and Brian and I have been thinking about this but these may will give us the options. The conversation that I raised this morning with the legal team was just that was the may gives the flexibility and I didn't really see it downside to us changing the shout to a may understanding most could probably proceed through deliberations and the normal public hearing process without you but you know I've said this before I function on the worst case scenario based on my background and so I picture that one instance where what's going to happen is the whole thing. How do we go forward and then we're going to hit a wall if we don't have the may. Yeah, perfect. And now I think I've got it in my mind that it really is this. We have to make, we'll all be voting on that preliminary suitability on every, on every category, even those are there in the competitive. Thanks. I'm good. So, Madam chair just, we can keep going through the rest of 215, but it might be helpful for Carrie and, and I and Paul as we go through here. So, sort of for everyone to take, take note of it it sounds like at least you and Commissioner Brian with support changing that shout to a may, given the time to be ideal to not have to come back for just that little change but if everybody's Thanks, let's just do a quick consensus is everybody on board with that gives us a little bit more flexibility. We've got to we've got a consensus there. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone. So I'll just proceed. Then that that's probably the biggest issue, frankly, and almost all of these but in 215 01 for sure. Other changes in 215. There was, I think a point raised at the last meeting about the catch all provision in 23 n section six e regarding applicant eligibility that's reflected explicitly here in three e on page 209. Page 210 is the first that is a cleanup edit. That's that's where the location of suitability proceedings was and it's now just moved into those two sections I described before. 215 02 is again reflecting who is to be qualified and this is mostly a change in what would just to reflect that they got mostly for clarity. I mean, I believe these particular red lines were before the commission of their prior meeting. That's right. I'm sorry. So this was maybe from your one before that so so you've already seen this. Thank you, Paul. So I think that takes us through all of Paul am I missing any other changes in 215 we need to discuss I think that those were sort of the biggest one was the location of the suitability determination. I don't believe there's anything else. Excellent. Any, any questions on that. Thank you, Mina and Paul for those clarifications and carry really helpful from the last meeting. Thank you ma'am chair and as always, I just don't want to be remiss not to point out the the bureau's just again very helpful contributions to all this put a lot of hours on figuring this out with us so appreciate that. Thanks. Page 217 if I may then unless there's any more. We start on to 19. This is a temporary licensing regulation. I believe and that we had talked about the kind of updated to 19 to reflect this issue of the biggest change here I guess I would say is if you look at page 218 and just as a reminder of it this has to do with how we're addressing the process for when temporary licenses expire and the at a prior meeting the conversation was it was noted that there was what was a sort of safety valve to make sure that temporary licenses, even for the most complicated suitability investigation or non responsive suitability investigation if there were other entities involved couldn't somebody couldn't operate in a temporary license longer than they could for a general for an opera operator license. There was a suggestion that that itself may be too long. That'll be five years and that may be too long. So instead, that we should try a three year limit with an option for two additional years. And if something is taking longer than that, then the amount of time longer than those three years to become to get to a full suitability. So sections to 1903 and 04 are intended to carry that process forward. It is admittedly a lot of tax but it's a somewhat complicated structure to do that. The idea here is that licensees temporary licenses would expire within three years unless renewed the licensee would have to ask for the renewal. So this is a way to make sure that they're still interested in continuing in Massachusetts not withstanding where they are in the suitability investigation that under two 1904 one that request would come in. It can't come in too soon so they can't get the license day one and say we're going to need another two years. They can't ask 21 months essentially, you know, a year and three quarters into their license. But really within that last quarter of their first two years to give the Bureau adequate time to adjust for that renewal period and kind of see where things stand and avoid sort of a last minute extension request. So that is what these two sections 1903 and 1904 are intended to do together under. This is all, as we talked about last time we talked about temporary licensing, carrying out a, the intent of temporary licensing in a statute as essentially a license to be granted. While an application is being processed and be for for a full license or a full complete license. The renewal fee the very end of this is, I think we talked last time about the payment of fees. The million dollars will be paid up front for the first three years and then if renewed it's essentially a second temporary license and are reading of the statues that will be acceptable at that time to to request another million dollar fee. Again, it's competitively more equitable, because if someone is operating on a temporary license basis for what may amount to five years. It reduces the gap in what they pay versus other operators. So that that is the structure of the revised to 19. And if they ask that they ask for the extension is granted. That's another million. Two million in for operating. Over three years in Massachusetts. Correct. You know, and again, we are speaking for myself we view this as a as a stopgap measure. All together, obviously, you know, the, I don't think anyone's goal is to have have these processes lay out there for four years, you know, and and for that long, but it is to avoid someone arguing that they're entitled to simply hold it to their temporary license, even though it's it may be complications with suitability and others that are holding up, completing their application, the review. Chair, can I just jump in with something so definitely the intention of the IV the planning of the IV is to complete these full investigations as quickly as possible and to draw on the additional resources that the commission has given us for two fold reasons right I mean Commissioner O'Brien was raised the concern about the limited amount of preliminary suitability and having these operators operate for an extended period of time on that more truncated version has its risks that the agency and the IV would be looking to to minimize and eliminate and then chair the notion you've raised about the about the fees as well is, you know, is significant. So I just wanted to emphasize that the IEB in its planning. Definitely we are focused on the next few months right now, but our planning will encompass, you know, addressing these in as timely a fashion as we can, and we will, you know, keep the commission surprised on resources that we may need if we, you know, come up against any issues on the resource side. So really this additional language was that you know the belt and suspenders approach the what if the what if approach. Commissioner Maynard that, you know, to make sure that you keep us surprised of what you may need because I think we understand it's a longer term. It's a longer game, because we want that full suitability, but it's on balance and you need the resources to be able to accomplish that balance so this isn't short term, you know, it's a long term game but you filled in the blanks. Madam Chair, if I may sort of pee back on what Loretta is saying, I think that they are in a good position to complete according to their timeline. The complicating factor in the unknown is mergers and acquisitions of these companies. The problem may be with the changing market and the development of the market, the target shifts so you may have company a and company b and you're going forward and you're doing the investigation. But then they merge and all of a sudden the qualifiers change and you're bringing in new qualifiers and there's different policies created so it's, it's not as if we have a, the investigators have a static entity structure and individual structure. It's moving as time goes on and within the market, given the market in the sports betting industry, we can expect some consolidation so that's why there may be, it's reasonable to expect there may be longer investigation. That's not on the IB that's just the nature of how the industry is expected to develop. Madam Chair, when I raised this at the last meeting it was, you know, never to impugn IB and the work that they do and the speed with which they do it I've done complex cases as you point with the players change sometimes you have to start all over. What I do think this gives us within the statutory structure is the fact that this is not a five year window that there are benchmarks along the way. I also think it is a tool for IB because I also, you know, people may be merging buying maybe they think you know what I'm out pretty soon so I'm not going to bother giving the paperwork right now. To IB maybe they're not as prompt schedule in the meetings that sort of thing this to me is an impetus to make sure that everyone comes to the table as timely as they can, to make sure that this suitability can be resolved as best a can as quickly as it can. My hats off to the legal team for looking at what was the statutory strictures in that language, but also putting in some of the safeguards that I had, you know, raised concerns about before so I think it's while while you said it's worthy I do think it's necessary to do it that way and you did a great job with that. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle Brian and again, this is this outcome in terms of dealing with the, the licensing fees is really around the temporary licensing language that we are addressing. So, there we have it. Okay, any other questions. Nina to 1904 one. That language is confusing to me the 21 months or more than two years after the date the license was issued. Yeah, so this was the idea. Commissioner that I was getting at that we want to make sure that the applicant isn't waiting until the last minute minute and then asking for the extension. So they are really they need to do it between. In that last quarter of their second year of licensure is the idea that's where 21 months or two years came from. So is that, I guess, just to be clear that that's the concept. We played around with a few different ways to say it could probably split up into two sentences maybe the only the other option we talked about. Yeah, that might be necessary. I, I for one don't think it's clear. It may be clear to others, but I don't think that it's clear that it's that time in between the 21 months and the 24 months that we're targeting. I think it's the war. War. Commissioner perhaps commas around or more than two years. So an operator shall submit a renewal or shall or shall not submit a renewal until 21 months. So it's either or is that what you're getting at or is it within that. That's the window. Well shouldn't. Well, well, why not add the word until between. So add the word between. That it'll read until between 21 months or more and two or in two years. It's a no sooner than no later than. We could say no sooner than 21 months, but no later than two years. Yes, yeah, okay. helpful. Yeah. I like it operationally. Yeah, no problem operationally. I just think that just didn't understand what's what we're asking is a little hard. That's a good clarifier. Another, another question on this. This is a good challenge and well done. Well done. Questions on this. Are we still scrolling here on 2019, I mean, 219. That's it, right. Mina on 219. That's right Madam chair, we did highlight, because I think these were sort of suggested times. I think the last couple of days and sort of two week periods here and there for their mostly have to do with when either when the outfit has to respond. And when you have to hold a public meeting on a recommendation from the executive director for temporary license. I haven't heard any feedback to suggest that those states are those time periods are not workable. So we'll assume we can remove that highlighting obviously when, when Carrie goes to finalize this and make that last change was just discussed. But if there's any other comments on that I just wanted to ask now I guess. And you've passed that you've gone over that with director lilios and director Wells right so you, you two are all set with that that timeframe. Mistress are you all set with the highlighted language on that. Okay. Excellent. Wonderful. May I move on to 220 then. Do you want us to do a vote on. No, we haven't done any votes on all of this we're going to do the whole framework right Carrie is that that's pretty. So you can certainly do the whole framework together at the end or you can take them one at a time. Yeah, you can sort it out at the end. Okay, go ahead Nina thank you. Thank you and and Madam chair I'm going to assume based on on moving through that, the change that we work through with Commissioner Skinner and Commissioner Brian a minute ago for two 1904 was part of that so. Everybody agreed with it correct. There's a good clarifier right thank you. So 220. The red line here is on page 221. 2201 one a is putting in as explicit language as we could think of that the operator will have an operation certificate before they operate they will licensing is not enough you need an operation certificate. So that was feedback that we got it and we want to just incorporate that right there. The rest of the changes to 220. There's a good amount of red line but really what they do is taking out and I believe we may have talked about this portion before to is taking out the temporary licensing conditions and putting them all into 19 so it's a standalone operation and avoids a need for as many cross references which I think we're getting confusing, given the complexity of the temporary license. So that's that's virtually it for 220 that is it for 220 questions. All right. So that takes us to 221 the red line to 221 is on page 226. The only changes here are to reflect this renewal payment the $1 million renewal payment that we just discussed in 219 otherwise it's a state the same. Just a note for commissioners to know where we are on progress wise. The legal team and a and K are working on updating section 202, as which you asked before connection with the vendor regs will come back before you to update and add more definitions. Obviously this language that says to be added to define terms wouldn't be included in the, in the final reg but that's just want to, it was a way for us to remind ourselves to tell you that we're going to to be updating the 202 shortly and should have that back before you in a couple of weeks. That that is it on 221 and I believe that is it on the licensing framework. That's it for the entire licensing framework for 212 through 221. So Carrie. First off, any questions for Carrie Mina or Paul. Mr Skinner. There might be an inconsistency in 221 to where it talks about payment of the temporary license renewal fee within three years and to 1904 6. The little I says within 30 days. Am I reading that right. Commissioner Skinner. It's a good point. Effectively those will probably be in the same spot because the request this is this actually has to do with your prior question, the renewal request will come in during that last quarter and so that that will be the only thing that you will have to happen within that. However, I, your points a good one and I'm sorry I didn't catch that earlier. I would actually suggest the, we say something more, more akin to number one and more akin to what's into 1904 that simply mimic that language rather than tied to three years to avoid further confusion on that. Other questions. Any clarification you want on that last point exactly what will change then you know if you want to, if you. All right, let me try to read in at least as best as I can on the spot here. I would essentially say remote change that. I'm sorry. Go ahead, sorry. The page. Nina. So, with the page that will be changing is the page we were just on 226 item to two point two to one, all one, two, I think would simply read within 30 days after the renewal of a temporary license pursuant to 205 CMR to 1904. The licensee shall pay a non refundable license fee of $1 million. Period, because that would be, and that, and that would be the what swapped in. Okay. Make sense. Other questions. Sounds good. Not hearing any further questions. So it seems as though you're looking for a vote. Am I right? Yes. Okay. So commissioners. It appears that we have a consensus on each element or component. Do we want to go forward and vote as a, on the whole framework. I'm always more comfortable when we vote on each one individually. Okay. But I don't know how everybody else feels. Let's do it then. Are you ready? Mr. Hill, you want, you want to move. I, excuse me, I moved that the commission approved the small business impact statement. And the draft 205 CMR to 12 as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. I'm second. Thank you. Any questions on that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Brian. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. I vote yes. Five zero. Thank you. Madam chair. Madam chair, I moved that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commission. And thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that the staff shall be authorized to modify chapter. Or section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation. Commodation process. I have a second. Second. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. Yes. Five zero. Mr. Hill, would you like to continue? If the rest of the board does not mind, I sure would. I move that the commission approved the small business impact statement and the draft 205. I move that the commission should be authorized. I'll move that the commission should be authorized to file the recommendation. Okay. And discussed here today. Second. Any questions or edits? Commissioner O'Brien? Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. Yes. Five zero. Okay. Commissioner Hill. I move that staff be authorized to take the steps with the secretary of the commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that staff shall be authorized to modify chapter or section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. A second? Second. Thank you. Okay, any questions or edits? Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. You want to break or do you want to continue, Commissioner Hill? I can continue on. Perfect. I move that the commission approve a small business impact statement in the draft 205. CMR 215 is included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Second. Thank you. Any questions? Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. Yes. Aye. Yes. Commissioner Hill? Okay. Under 205, CMR 215, I move that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that staff shall be authorized to modify chapter or section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Second. Thank you. Any questions? Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. And I think good work on that. Nina and Paul and Carrie. Thank you so much. Next. Mr. Hill? I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement and the draft. 205, CMR 219 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Second. Okay. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. 5-0. Mr. Hill? I move that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that staff shall be authorized to modify chapter section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. I have a second. Thank you. Any questions? Edits. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. 5-0. Mr. Hill? I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement and the draft 205-CMR 220 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Second. Thank you. Any questions? Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. 5-0. 221, Mr. Hill? Yes. I have to do one more under 205-CMR 220. Sorry, I skipped ahead. I didn't check mark early. Thank you. No worries. I move that staff be authoritative. I move that staff be authoritative. I move that staff be authoritative. No worries. No worries. I move that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that staff shall be authorized to modify chapter or section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Are we mulling over a second? Yes. Thank you. Any questions or edits? Okay. Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. 5-0. Now, 221, not to jump ahead. Sorry about that, Commissioner Hill. I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement and the draft 205-CMR 212 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Second. Okay. Any questions or edits? Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. 5-0. Commissioner Hill? I move that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that staff shall be authorized to modify chapter or section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any questions or edits? Okay. Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. 5-0. There we have it. Well done, everyone. Thank you. I know it took the efforts of so many. So thank you. I think probably now it makes good sense to take a lunch break, commissioners. Okay. So it is 107. What if we convened 140? So a full half hour, correct? And then we'll come back to another set of regulations. We look forward to that discussion. Thank you to Carrie. Team director Lillios and team. Thank you so much. We'll see you in the half an hour or so. Okay. I think we're all set. Thank you. Okay. So we're reconvening. And I'm delighted to be able to say public meeting number 400. I know you noted that earlier. Commissioner Maynard. And then there's sort of the. Checking. And you know, they gave up on that full body. Someone is someone is on one. You need to mute yourself. Dave, I think we're all set. Thank you. Okay. So we're reconvening. And I'm delighted to be able to say public meeting number 400. And I'm glad to say that. Commissioner Maynard. If our. Our processes were here, that would be. Particularly not worthy for them. Well, I think. Definitely contributing to that number. Get started. As we're holding this meeting. The master's this gaming commission. Fertile. We'll do a roll call. Good afternoon. Commissioner Bryan. Good afternoon. I'm here. Thank you. Good afternoon commissioner hill. Good afternoon, Commissioner Skinner. Good afternoon, I'm here. Thank you. And good afternoon, Commissioner Maynard. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. I am here. Right. We'll get started now. I'm looking at my notes. And we are in agenda item number seven. Subsection B, like working at some more sports wagering regulations, and I'm turning to you, Todd, or to back to Kier. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I can take this first one. So on September 8th, the commission voted to promulgate by emergency 205CMR 244.06, which allowed the commission to authorize certified independent test labs that were approved to its test gaming devices pursuant to 205CMR 144 to also be approved to test sports wagering devices without going through additional certification processes. A public hearing was held on this regulation yesterday after we're nine, which was, I'm sorry, November 9th, which was presided over by Commissioner O'Brien. We did not receive any comments at the public hearing and we also have not received any written comments on this regulation. So I do just have one proposed change to this before we seek a vote for the final filing. When we drafted this, we were still working out terminology that was going to be used throughout the sports wagering related regulations. So in this version, we use the phrase sports wagering devices, but it's actually going to be sports wagering equipment as we bring more regulations forward and work on the definitions section. So there are three instances where that phrase is used, and I would just propose changing that from devices to equipment. Any questions for Carrie on that? Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry. Equipment that would include devices under that, is that pretty common? Yeah, that's the terminology that's going to be used in the rest of this section that will come to you, I believe next week. And then as we update the definitions section, I don't think this definition is in there yet. So we'll be adding this definition of sports wagering equipment that will include all devices that would be used. Thank you. I just want to make sure we're consistent. So this regulation, to remind you, is currently in effect by emergency and it went through the formal promulgation process. So at this time, if there are no other questions, we would be looking for a vote to adopt the regulation of equipment and finalize the regulation promulgation process. Is this a momentous occasion? First one, yes. First one. There we go. Do we have any further questions for Carrie? I have a motion. I move that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement on the draft of 205 CMR 24406 has included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any. Any questions? That reflects the edits that Carrie. Thank you. Thank you. I mentioned in our discussion. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Mainer. Hi. I vote yes. Five zero. There we go. One done. Great. Thank you. For the next few items, I'm going to turn it over to associate general council young to introduce these two. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello again, Madam chair and commissioners. So beginning on page 245 of your packets, we have two proposed for featuring regulations for your review today. Pertaining to voluntary self exclusion and 205 CMR 233. And the protection of minors and underage use in 205 CMR 250. And we also have a recommendation for the commissioners and commissioners. To create and maintain a list of individuals self excluded from sports wagering. And 205 CMR 250 tasks operators with establishing policies and procedures. To prevent underage use and minors from engaging in sports wagering. So these regulations are a result of collaboration with the division of research and responsible gaming within the commission. And we also have a recommendation for the commissioners and commissioners. And we also have a recommendation for the RGLI team. So with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to attorneys Dave Mackie and Annie Lee to walk you through the regulations in detail. And I think. Yes. Director Vanderlinden and deputy general counsel, Teresa and I are also here for any questions. Good afternoon. Councilor Mackie. How are you? I'm well, thank you very much. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and take the time to update, to pass the baton on to Annie Lee to introduce this regulation. To the commission. Thanks everyone. And good afternoon, madam chair and commissioners. So I'm first going to review. 233 then 250 as Judy stated, 233 governs the commission's mandate to create and maintain. A list of persons self excluded from sports wagering. and tracks the parallel regulations at 133 concerning the voluntary solve exclusion most relative to casinos and gambling. And so you'll see that these right regulations where possible incorporate by reference, a lot of the same duties obligations processes procedures as are in 133 for the sake of efficiency. But we, after multiple discussions with both mark as well as sort of legal counsel at the commission, we determined it was necessary to draft 233 the VSE for sports wagering as a separate regulation, because it made the most sense to have two separate lists for VSE one for gaming and one for sports wagering and individual is by no means prohibited from being on both lists but we wanted to provide as much consumer choice as possible in the event that someone feels that they should be on the gaming VSE but not the sports wagering VSE and vice versa. Separate regs, we also felt were appropriate for sports wagering VSE in light of the technological considerations that will accompany sports wagering in particular, category three licenses since those will be done largely on virtual platforms and mobile apps. And so, as I said previously, this largely mirrors and tracks 133 with the provision of sort of adding in sports wagering specific language as well as sports wagering specific language and obligations to make these more centered on sports wagering since they're going to be two different lists. The responsibilities obligations duties by both the commissioners and the sports wagering operators are largely similar and nearly identical to those provided under 23 K and that are in 133. And so, I'm happy to go into more detail if anyone has any questions but otherwise, you should look fairly familiar the only new provisions that we added into one at 233 that are not apparent in 133 is in 233 06 subsection seven and eight. This is an add on to the requirement that sports wagering operators submit written policies for compliance of the VSE program. We added in that the commission will review each operators written policy at least on an annual basis. Operators are certainly free to amend those policies outside of the annual review period and submitted to the commission for approval. This was we added these provisions in light of the fact that because a lot of this would be so technology based and there may be a rapid developments in sort of the implementation and managing of the SE list we wanted to give operators the opportunity to take advantage of those new developments and have them approved before the commission as soon as possible and not be sort of wedded to that annual review timeline that we built in. And so with that, I'll then turn to 250 which is the protections of minors and underage use from sports wagering. Could we pause first I think on the BSE. I think it makes sense. Do we have. Thank you any. Do we have questions for now director Vandal and is on. This is very much his, his expertise. I'm not really in questions but maybe this will prompt some discussion. Commissioner Skinner sorry, yes. I'm just. Thank you for the presentation, Annie I just because you acknowledge that compliance with the responsible gaming regulations are so technology based. Do we have a good enough understanding and this is from Mark to do we have a good enough understanding of the landscape and sports wagering to to make a determined nation that the technology is available to do this on the sports wagering side in particular for mobile operations. So all we need to know in order to promulgate these regulations today, director Vandal and. Thank you commissioner Skinner. I believe we do. I'm not saying that definitively but I personally believe that the technology exists both on the operator side and our ability to to receive these applications. I think 133 casino voluntary self exclusion. There will be an enrollment session with, you know, with an individual and it can be in the case of a casino it can either be done remotely, or in person. Sort of in this online space will obviously be done remotely and so it's a it's a process that we have in place and have had in place and it's operated quite smoothly for the past several months. And obviously we've engaged GLI to assist with our technology component have they that we consulted with them on this particular question. And GLI was a party to the discussion about this exclusion 233 was it last week. Commissioner Skinner would like to add I mean there is a technology component on our and in house how we receive and we are the central hub of the voluntary self exclusion lists both right now for 133 and so once the processes and individual decides they would like to exclude they speak with either remotely or in person to what we define as a designated agent that's true and both 133 and 233 that designated agent assist the individual and then rolling the application then is forwarded on to the gaming commission long ban is the principal coordinator of that he reviews the application and it's entered into our central database that we developed in coordination with with Katrina and our IT team. So that that central database will remain the same there will be a designation as to whether it's for casino sports or bull. As I understand that that process is something that that it will take some tweaking of our existing system that we have the capacity to do that. And if I One at a time. Annie you want to respond slay to director Vandalin and then I'll turn to you commissioner Skinner. This is just to thank you madam chair is just to add on to Mark's comments in response to commissioner Skinner and so something that we did while we were drafting these regulations was research what other jurisdictions with sports Wagering do relative to VSE and so something that we notice across a lot of these jurisdictions is that the obligation is on the sports wager to figure out exactly what technology they need and need to implement in order to effectively deploy VSE on the consumer and And so that's something similar that we've included here sort of based on the recognition that sports wagering operators are going to be in the best position to know of all the technology options available to them as well as new developments. To the extent that other states already require sports wagering operators to do the legwork of identifying technologies that will help administer the VSE on the consumer and They're in a good position to employ those same technologies here. And so we've created a similar obligation through these rights. Right I just had there that's the Oh, I'm sorry. The requirement that Miss Lee was just referring to is the requirement in subsection it's 23306 23306 23306 where the sports wagering operator has this obligation to on a on a regular basis submit its plan for compliance which I think would be the commission's expectation that that plan for compliance is going to include the you know the the latest technology In terms of you know protecting the VSE program Now commissioner Skinner you have follow up with that those clarification you're all set. I have a question if my fellow commissioners are set for a second. I may be wrong. And forgive me because I'm having a little trouble Miss Lee in terms of finding it in the reg itself, but I think that you said That I think I heard this right. I'm just maybe wrong in my next point That You may a patient may voluntarily self exclude from a sports wagering online app and not want to do online sports wagering I could then still be admitted to the casino for purposes of the casino play or retail sports wagering. So it's really three choices mark. I see you nodding. Is that Is that right? It would retail sports wagering and online sports wagering would be the same. It's an exclusion of sports wagering was wagering all together. That's helpful. Because this is where I may be wrong mark. I believe I remember one of our licensees saying that they would exclude They would by policy exclude somebody all together and I am in my right that it was for both casino play and sports wagering As I understand it does not preclude the operator from applying One self exclusion to to both we we set it up so that there are there are two lists but an operator may choose to decide that They have one list that applies to casino gambling and to to sports wagering Can you help me on that language? Any where that is just so I see it So Madam chair this language is within 233. Oh three I believe subsection six and so this is something that we discussed as well as sort of Four category one licensees or category one sports wagering operators There is really no way to sort of admit one person into the sports wagering area but not the casino gaming floor and perhaps the other way So we understand that on sort of the practical side it might be hard to distinguish between the two lists so Gaming licensees or sports wagering operators may end up just sort of applying one to Or your inclusion on VSE of one for just the whole establishment or facility in totality and so we revise the language of 233. Oh six 233. Oh six 233 subpart six to reflect that Operators may refuse entry from the gaming establishment sports wagering area or sports wagering facility in recognition that it may be hard to sort of draw lines in that way So it's like it's just an important policy decision Director Vandal London You preserve choice for the patron in this in this structure and I just want to make sure the commissioners all you know recognize that there is a policy decision there I hear Miss Lee saying that the operators are you know it's because of physically we can't They can't limit the sports wagering space from the casino I think that may be the case for some but I feel like another operator Licensee may say well we actually feel that if they exclude from casino play they should be excluded from sports wagering as a matter of policy am I overstating that mark is there Is there some debate in your area or is this now really well settled policy that they should the preservation of choice we heard a little bit about it in our round table Yeah, I mean it was discussed during the round table and I believe the discussion was that the choice was an important piece of this in fact Perhaps even more choice than than what how we're defining it here Chair And I'm not saying I have a position on director Vandal and I'm just pointing it out and minding folks of that important discussion around table and just thinking about you know the licensees position so director Vandal and Yeah, I would it's it's not this similar to perhaps how they're managing lists right now where just for operational purposes if you exclude in Massachusetts from Plain Ridge Park Casino it applies to a casino outside of our jurisdiction so you go to Bangor you're you're included on the list up there as well as in Massachusetts there's a there's an operational piece of this thing They they're trying to negotiate the operators negotiated as well And if I might Madam Chair one thing I think that we tried to embed in in the regulations here is not only consumer choice in terms of whether you wanted to be on a VSE list for sports wagering or for You know, betting in a gaming establishment but what will we try to embed in 23034 and six is a very clear acknowledgement by the applicant that they understand that By placing their name on in this case the sports wagering list that may depending on how the sports wagering operator operates may result in them being excluded from You know the gaming establishment or is reflected in sub part for You know establishments that are run by affiliates in other jurisdictions or in fact in other countries and I think we felt like As long as the as long as the consumer understood that that's a potential consequence here depending on how the gaming operator operates that That that was an appropriate appropriate provision that Very helpful Any questions on that and I'm sure that you're remembering around table discussions on this issue Okay Thank you. Thanks for pausing on that it was important clarification for me. Actually, madam chair, I do have one more question not related to that related to the right 233.06 subsection for this is coming from on page It starts on packet page 250 This is coming also from the round table I remember a comment at the round table about how often Folks are found when they have a big win and that's when when they're actually found and can be excluded Director Vanderlinden is this the for a lack of a better term scheme or schematic way of handling Winnings is that pretty standard across the industry? Is this something we're trying here And have we thought about You know potentially, you know if someone Is on the list and they're losing and they continue to play Is it fair for them to then have to give up the winnings when they win and that's I'm just trying to figure out how I feel about that I'm sorry. I'm trying to get to the section of the regulation. Could you repeat that section for me 233.06 And it's under subsection for It starts on packet page 250 and finishes on packet page 251 Sorry So sports way during operator shall not pay any winnings derived from sports way during to an individual is that Is that your right? Yeah, that is standard that an individual on the voluntary self-exclusion list should not derive any any winnings and that's a that's a very I think that's standard across any any voluntary self-exclusion program I think Commissioner Maynard was asking is it fair that the operators Accept their bats I think yeah, I think what I'm getting at is shouldn't we have something in the regs that's just as strong on the accepting of the bats by The potential licensee. I mean this is pretty strong. And maybe I'm missing it. Perhaps it's in here and I'm missing it Which is why I'm asking You know the we do have and and maybe you could point me to the right section within 133 There's a requirement that where where possible and feasible that there's a determination of the amount that is wagered And that amount is paid back to the Commission. This is as I as and that is this sort of idea that You know, this is an agreement between the Operator and the individual who's enrolled in the voluntary self-exclusion program And both have a degree of accountability And should not profit or benefit from from somebody who is on the list and in gambling And any or David is that is that the last sentence I see their director I think it says the monetary value of confiscated winnings or wagering instrument Shall we pay to the Commission for deposit into the Sports wagering fund within 45 days That's what you're referring to and then in if I might impart sub part 5 the section immediately below that And again it includes the where reasonably possible language because that's an issue it does Say that the wagering operator has to determine the amount wagered and lost And then And then pay that to the Commission for deposit within 45 days So there's parallelism in terms of having to pay back whatever the proceeds are Again qualified by the where reasonably possible And I see that I'm sorry I'm just noticing that Bruce Band has joined us. So I don't know if he can he wants to chime in I was just going to say we usually do make the Casino operator return any funds that they acquire from Involuntary or voluntary self-exclusion person and you know that takes up we usually try and agree on an amount with them by reviewing video And place versus if you know the the person's caught they Know after return stuff. We don't take the money out of their pockets per se, but if we you know if they they had the money out on the table or whatever that gets confiscated So it's pretty equally divided Without the money's taken So Bruce is that for the whole evening? That the The VSE patron is on the gaming floor that you'll go back and see that we can verify that that money was was One by the casino. Yes, it's from the whole Yes And Bruce I don't you could say that's not a provision that I heard over time I don't think it's a provision that I don't think it's a provision that I don't think it's a provision that I don't think it's a provision You could say that's not a provision that I heard over scene and other jurisdictions regarding voluntary self-exclusion I know it is in New Jersey, but I can't speak with the other jurisdictions You know, we've always taken the approach that the casino shouldn't profit from Involuntary or voluntary or involuntary Person I think now chair. I don't intend to hijack this conversation It's been so well, but I just don't want any illness to be on Person with addiction issues, right? I don't want them to bear old brunt or a major good majority of brunt on this When they're only found when they have a big winning and there's perhaps a lot of losses in between that that weren't found And that's something that I'm thinking about so I yield with that That's excellent And a little bit of clarification at least with respect to our practice. Miss Lee, you were going to chime in. I'm sorry to have cut you off No, that's perfectly all right. In response to director Vanderlinden's concern and also commissioner Maynard's concern about You know, allowing an individual to sort of I guess can task the amount that's forfeited based on Sports wagering when they're on the VSE the preamble of two thirty three oh six That first paragraph incorporated by reference one thirty three oh six subsection seven B Which allows an individual to contest the forfeiture of winnings or things of value By requesting a hearing before the commission within 15 days of the forfeiture And that request also requires the individual to identify the reason why the winnings or things of value should not be forfeited And so this is sort of the safeguard that we have included by reference that allows an individual To sort of be heard with respect to how much they think is appropriate As a forfeiture Thank you Have one follow up on this The technology element If I were on VSE and I picked up my phone VSE for sports wagering and I picked up my phone to place that on A new platform or the old platform Is there an automatic stop is there Is there some mechanism that prevents me from placing a wager Technically do they have that do we know And is that consistent with choice So I guess Madam chair your question is Will it immediately apply across all platforms in the in the state that are operating in the state All legal legal approved all approved platforms online platforms Now I'm speaking if I'm at home, but I put myself on the VSE Well that is our disabling for me to not be able to place a wager online in Massachusetts Technology Yes, the the voluntary self exclusion was to shared we all Will be shared with all sports wagering operators The individuals name would then be blocked from Entering or from placing a bet on this on the site. So it definitely will block it Technology so really it's only if they're entering one of the three licensees You see knows where there's this issue Well or any of the untethered operators to right You know side of our jurisdiction no no I mean I mean Category to category twos. Oh, yeah category. Sorry. Yeah, I mean our licensees I guess not the three but possible to Also license our facilities license facilities. Yes, so There is another another piece that that will be coming soon Regarding a cooling off period and so that will be sort of a voluntary self exclusion and will come to that and that will be Our proposal would be that that's limited and exclusive to to the operator and not it wouldn't block from all all sports waiters But it is a it is a block. I wanted to make sure that maybe that was what Commissioner Skinner was asking about in terms of the final block. It's a cross block. Thank you so much Madam chair if I may just add a little bit to that so the physical block is applicable to category one and category two operators From physically entering a sports wagering area or sports wagering facility for category three operators The exclusion is from holding a sports wagering account. This was something that we discussed with GLI in order to be able to utilize an app such as fandals or draft kings Sort of the the conceit is that an individual would need a sports wagering account and so if they go to register for sports wagering account or if they were having on there on the BSE They are either prohibited from opening account or their account is suspended or somehow you know shut down for the duration that they're on the BSE Okay, that's helpful. That's I wondered if there was something that actually preset prevented it, but it's it's the account itself. Okay, I'm not sure if that's in there and I missed it. Thank you. Thank you That was that was much better than what it No, that's okay and madam chair. This is at 233011 I believe it's the second sentence which says 233 shall govern the procedures and protocols relative to the list of persons self excluded from entering a sports wagering area or sports wagering facility or holding a sports wagering account I see. So that's the trigger. Yeah. Yes. Excellent. Can I ask one follow up mark. So they go on the BSE and then there's some communication. So they shut down their account. Right. And that's communication from us to the their operator. So it will be very similar to how it's it's currently managed where we receive notification through our online system that there's an application we review that application and then shortly thereafter, the name is added to the statewide voluntary self exclusion list. Each operator reviews the new names that are coming on to that list and closes their accounts. Very close account. Yeah. Right. Thank you. Other questions. All right. And we're moving on to you. We're we are on and I have to say conversation is really helpful even though this is very familiar territory. It's very helpful to navigate the language. So thank you, Miss Lee. Very, very helpful. Moving on then to the next. Right. So the next set of responsible sports wagering regulations before the commission today is 205 CMR 250 on the protection of minors and underage youth from sports wagering. These are regulations that again largely track 150 governing the protection of minors and underage youth from gambling. Here we've we've included some provisions from 133 and 233 that we thought were applicable here. Those specific provisions are at 250 01 subsections two through four and this is to require sports wagering operators to submit a written policy that includes what they're doing to prevent minors and underage youth from sports wagering. It again requires that annual review. And again says that if sports wagering operators amend those policies outside of the annual review cycle, they can submit the policy for approval to to the commission so they can begin implementing it as soon as possible. Another thing that we added in from two from 133 and 233 are sanctions against the sports wagering operator. So similar to the sanctions available for the potential sanctions that may be imposed on sports wagering operator for failure to abide by VSE regulations. The same sanctions and the same procedures and processes and sort of safeguards that are in place for VSE violations also apply to violations of underage youth and minor sports wagering. One correction that we do have to make to 250 01B is the last sentence we had copied the language from 233 as it appeared there. The last sentence where it says the sports wagering operator shall not be deemed to have marked or shall be deemed to have marketed to a minor underage youth only if marketing materials are directly or sent directly to an address email address telephone number or other contact identified by the individual on their applicant. We would strike out everything after identified by so we strike out identified by the individual on their application and replace it with information for the minor or underage youth because you're not going to be a kid applying to sports wager. And so that's just one technical correction to include the one other thing that I will highlight for the commission is that where these regulations closely track 150 on protecting youth from gambling. The one part that did not make it into these regulations is a section that was originally 1503 governing marketing and advertising guidelines regarding youth. We understand that advertising and marketing relative to sports wagering will be presented to the commission in a separate regulation and we anticipate that that separate regulation will include some of the safeguards or regulations regarding marketing and advertising to use for sports wagering. So any could you talk a little bit about what we talked about this morning on this section in terms of there's a section of this that I think we need to further define sports wagering area before we pass this reg. Because particularly the conundrum we're going to have at PPC with the 18 and 21 gap where you're going to have an area that might be either paramutual area or a gaming area or sports wager area and we haven't actually clearly discussed or defined as a commission. What that's going to mean and overlap and which one's going to prevail and whether that means re establishing the lines on the gaming establishment etc so when I first read these in terms of responsible gaming and protecting and the reporting requirements I was a little hesitant to not have a full some conversation about what that meant in that context in terms of the actual kiosk access some of them is going to be a lot easier than others to keep it absolutely in an area that's a gaming area and away from anybody under the age of 21 and some of them are not going to have that set up. And so to provide a little bit more context about what Commissioner O'Brien is referencing there we had a discussion this morning on essentially what would happen if the sports wagering operator wanted to put sports wagering kiosk in a horse racing facility. And so under these regs. This would actually be covered under 250 one one a so sports. Just let us catch up. What page. page. This is page 253 of the packet. Thanks. 250. Oh one. Yeah. Three one a. Yes, one a. So this provision requires sports wagering operators to implement policies procedures and practices that are designed to prevent minors and underage youth from entering a sports wagering area or sports wagering facility. And so a sports wagering facility is key to category two operators under the statute category two licenses are issued to any holder of a license to conduct a live horse racing meeting or a greyhound meeting license, or running horse racing licensee that conducted simulcast wagering. And so, since this incorporation of sports wagering facility captures the entirety of the category two definition under 23 and we're confident that this regulation is written in a way that's broad enough to prevent those operating a horse racing facilities from just installing sports wagering kiosk in a bar and creating some loophole that would prevent kids from engaging in sports wagering. The other thing that we have is they may overlap those areas may overlap where 18 year olds are allowed in one part of it, but you have to be over 21 and another and so how are we going to actually define that in that venue. Can I keep this to you. Yeah, no now I'm, I'm, I'm understanding the conundrum now. It will be a challenge for us racing at 18, you know, that's right. So you're going to be is an 18 year old entitled to to be in the same place where there may be sports wagering kiosks, but you will not be able to use those. You know, it's, it's, you know, it's, that's a difficult issue to regulate your way around. It's going to have to impose some of the other way to regulate around that I suppose is to have an obligation on the operator to some extent distinguished between people who are there and lawfully on the premises over the age of 18 to watch the horse racing but to prevent people who are under the age of 21 from using the sports wagering kiosks. Right, so I think it requires about literally the physical layout of these spaces, and what are you going to do as a commission. Yeah, where are we going to draw the line how hard is that line and concrete that line going to be physical barriers or something like what you're talking about where it's a, you know, keep an eye on it which I'm not going to. I don't know how many people had. So Mr ban, I'm, if you're available. Bruce, I don't know if he's hearing Karen, I think that PPC, how do they manage it now, do you know I'm, I think they don't let anyone in. Yeah, and they have a security so if you're going from the horse racing area into the casino there's security to make sure that you're not an 18 year old that's been the other area that's going into the game area. So I know that Bruce is working with all the category one applicants for the sports wagering license on their plans and on their setups and they're in communication with him on their plans and those will be coming before the commission. So the commission will get an opportunity to review the plans where they want to put the chaos how this is all going to work so that will be part of the process. And it's my understanding part of that is a request to redefine the lines of the gaming area to incorporate those kiosks which would not necessarily be what the paramutual people would want because that that. Yeah, that's an interesting question that some discussion on that the other day, you know the gaming areas defined, you know, within gaming establishment where they can have casino gaming equipment. If hypothetically that the casinos wanted to put chaos, say in the restaurant and in other areas now, does that then become do they have to expand the gaming floor to those locations, and you know, hypothetically if they wanted to put it in one of their kiosks, does that mean now that there's a 21 and over in that restaurant and that kids can't go into that restaurant anymore so there are policy questions that the commission will have to address once that comes before you. Madam chair if I may. Oh yes. Don't hold me to this, I mean, but I think I've been, I think I've been in other jurisdictions where you have to use different kiosks for Sonya casting as compared to sports betting, because I think other just go ahead. I asked her all this question specifically to follow up with vendors on whether there were biometric ways of confirming it was actually a 21 year old placing a bet into my understanding that technology does not exist. And so this is someone keeping an eye on it, as opposed to really knowing that you are protecting the under 21 and I have a huge concern with this given that demographic is right in the heart of, who are the most vulnerable to this and so this is a big red flag for me. Yes, it's been, and of course it's for all of us. So the very least on that section that we're looking at, should we be saying something specific about kiosks and not simply access to the facility or the area should we be here. If it's going to be read this way, if they put a kiosk in they cannot have the 18 to 20 year olds coming in, betting on horses they're not going to be able to have them in that area. Or, or they have to have a way to monitor those kiosks to make sure that only a 21 year old is on those kiosks right commissioner. I'd rather have more information before I put a rag out there, because to my understanding, the only way to monitor that would be someone IDing you when you go in as a secure where these kiosks are you go up to the cashier and make a bet where they card you. But we can rely on that now for casino access right, you know an ID. Yeah, but once you're in but this these particular areas created conundrum, because you have a dual purpose in that area potentially if they choose to put these in that area. It's going to be fun now I don't know if you've been able to have a conversation. Hi Bruce, we're calling on you. How are you. You're on mute. I'm sorry I didn't hear the question that is getting phone calls. So we're just, we're really wondering about how to prevent access to the kiosk particularly for all for all underage right for all minors generally. So typically, where there is an overlap of horse racing where where use at 18 can bet online for horse racing, more in person. And they can be 18 and then the idea that perhaps sports wagering kiosk might be placed in that same space, where you're mixing 18 year olds with a 21 year old law. Do you know how best jurisdictions up you are on mute, unless you're speaking to somebody else. Bruce, you're on mute. There we go. I think the only way to control that is you have to cordon off the area where the kiosk are, and have a security guard check the IDs of those coming in. I don't know any other way to really control that. And I see Katrina is nodding her head to and so you're very aware of the technology challenges right with respect to kiosks. And so far with respect to the current plans that you've looked at Bruce is that. Yes, that what's being contemplated. The one thing that I've seen and been proposed. That's what people are showing me. I think the one restaurant that I've seen is it's a 21 only restaurant. So, you know, they're not letting anybody under 21 there because you have to cross for to get to it. And that, you know, up to this point they haven't let anybody under 21 in the restaurant to begin with so I'm sorry. What about the paramutual area of PPC. That hasn't been proposed at this point. Yeah, so the one area that we know is a conundrum hasn't come up really logistics. But I know miss Lucas is listening. I mean I think that that's probably the practical solution with surveillance cameras over that just to ensure that IDs are being checked. And anytime that has come up, the industry has told me that they would hesitate to put a guard there to check those kind of things for so nobody has had reluctance to do that. You know, not all the plans have come in yet. And that's something I would certainly ask right away. You know, if it came in because it's certainly a concern for all of us. I have heard from other jurisdictions that that monitoring kiosk use is a real challenge the Commissioner Brian your concern is not overstated whatsoever. And it's troubling that the technology isn't better, but I bet it will get better and better on this. Right now, do we want to have a regulation reflect this discussion commissioners or do you want to add more, ask more questions. Mr. Maynard, are you off? Do you have a question? I just, I wanted to, I mean, I'm reading this that says there has to be policies and procedures submitted and the commission has to give it an approval or not an approval. What degree on moving on this now would that stop us from having the substantive conversation and Commissioner O'Brien, I mean, I'm really asking that from a peer place. I'm trying to figure out, is this something we should hold on or should we put it out there so we can get them to give us these these plans and then we can take a vote on it. Yeah, I mean the conundrum that I'm having is it may require more action on our part. So if they present something, are we then going to have to redefine either the paramutual area, or the game me area. That's the question that I have, because I don't, I don't see how you do it any other way, myself. So I ask for anything that's not on the floor to be brought before the commission. So, Mr. Mackie is there. Katrina has something to add. Oh, hi Katrina, my apologies. Oh, that's okay. You know, the one thing I will say and all the points that have been made are extremely valid but I do agree with Bruce and with Eileen. Right now the only way to mitigate any sort of underage or to validate the underage is to card at the kiosks, but we also need to remember this demographic right. This demographic is really going to go towards the online versus the on-prem sports wagering. I'm not to say that they won't be participants that do go to the onsite, but I do venture based on some of the conversations I've had with other jurisdictions. It will be a little bit more in the minimal side due to that demographic and the online world. That's really, you know, millennials and younger. That's really where they live, where they thrive. And so I anticipate that this hopefully, you know, in conjunction with the surveillance and the carding of the kiosk, maybe, maybe, you know, very minimal than we expect. I think Commissioner Bryan's good point though is where we're tracing and sports wagering merge. That's where, you know, we just an obvious mixing. No, absolutely. Absolutely. And unfortunately, the technology just is not there today. But, you know, to director Bann's point of view, having the surveillance, having a security guard card and check IDs, that would be the only way to mitigate at the structure. Mr. Mackey, is there a way that we can amend this right now? I mean, I think there is. We could absolutely add a provision that I understand the concern is that if the sports wagering kiosks are in an area where an 18 year old is able to be, then that creates an obvious risk. So we could incorporate and hear a general provision that says that, you know, the sports wagering kiosks can't be in an area that's accessible to people who are under 18 and there has to be a physical barrier ID checking or whatever. And then the way sports wagering operators could in the policies and procedures that they have to submit for your approval, describe how they're going to keep these two groups segregated so that no one under the age of 21 is engaged in sports wagering at these facilities. So I think it can absolutely be fixed by embedding that general sort of physical requirement of the regs and then requiring that they be a little bit more specific in the policies and procedures they're going to have to present to you on an annual basis. If that makes sense. Thank you for showing Brian, I feel like it's very similar to what we asked them licensees to do now with respect to keeping Microsoft the gaming floor and we can hold them accountable through some reporting mechanism as well. And then this is this is the conversation that needs to happen, particularly with PPC because they're the ones who voiced the desire to put them in that area. So, I want to make sure they're not getting access to it but I don't want to be blanket and say well if it's in there that under 21 can't go in, because they have an area designed to have 1819 and 20 year olds in there. So they're going to have to figure out how they do that because to me unless you have a barrier where you're being carted and you cannot get access to that kiosk shouldn't be it shouldn't be in there where those 18 year olds can go. So if they can't segregate that off. And the conundrum I'm hearing is and maybe this is going to regulate it out. And if that's the way it is that's fine. We have some minimum security staffing issues sometimes anyway, particularly with the turnover that's been going on. So they're going to have a choice to make if they're going to have to staff an area to keep it in that area. And you know, and that's an area with you know, the fire pits and the stuff like that and some of the corn also they're marketing that outdoor area to a younger audience. So that's going to be a balance that they're going to have to come up with. How are we in terms of if we were to be able to move this through today with the language that that Mr Mackie just presented. My preference honestly would be to have it written out, and then put it up and come back next week to vote on this particular one the 250 I flag that this morning is something that I was not here I flagged it in the meeting before the meeting. And so I'm just going to go back to my questioners. I feel as though what would be what would be different next week, Mr Brian just so I know what would be different like people that actually be drafting the language with not maybe a clock ticking on them right now and just come back next Thursday and have us look at it and vote it. This is the first time we're seeing this whole cluster so and this is something I'm like I said I'm very concerned about and I don't want to be overly prescriptive with it. But I also want to make sure that it says what I would want it to say to get across. What are you thinking. It sounds to me like David came up with a proposal of language that would satisfy the concern and I'm not understanding why we can't put that language up right now David and let's see it on screen. Commissioner Maynard. I agree with the show Brian, wholly on the substance of the issue. And I'm with you on that I mean, I would like to move the the reg forward if the team can have something to review by the end of the meeting. I would be happy to take five or 10 minutes and look at it. Mr Skinner. Commissioner Brian's expertise in the public safety realm. And so, you know, I'm comfortable moving forward if she is comfortable moving forward. And I think I understand that she is not at least without the benefit of reviewing the language that's being proposed in terms of the amendment. Keeping minors away from gaming, who are cannot game is a priority for all of us. And all of us have, you know, sanctions or fines have been, have been made against licensees. We monitor it carefully. We're going to have to present a plan. Please, my comments are not taken. I'm not saying time. They are not to be taken as a negative or a dig at any one of my fellow commissioners. I am simply voicing my opinion, just like every other commissioner has. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. So, Mr Mackey, it sounds as though that there's a request for perhaps some language that we could review at the end. My point that I was making is that there are some mitigating points here that they're that they do have as Commissioner Maynard pointed out that they do have to present plans. They do. I would say we would include language that you suggested where they would have to ID would have surveillance on it. I guess what my point is to the extent that we can keep things moving. And unless there's something that would be novel for next week, that would be my preference as well. Is it out of abundance in terms of speed. I would be saying the same thing. I don't think I'm going to start us up any kind of a timeline because I feel I'm actually thinking that's me personally, that's me personally, because this is already voiced a desire very early on when they first came sort of had their basic first vision. I was curious because we've never engaged in a dialogue other than me saying that makes me very uncomfortable. In terms of getting comment on this, before it goes out as an emergency reg. I don't really think it's unreasonable to say let's get the language up let's put it out there. Let's see if PPC and or any other categories that might have this kind of as well. Come back to us and say, geez, you know, here's some other language or something like I am all for moving this as expeditiously as possible but I'm not seeing it as just the language I'm also seeing it as getting any feedback somebody might want to give us. And I don't know the perspective from PPC Rainham and. Can I just add that. Yeah, chaos are going to be also around and they'll be you will be trying to get on them so it is also broader than horse racing but that's I think I brought up the point early early on that it is a different age group and then and then Commissioner Brian you, you recognize that this is a challenge. So, commissioners. There's Commissioner Skinner and Commissioner Brian, if I don't, I don't want to put words in your mouth Commissioner Skinner but it sounds as though you would be. Okay, online with Commissioner Brian to hold on this until next week. And team, how does this put you in terms of your timeline. If we were to say I'm sorry, it was Judy who started with this one. Thank you. So are you asking for our team to come together and see if we can provide supplemental language by the end of the meeting or if we can come back to you all on the 17th with updated language and some feedback. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm very comfortable with Mr. Mackie and team providing some language at the end, you know, as we go along if that's comfortable. Commissioner Brian I think you're, you're concerned about that. My request is the latter Judy I am asking that it be reworked and then put up particularly for the operators who this would most impact to get any feedback and bring it back to us for a vote on next Thursday the 17th. And if I could just jump in that that won't that shouldn't really cause any problems in our timeline that's only a week away and I wouldn't expect the conversation to be quite as lengthy next week just on these changes so we can certainly do that over the next couple of days and then get the update to early next week. Before we move on that mislead did you want to continue on just the the break overall. Yeah, I kind of summarized explanation yes and background of these breaks. Okay. Mr. Mackie if we were to go ahead I hear Commissioner Brian's position very clearly. I believe Commissioner Skinner is also online. If we did ask for language now. Would it be available or have you not had a chance to really go. I would make sense is if you gave us, I don't want to. I wouldn't want to try to dictate something into the record now but if you gave us you know 10 minutes during the next break or whatever we could probably come up with something if that were the commissioner's desire otherwise. If you remember I have a hard stop today, because I have childcare and issues that my husband is dealing with and not there so that I would really love to be able to just do what I've asked in terms of language etc and do it next Thursday because I may be gone by the end of this meeting. What time is your hard stop commissioner Brian or a clock. I think somebody else has a hard stop for that time so we're going to be okay. Okay. Alrighty, so we've gotten through one. Should we turn now to was it just this month for 235. Right. Am I right. Madam chair, if the commission were so inclined you could vote on 233 and we could clear that off the plate and then just bring 250 but these are the two responsible sports we're doing and we'll shift to another subject that Caitlin will handle. Mary, you have lost me because I was in my mind I was looking at something else. What are you proposing carry. If the commission is comfortable with 233 you could vote on that today so that we don't have to bring that one back as well next week and then we would just planning on voting on all of these today. Perhaps the one okay. No one's going anywhere yet so we're just going to keep on going so we just heard 250 so just to be clear madam chair I would also like to get the feedback from the potential licensees on this before we do it I don't really know why the one week. It's okay to do this one isolated one is causing such a cheesy. I'm not causing any to see Commissioner Brian we're just all have our different positions. Okay, let's just see if we could go through 235 and 105 and then we'll go back with our books. Absolutely. So, today we're bringing a 205 CMR 235 before the commission that starts at page 262 of your packet. And this is the sports we drink occupational licenses I'm going to let Mina take the lead on this one but I'll just intro it by saying that this regulation carries out the commission's mandate to issue occupational licenses under chapter 23 and section eight, and it largely 205 CMR 234 the vendor licensing rag that has already been reviewed and approved by the commission. I will also say that we appreciate the commission's review and comments on this regulation today but we are not going to ask for a vote on it. We're working with GLI to update the list of positions requiring licensure and section 235.012. And so we'd like to get some further input from them on that particular section and bring it back next week but again any other comments or changes that the commission would like to see we'd love to hear this week so that it can be all fixed up for next week. And now I'll turn it over to Mina. So Caitlin has said, effectively that the bulk of what I was about to say which is that this is very much in line with 205 CMR 234 which you had approved before. In the last 100 series regs. You may recall that employee licensing is in the same title as vendor licensing it was merely because of a matter of timing that they're separated out here for sports wagering. Just a couple of additional points as we go through 235. In addition to the point about what GLI is reviewing in sections two and three. By the way, this is pages 262 of your packet is where the regs starts the memos right before that. The couple of nuances that may be slightly different from 234, almost all of which are driven. Actually all of which are driven by the statute. One is the coverage first of all of which occupation who has to have an occupational license. Not all employees, and it's not there isn't a statutory distinction of key employees as there isn't a gaming contents context. Instead, an occupational license is to be issued to persons employed by an operator perform duties directly directly related to the operation of sports wagering in the Commonwealth in a supervisory role. Excuse me. And that is consistent also just with the definition of occupational license. So it's a more list narrow subset and that's one of the reasons we're asking GLI to confirm that the entities we've listed here in 235.012 and are the appropriate entities they include ones that seem somewhat obvious like a chief of security or a general manager. We also in B included some of the folks who might be involved in the operational side of software development manager. We include you'll notice are ones that certainly look a lot like the casino side, which are really tied to the category one or two the physical sports wagering or in person sports wagering. Once you get past that initial section. Again, the rest of 235 procedurally proceed looks very very similar to 234 the fingerprinting and forms portion of it. So how applicants apply and what kinds of fees are paid it's $100 fee for initial application 100 for renewal 235.045 and five are both again how the Bureau reviews the process and and what it does from there. The 235.06 is again for temporary occupational licenses just as we have for temporary vendors. We included if you look at 235.062 which is on page 266 of your packet. The sunset, the self certification provision that was included for vendors with the same sunset date of August 31 2023 which I believe the Commission had adopted for vendors, recognizing there may be some initial need for some temporary licensing. Whereas after sports wagering may be up and running that that need can be revisited if you need to be able to do it on a sort of temporary license basis or temporary suitability basis for an occupational licensee. All of that again is is pretty much verbatim what you saw 234 going down to 235.08. This is where there are some differences driven by statute. The, the Gaming Act has, excuse me, not the gaming at chapter 23 and the sports wagering act is a complaint or two for a second says that occupational licensees must seek renewal by March 1 of the third year calendar year foundation renewal doesn't quite define it as an expiration but it doesn't kind of left the question hanging so we have tried to add in the expiration period and the term is tied to that that's why there's that on March 1 if you're wondering why that date and the renewal process follows from there. Again, following the kind of typical process under 30 a for for a remitted master's administrative law generally for licensees that if they have asked for renewal their license remains in force until the renewals acted on. That's what 235.08 does the rest of this again is the following that is basically verbatim 234 so we're not asking for a vote today, as was mentioned because we're waiting for that input from GLI, but wanted to just introduce the reg and explain it and again this is another one that was worked on in collaboration between legal and and the Bureau staff so if there are questions now I don't know. Director lilias if you have anything to add there but that's that's kind of where we are on this one. Director lilias do you have anything to add. Thank you for the opportunity chair really only that we are looking forward to the conversation with GLI because we need some substantive you know got checks on the not only the positions as they relate to sports wagering operations but taking into consideration the different types of operator licenses that are being issued we want to make sure that we get that get all of their input and insights to bring back to you. Any questions for Mina or director lilias. I see no questions. So it makes sense now I realize that Caitlin you probably are handling the next one as well or somebody else. That's correct. Okay, so by not I guess addressing carry earlier I don't know if they needed to kind of something else so I apologize for that but why don't we move right on to one of them. Absolutely so the next regulation that we'll move on to is 205 CMR 105 and this is actually an amendment to 105 not a new regulation in the 200 series and you can see the red line of this at page 277 in your packet. So I'll give you one second to get there as I also get there. Thank you. Thank you. And again I'm going to let any handle the substance of this but just to give you a brief outline this one 205 CMR 105 is titled investigations and enforcement bureau. It sets out the duties and responsibilities of the IB and the proposed amendment simply update 105 to reflect the IB's duties and responsibilities with regard to sports wagering. Pretty straightforward in my opinion, but I will let any walk through the specifics. I actually don't have too much to add to what Caitlin just said because it's as straightforward as she just described it. What we have done is we have added in citations to 23 and as well as sports wagering specific terminology to essentially amend 205 CMR 105 as if 23 and had been enacted prior to the promulgation of 105. And you'll also sort of see some small technical corrections like changing through 131.002 at sex just to indicate. I'll make clear that the regulations are expanding beyond 131 and rather than amending it every time the regulation number increases will just capture whatever else is there. And so that's all I have like I said it's pretty straightforward though if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them. One thing that I think might be inconsistent with 23 and is that it says that the bureau shall have the power to assess civil administrative penalties. I'm not sure about that delegation. It's in 23 and the Bureau the commission. So that it's a good point. Madam chair but we actually did not revise that section to include 23 and that section only relates to 23. Oh so it just stays okay. So this only applies it's all 105 got it. So this stays with 23 K. And not 23 and got it. I think that there are, I believe there's only one other section which was not amended to include 23 and and that's 105.09 we just included 105.05 and 105.09 for the sake of showing you all of the amendments. ABCC isn't either that's okay I see how this is just a little bit different structure than the other ones got it. Any questions. It makes so much more sense today than it did around 1130 last night. Thank you. Any, any questions. Mr Skinner, Commissioner Brian, Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Maynard, do you have any questions. All set. All right, so are you looking for a vote on that one day Caitlyn. Yes, we would be like, okay so only 235 we're holding off on. Commissioner Hill would you like to like if there are no further questions on the on the on the regulations that were set forth. We just want to turn to Mr Mackie in the event that that some portion of the commission would want to move forward because we are body of five I just want to check in Mr Mackie. So, I mean, one approach that the commission could take. If it wanted was simply to add to section 25011 a the phrase, you know, rewrite that to say entering a sports wagering area, a sports wagering facility, or place a bet on a sports wagering kiosk. So understanding that with respect to individual different individual places there may be complexities with that which would have to be addressed in the policy the operators obliged to submit to the commission before it begins sports wagering operations. That's probably the simplest way to do that but I also, you know, respect the fact that, you know, there may be a desire to get feedback on this so we I think we could address it today but. Okay, director wells you have an update. I reached out to, to North, I believe is on the call right now and I know North, if you're available to speak right now, but I just out of curiosity asked if they were planning to put the machines, the chaos machines in the racing area. I think he indicated that there he would not but there's no one wants to address that. Good. Good afternoon North, how are you. Good afternoon. Thank you for hanging in on our meeting today. Yeah, we, we do not intend to put kiosk in the racing area. So that and your plan that will be submitted will reflect that. Correct. Commissioner Brian, I know that there's still a possibility of another horse racing track at this time. What are you thinking, you know what you're on new commissioner Brian. That doesn't eliminate the possibility of future decision or anything else in terms of random or a future potential horse racing licensee that would be in the circumstance. So I do think the reg needs to address it. So we either bar it and say it can't be in there at all, or we come up with language that says you have to wall it off somehow and physically barrier it off or security of that sort of thing. And I don't know what level of detail is minimally acceptable there. Just think I am going to respect the fact that you'd like to push us off for a week and I'm hearing that it doesn't matter. I'm not thinking it actually doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to North in this particular moment. I'm not looking at the regs for just that I've raised your concern. You want to go forward and do that you go ahead and take your vote I told you that I'm not comfortable without betting the language. Go ahead take the vote have someone do a motion in a second and we'll take a vote. Thank you so much for Brian. I actually was going to say I respect the fact that you would like to wait for next week and we can do that. I guess what I think it would be really helpful if we're going to roll it over for a week is to make sure that whatever comes back to us will be satisfied factory to you. I want to make sure that you have the opportunity to go down because I do see. And I think Commissioner Maynard pointed out that they will come forward with a plan for us and that's mitigating factor that really helps. And then Mr. Mackie just also at suggest some language. If they come back next week with just that. Is that going to be sufficient and I'm thinking, rather than having private conversations between now and then if you have anything that you could offer publicly it'd be very helpful. And that really was that really was my position to suggest we roll it over the deference to your concerns but right now just ask if you could, if you have anything else you'd want to add. Precisely, I do want to hear from IB about the further part of 250 that it talks about what's deemed to be infractions and sanctionable. And if you have kiosks that are not sort of separately walled off in areas like that. And it basically says that it is not sanctionable and is not deemed to be a knowing or reckless failure. If a person younger than 21 shielded their age or otherwise attempted to avoid verification while presenting in the area, the facility or on the platform. Does that mean that if somebody sneaks in and goes under a rope, etc. That it's not a failure. I mean is this sort of the generic language we use all the time. Director Lilios I think that was directed at you. Yeah, I think you have a point commission I take your point, Commissioner O'Brien that, you know, if underage is successful in evading the safeguards that we've required the property to put in place. You know that is not a willful action. I mean listen it's a fact specific scenario right so I don't want to get ahead of myself, but you know we wouldn't look at all all the facts and if they were, you know, properly staffed and trained and because of the ingenuity of the underage person there was, you know, in a base of activity that could impact our ability to, or the commission's ability to succeed at any enforcement measures and including, you know, up to administrative penalties. In terms of the miners on the floor now at the casinos when they come in with the fake ID they come in you know that sort of stuff. Is that is this the same language that we're applying in that circumstance. 2505, 2505 1A. Is that where that came from. I think it does align me that you can can. Maybe you can confirm. That is the type of analysis we go through on the gaming floor. Right. We look at, you know, those individuals who spend, you know, two minutes on the floor before they're detected. We look at the licensee one way in a scenario like that we look at the licensee a different way if they've been sitting at a gaming table and interacting with various staff members for any kind of period. I think that I think the language more or less aligns in terms of the culpability if you will. And the standard. Yeah, I add there I mean it's it's it's a little bit interesting under under the 100 series on 133 the voluntary self exclusion from the gaming establishments the standard is the same. It's knowing and reckless. Interestingly under 150 there is not an independent sanctions provision. In 150 we've, we've embedded one here, but there isn't in 150. So the 250 language came from 133. Yeah, the knowing and the reckless peace. Is that helpful commissioner Brian. Yeah, now I'm wondering where the language comes from on the sanctioning of the minors meeting floor. But I can ask you that offline in the right. Yeah, that's not a reckless standard. No, is it strict liability or is there a recklessness. It's, there's not a reckless standard, but we do consider all the surrounding facts. So it's not strict liability. But in policy and not a rag it sounds like as well as the policy of, you know, the, the overarching assessment purpose is for achieving compliance. Right. So that's the assessment policy that we've gone through. So commissioner Brian, would you want to add anything else for the legal team to contemplate this is for all over one week. Yeah, and I want to end up circling back with them on Tuesday anyway, so we can add this to the list in terms of if it's not done by Monday. And I don't have language proposed to be finalized something by Tuesday. I'm sure that we understand that it is, I understand that you're meeting with the legal team. And that is a really a huge asset for us and we appreciate that. But it is hard when you're having conversations privately that's what I'm trying to get out now with the team and then coming back so I really am. What I'm trying to convey to you and have been trying to convey to you is is we talked about this this morning and I've still been thinking about this and so I want to be able to put pen to paper. I want to be able to buy people to make sure that there's nothing that I'm thinking it's overly burdensome or undo so. So that's what I want to be able to do. And so at latest, it would be if I'm hitting a wall on Tuesday, but I would hope to be able to get to this and have something by Monday for further distribution. We can certainly put pen to paper and provide something in that timeframe. Mr. Maynard, are you all right rolling us over for another week. I am. I am, but I do want to make a statement because it's been a long playing statements. And that's that I am genuinely concerned that we need to make sure that we have these out for comment. We need to make sure that we're hearing back. We do need to make sure that we're constantly working on them and moving them forward. And it's something I'm worried about because I agree that there's a public safety risk here. I have also public safety risk, but I'm getting a call at 12 o'clock at night last night from my best friend that everyone around him and TD garden is using some sort of app to do an over under at the seas game. I worry about the public safety risk of not getting this up and going to. So, I do have to leave that there. Thank you. Thank you. That was very good. Thank you, Mr. Skinner. Your position. First I want to ask a practical question. We have this other set of rights presented to us for. Vote today. 235. The request from our legal team was to postpone that set. Until a week from now to allow GLI the opportunity. To provide some additional feedback. What is the difference. Right. I think it's a reasonable one. Opportunity. To our own. Fellow commissioner. I don't see the harm. In granting that request. I think. There is way too big of a deal being made about. The request. Again, it's a reasonable one. As has been stated. Many times now. My position. Okay. Great. Great. We'll put it off till next week, madam chair. Okay. Let's put it off till next week and we'll get that done. Why don't we take a vote then on. If we're ready to move on 233 commissioner. I move that the commission approve a small business impact statement and the draft. 205 CMR 233. As included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. I have a second. Okay. Any questions or edits? All right. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. Commissioner Skinner went out of order commissioner Skinner. Sorry about that. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. I vote yes. Mr. Hill. I move that the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretaries of the Commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that the staff shall be authorized to modify chapter or section members or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. I have a second. Any questions or edits? Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. I vote yes. Five zero. Mr. Hill. We have now we are going to roll over the minors. Our team made a recommendation that we would be better prepared if we got GLI's input to a greater degree. So we at their request are rolling over that. For next week to 35 correct? Caitlin. All right. And now we're going to turn to 105. Do I have a motion? Commissioner Hill. I move that the commission approved the small business impact statement. And the draft 205 CMR 105 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. I have a second. I missed who's the second was commissioner. Thank you. Any questions or edits on that? Mr. O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. on November 17th. That's correct. Okay, so we'll expect those two. Do I have to make one more motion here, Madam Chair? Oh, did I miss one? Yeah, sorry about that. That's okay. Just moving ahead. Go ahead, Commissioner Hill. I move that the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the Secretary of the Commonwealth by emergency and thereafter to begin the regulation promulgation process. I further move that staff shall be authorized to modify chapter or section numbers or titles to file additional regulation sections as reserved or to make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Thank you, my apologies, Commissioner. Five seconds. Second. Thank you, Commissioner Maynard. Any questions or edits? Commissioner Bryan? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. I vote yes, 5-0. Okay. Thank you now to Ann Kay. Appreciate so much. And to Caitlin and Carrie and Judy, thank you for your work today. And of course, Todd, thank you for your leadership of your team. Great work. Great work. Okay. Now, we're now turning to Karen, Secretary Wells, if you have an update on sports freedom. Yes. So before we get into the agenda items 8a and 8b, I did want to make a note. I had conversation with Jacqueline this morning, just to note for the public, for submitting the application, the applicants are provided with a link and they have been either contacting MGC Sports Wagery at MassDaming.gov or some of them have been reaching out to licensing and getting the link. And I confirm that either way is permissible and it's working either way and we will get the documentation. So Jacqueline and Derek were talking this morning and thought it might be helpful just to put that out as a clarification. Those, we actually have been starting that process. So that's a good sign that everything's in order and working towards that goal of getting those applications in time. So I just wanted to make that note. For the next item on the agenda, the Sports and Sports Wagering Category 2 licenses, we have some guests with us today. We have Attorney Steve Eichel who is with Radham Park. And then we also have Attorney Bruce Barnett and Michael Buckley with Sterling Suffolk-Rey's course. So they're here for both here for Item A and then Mr. Eichel, Attorney Eichel has a request which is Item A for the two little eyes. So I just want to start off by saying that we've had public discussion about the timeline and deadlines and but we've really catered that to the Category 1 and the Category 3 applicants because we have had conversations with the Category 2 applicants or prospective licensees about their timelines and that wasn't quite ready for primetime yet. So my understanding and I'll have them speak for themselves is that there's not an expectation that the application would be submitted by the 21st that given that they are presumptive licensees under the statute and it is not a competitive process for a Category 2 licensee that does not seem to be problematic in any way it just impacts the timeline and our scheduling. So I was going to let them speak but if that is the case it seems as if the logical solution would be to accept Category 2 applications on a rolling basis because they're not competing against each other for those licenses so that can work when they are ready to get going. So why don't I turn it over to Attorney Bruce Barnett and I think he wanted to introduce Mr. Buckley as well as he is the new COO at Sterling Suffolk and then we'll turn it over to Mr. Eichshild to also comment on the scheduling and the timeline. Thank you Karen. Can you hear me okay? Yes we can. Great thanks and Madam Chair and Commissioners it's great to be back before you again. I will take a second and I have a great pleasure to introduce to you our new Chief Operating Officer Mike Buckley who will give you a brief update on where we are and confirm that what Karen has described is our situation exactly. Mike. Great thank you for the time and good afternoon Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be here and to make my introduction. I've learned a great deal just in listening in to the meeting throughout the day. My name is Mike Buckley. I live in Chestnut Hill. I have a five and three-year-old and for the past six or seven years after business school I've been working for Joe Donald one of the principals at Suffolk and so in that capacity although I haven't been interfacing with you directly I've been working with Chip and John Rizzo and David Lanzilli and a great team of experienced professionals over there. We've made great progress with some of our potential sports book operators and we're really grateful for the place that Chip left left off and he's done a great job for us. I'm excited to be working with all of you and with that I'll turn it back to Bruce. As Mike was saying you know we've been and as you part I think throughout the process we've been working with a consultant to help us evaluate the sports wagering options. We've been communicating in talks with various top-of-the-line operators because of the sort of strategic and competitive sensitivities we can't we don't feel like we can give a lot of detail about exactly what's happening negotiations but we're moving forward we are hopeful of having something soon that we can sort of bring to the public and bring to the commission but as Karen said we're not going to be in a position to have that operator identified and therefore not in a position to present anything resembling a full application for the category two license by the November 21st deadline that you've adopted for the category ones and the category threes and for the reasons Karen mentioned we would ask that you clarify that the category two applications can come in on a rolling basis after that point. Thank you. Any questions for Attorney Burnett or Mr. Buckley? All right then I'll put it over to Attorney Ishill to speak on behalf of the Rain and Park. Thank you Bruce I think you wrote my script out in full for me there it's a very very similar comments. Similarly you know we we also are working with a consultant I believe a different consultant and our vetting various potential operators. I think we are getting much closer we are going again without mentioning specific names at this point given confidentiality agreements that we have we are negotiating term sheets and and trying to finalize those negotiations with a couple of potential several I should say several potential operators because in one case it might be a scenario you're still it is still possible that there is a scenario where we will have a separate operator for mobile online for the tether category three license and one as our operating partner for the retail or possibly a single operator who would do both retail and mobile. Obviously which way that comes out could also you know involve different somewhat different timing considerations but I think that we're you know quote me on this here in a quotable format here but you know I think we're you know within within a couple weeks hopefully or less from being able to you know publicly disclose you know who are selected partners are I think you know similarly I guess on the on the timing front we would not contemplate I believe being you know submitting an application by the 21st for the same reasons that Bruce mentioned with respect to Suffolk Downs. That said we did have one question I guess that I think I discussed maybe a little bit with you earlier Karen which is if if in fact we did have a separate category three tethered mobile operator who was within and I think before when we talked I I wasn't sure whether or not it was necessarily folks who had you know been in already engaged in the vetting process and would be submitting let's say by you know a category three application by the 21st and I didn't think that was possible there may be a possibility there so I'm sort of you know asking to some degree the hypothetical question that if we did end up partnering with an mobile online operating partner who was able to submit the application by the 21st if that's still a possibility for us and they were already in the pool being vetted now and and could get it together by that original date would the fact that our category two license would be coming up it would be submitted later preclude that category three operating partner from going live at the same time as the category three operators who are in the initial pool I don't know I don't know for sure that we would be in that situation but I guess it's something we were hoping would not necessarily be concluded if if we were in that that particular scenario can I just ask a clarifying question on that are you asking if a category three licensee who you have a contractual agreement with could go live as a tethered operator before the category two license was granted and that tethered operator would not also be one of the untethered operators that were selected in the competitive process I think that that's right yes I'm contemplating a situation where there is someone in the group of folks who was you know submitted whether the scoping survey on time is you know presumably would submit their their application we are I would say we are closer you know we're pretty close to having someone on the online side and so you know it would be very helpful you know in those negotiations and I think for everybody's best interest if you know they could have a shot at being in that initial process because particularly you know the online operator would be one of the major players who would be in a position to get their application in much more quickly than we would probably be able to do on the retail side so we can have Todd weigh in I'm I'm not sure how much commissioners can weigh in on this at this juncture is it okay is it permissible well I noticed wasn't noticed on the agenda as for the discussion today I I think that the you know the other item on the on the fee was so we could go forward on that so this may be something just for the commission's edification to think about and we can clarify what the what the exact question is and then have our legal team go back and do some some work and take a look at the exact question it's almost as though it's condition precedent you know like you have to have your two license in order to have your tethered category three in a way you could say the two issues are somewhat philosophically related in the sense of you know how tethered is tethered well if it's untethered they got to go through a competitive process right Steve and right exactly but I'm not in the sense of how you know are the are the tethered the tethered category three and the category two license really kind of one in the same applicant or are they two different applicants I guess I think I can answer that question I think it's pretty straightforward and I know a madam chair anytime anyone says that you say well it's probably not but I think it is pretty clear what the answer to this question is that's not so cynical I know it's the category two license that triggers the ability for the tethered category three to be able to operate so if you don't have a category two license any tethered category three couldn't begin operating that's just that's right in the definition of what a category two license is same category one for that purpose it's basically the same language and I'd say the same thing about the other question uh whether who has to pay the five million dollars and we can pivot into that if if you like but I can are you ready to pivot now because that is on the agenda right we probably should have a vote on the issue of uh accepting the applications on a rolling basis just so that's super clear for the record um if the commission is comfortable with accepting category two license applications on a rolling basis so we've touched on this before commissioners are and I think there was some I think uh executive director wells asked uh really um address that at an early public meeting I think they gave a sort of a informal consensus that we were comfortable today do we have questions for Mr Ishell or Mr um Arnett or Mr Buckley on category two application being accepted on a rolling basis past the November 21st deadline any questions the only I have a question but it's more for Todd um because we in theory have a category one region still out there so presumably obviously they are not subject to the deadline and so are we just functioning on that assumption or should we be doing anything that just like category two is clearly need to be treated in a different way are we at some point going to be addressing that or is that just out there if and when a category two I mean category one comes in and we can see I think we we built that into the language in section 218 that we looked at that gives the commission the flexibility to change um any deadlines within a category or amongst categories and whatnot so I believe so we're functioning pursuant to 218 when we make this motion conceptually yeah yes that's right my question was along the same line as commissioner grinds but I'm going to ask that you refresh my memory as to the exact language of 2018 that allows us to yep let me uh if I may just take one moment um here I can just share it with you that might be easier than me reading it here's 218 this is the section we're looking at here I'm sorry this whole part right here so I mean I think thank you I'm satisfied okay thanks Todd any other questions for either Bruce Steve or Mike or Todd okay um so we do need um it would be preferable for us to have a vote on this matter do I have a motion Madam Chair I move that the commission accept applications for category two sportsway during operator licenses on a rolling basis second anyone thank you commissioner hill are there any questions or edits on this motion okay uh commissioner brian hi mr hill hi mr skinner hi mr maynard hi about yes so we're all set on that um that uh we should probably now turn to the item that's on the agenda and I'll leave it to mr to um follow up with you second director wells on his question that he presented today although I know that Todd's kind of given his assessment so now we're looking at a request for clarification of 239 section six yeah so I'll turn it over to attorney ishield his request in writing it is in the commissioner's packet and I believe you've had a chance to review that our legal department has looked at that but I'll turn it over to attorney ishield to identify what the issue is and their their need for clarification on that thanks Steve sure thank you thank you um yeah so so basically the simple issue is to whether or not the category two license fee and the tethered category license fee is a single five million dollar fee or is in fact two five million dollar fees one for the category two portion of it and one for the category three portion of it um you know the statute uh I would say is you know when I when I really looked at it um and again looked at it again the last couple of days less clear even than than I thought it was um previously and so I think it is a matter of interpretation that could be subject to the commissioner's authority to to rule on and you know from a from a practical perspective I will say that it has been a considerable hindrance in a lot of our negotiations with operating partners just in the sense that you know at least at Rainham park we're putting in a very significant capital commitment into this venture because we are constructing a new completely new facility for the retail operations which is going to be multiples of the seven point five million dollar investment requirement in the statute and you know any additional you know large upfront uh you know fee requirements are our you know financial requirements that we are generally speaking in our negotiations imposing on our operating partners and most of our uh most of the folks that we have spoken to I think maybe all of them have said you know gee we we read the statute and we thought that there was a single five million dollar fee are you saying that there are two five million dollar fees and some of them saying well we'll you know we'll pay for one or the other but not not both um you know different situations depending on whether they were going to be mobile only or retail only or mobile and retail so it is it is an important issue for us to resolve one way or the other so that we can go ahead and you know ink our signatures on some term sheets here because it's it's one of the most material issues that is coming up as an economic matter in our in our negotiations um one thing I didn't have in here but I think for what it was worth was that I understand that during the um legislative process one of the issues that was discussed at least according to my client was that um the seven point five million dollar capital investment requirement was was discussed as being in lieu of you know kind of a second uh five million dollar fee and that you know they're you know for the category twos they would have the five million dollar license fee plus the additional commitment uh of the seven point five million dollar investment and that the you know the the category uh one uh applicants you know even if they had two they had a they had a second category three skin that they could essentially monetize and pay for the second one so they all are slightly you know different situations in terms of category one category two with tethered category three and then the untethered category threes um so it's kind of difficult to draw a complete analogy among the among the three and hence um you know and when I again it's it's written in my uh submission here but um you know as I looked at the definition or the way that the section is written in the statute it talks about the fee being paid by the qualified gaming entity and it was interesting to me as I thought about it that the you know that what that definition really is uh you know kind of turns on who the applicant actually is as a matter of of legal entity and and it very well might be the case that we uh create a joint venture entity with our operating partner so that that's the applicant it might be the single qualified gaming entity um the the arrangement could be a management agreement um where we are essentially the technical applicant for both licenses and you know it seems like you know if you said that the you know the qualified gaming entity was the one you know that there was one one fee for each qualified gaming entity that in and in and of itself could end up with vastly different results depending on just how you legally structure uh the arrangement between ourselves and our operating partners so with that I'll be quiet and see what the thoughts of the commission are. Mr. I have questions for Steve, attorney Aysha. So I think that we would want to hear from our legal counsel in terms of I'm sorry that's our ma'am I'm sorry I'm at home today because I came straight from medical procedure from my husband so here I am dealing with doc um so we'll hear from attorney Grossman and I'll go mute. Very good thank you madam chair and thank you mr. Aysha for for team this up I think it is an interesting issue though again I think it's it's actually relatively straightforward the law says essentially that in order for anyone to get an operator license they have to pay the five million dollar fee I don't really think there's much disagreement on that point so the heart of the inquiry becomes who has to get an operator license um and the the term qualified gaming entity is thrown into the mix as well though I would just point out that in the the five million dollar section uh that Mr. Aysha referenced it says the commission shall grant an operator license to a qualified gaming entity um and an operator license encompasses category one two and three licensees so with that in mind I think the actual analysis here uh starts with the definitions of category one and category two license um and those are both in the definition sections and for all intents and purposes when it comes to addressing this particular issue the language is identical between category one and category two and what the the law says is that a I'll just focus on the category two definition since that's where the inquiry was focused that a category two license is a license that's issued by the commission that permits the operator operation of sports wagering in person on the premises where simulcasting is conducted and that's not the issue here and through not more than one individually branded mobile application or other digital platform approved by the commission so as we all are now familiar with essentially a category two license triggers the ability to perform in person sports wagering operations and to allow for one digital operation approved by the commission but it's the next line in both definitions that really answers this question and it says provided that the mobile applications or other digital platforms shall be qualified for it issued a category three license so there's no if you will in-house operation of a mobile operation any mobile operator has to have a category three license um and in this case what that means is that operator has to pay the five million dollar fee in order to get their category three license once they have their license they can then run a category two or category one for that matter mobile operation so it's not that any one entity is paying a fee twice it's that everyone who requires licensure has to pay the fee once and that is what I believe the law says so so then the category ones for example that that to the extent they use both of their skins that would be a 15 million dollar total if they use all three of their licenses under that logic well 15 million would come to the commonwealth but no one entity would pay 15 million dollars well depends on again depends on whether that's all the deal right well I mean yes I think it's structured in different ways but anyway people you have to pay for your own license essentially if you get reimbursed that's another way of looking at it is that you could have it just a cat to license and that would allow you to retail right that's right there's no in order to get in in order to get to online you you've got to partner with with a category three licensee so they've got to have somebody who has that license in order to get that license you've got to pay that licensing fee otherwise you can just do five million for retail only you could you could do five million for retail right but not retail and online right so so even if the person capable you know one company capable doing both because they've got all the expertise in their organization they would still have to pay ten million dollars well but the law allows a cat to license you know and that would be that gets you am I right that automatically gets retail right Tom yes yes so if you were to bring someone else in to run your retail operation that entity would likely need a vendor license to do that but that's not a five million dollar category right understood that's really helpful Todd that's really helpful any observations you want to make a caring go right ahead so just wondering if that's something that needs a vote I'll defer to Todd you know a lot of the commission should vote on this if that's sufficient or or what Mr. Ishell needs for his contract negotiations yeah I mean well that's certainly just my opinion of the law you know so ultimately it's the for the commission to decide if I don't know that it necessarily a vote is required per se but if there's any sense that this is something that the commission would like to think about or come back to do that or if there are any concerns we can try to address them now so I think what we have in front of us is a question from potential applicant about the licensing fee and I think we should answer it and if we're not prepared to answer it today because we need something more formal from our legal counsel that's okay but if we're comfortable I think either through consensus or vote we can answer it because um as Mr. Ishell said it's an important part of this deal making right now commissioners how else would you handle it Mr. Skinner do you have an idea that's how do you proceed I'm comfortable forward based on on legal counsel Mr. Maynard I guess I have a procedural question which is how can the commission if if it is how can the commission in any way shape or form override the legislature so if the legislature dealt with this in the legislation I would feel very comfortable and that's what counsel's saying I would be very uncomfortable trying to take a vote one way or the other unless the vote was just to say that we read the legislation a certain way I'm just a little uncomfortable I think that that's why you know our council has advised on his reading I think Mr. Ishell led with he's hearing different readings so I think what it's worth you know I think however the issue comes out I mean obviously we'd like it to come out one way rather than the other but however it comes out you know I think we just need an answer for our operating partners so we can say you know this is what it is and and there's no there's no sort of you know other than maybe amending the statute you know getting our lobbyists to try to lobby for amending the statute here's here's what the economic deal is and that's the basis on which we need to negotiate our partner agreement so I think that's really the bottom line for us Michelle Bryan a commission I hope Michelle Bryan this is similar to when they wanted to do the reads and there was a question about whether that transfer and the commitment to have a lease for a certain period of time and they came in front of us and we deliberate we voted in a public meeting on what our interpretation of the statute was it sounds like the same kind of request that they needed they needed an answer definitively on how our interpretation of our statute and we've been given advice by our general counsel so that's a good analogy Mr. Hill very supportive of what Todd put forward I almost called you representative Skinner what Commissioner Skinner and Commissioner Bryan have said I don't get to be a reptile I mean Brad come on any time I think our legal counsel has has pretty much framed it for us madam chair so do we want I think it might be advisable executive director Wells for us to through April reflect our our feelings as to the representation if it's a read consistent with our our personal rate Mr. Skinner are you moving to make a motion are you leaning into a motion I will yes I moved that the commission fine at the five million dollar license to be identified in mass general laws chapter 23 n section 6 f must be paid for each individual license award including category one category two and category three both tethered and untethered license as discussed here today second okay the second goes to Commissioner O'Brien um any further questions or edits you'll get it next time Commissioner Hill okay we'll go ahead with our vote Mr. I shall we appreciate your coming today for this severe inquiry Mr. O'Brien I Mr. Hill I Mr. Skinner I Mr. Maynard and I vote yes five zero um thank you and and we um wish you wish you good luck thank you very much and I appreciate the commission's consideration and again appreciate the clarity which is which is very good thank you thank you thank you I might just add madam chair if I may this is actually encapsulated in uh section 221 I think of the regulations that you looked at earlier as well it says what you just said which is that every license holder has to pay the five million dollar excellent thank you so you got that as well Steve the um the regulation okay all right so um moving on then because I um I don't have time just a brief update on commissioner's update I don't know if I there's just one ministerial up change I think we need to make to the prior motions thank you um yeah it was brought to my attention okay Kerry just pointed that we just had a uh typo sort of a misstatement in some of the motions that we did on the 205 cmr 103 102 and 115 we just need to do a supplemental motion to clean something up for ministerial purposes Kerry I don't know if you want to explain or yeah my mistake apologies I included all three regulations that are part of the 103 repeal on one amended small business impact statement but they actually need to each be on their own so I would just be looking for a mo that motion didn't include um language related to ministerial changes so I would just be looking for a motion just to allow the staff to make administrative administrative changes necessary um to complete the regulation promulgation process so I have to have that motion yeah um madam chair I moved that the commission authorized staff to make any administrative changes necessary to the version of the amended small business impact statements for 205 cmr 103 205 cmr 102 and 205 cmr 115 as included in the packet so as to file the amended small business impact statement with the secretary of state's office and complete the regulation promulgation process thank you thank you thank you any questions or edits thank you for that clarification commissioner brian hi mr hill hi mr skinner hi mr maynard hi and I don't yes five zero thank you thank you want me to go ahead with the divisional updates or I know in the interest of time you've mentioned going to the commissioner updates so we can do either way under eight feet we can do a hop off um I got I got a hard stop I'm sorry I have to leave so okay thank you commissioner brian see everybody on Monday thank you thank you okay um we can go through the divisional updates okay I think we're going to start uh with the IT department uh Katrina is on board here today uh just to give you a brief update on the plan moving forward uh in what their teams do good afternoon commissioners ma'am chair nice to see you Katrina thank you and I apologize for my voice and any coughing in advance um because I'm still recuperating um but the the IT department has been working diligently with uh GLI and our legal team uh to review the technical regs um any comments or changes or modifications that would be required um in concert with that we've been working with GLI to specify any of the compliance audit security checklist questionnaires that we're going to develop um that we would require any of the licensees to submit as part of their onboarding for launch um these are still very much in the infancy stages so we don't have a lot to demonstrate or to illustrate as of yet because we're still working on the regs waiting for the rights to be promulgated and approved but we are working in tandem with that um in addition to that there are some open questions that we have regarding hosting um of the databases or the execution of the transactions whether uh the the commission will allow um within jurisdiction or cloud but that is still very much up for discussion um we just rose that as a question today so that's something we're going to elevate to the legal team and to executive director wills um in conjunction with GLI to really talk about that a little bit further thank you are commissioners any questions for Katrina Commissioner Skinner with respect to your work with the technology anything you want to add nothing I want to add I will um say welcome back to Katrina it's really good to see you glad you're feeling better okay next up I was going to turn it over to uh assistant director van to give us an update on what their team is working on right now uh yes we've given the three casinos permission to uh bring their sportsway drink to us uh on site but not have them operational it's more just to get them uh the areas installed we've requested to get uh them to provide us with blueprints of where they would like to have anything on the floor we've uh uh the two of the places uh MPM and uh Encore already have their sports counters constructed we gave PPC permission to build their temporary counter it's actually on the floor right next to the revolution lounge permission to start construction on that they also provided us with where they would like to put their permanent lounge which will be in the fluid use area which they will go before the commission before they do that because they have to change their their floor design uh and with that they're kind of giving us uh equipment changes and four exchanges uh some of us have they've sent us some of their uh uh plans for uh their house rules and things like that preliminarily so they're moving ahead with stuff we're waiting on regulations to to review those any questions for director van no all set um I have a question given today's conversation director van do you plan to bring to the commission plans for the placements of the kiosk for our consideration uh the ones on the floor they're going to be probably placed uh around the perimeter of the floor just like slot machines but anything that would be considered off the floor the casinos are going to bring them to you themselves uh because that's a decision the commission has to decide if you would want them brought to see you like uh giving an example right now on course planning to bring on 200 uh piosk uh that would be a lot for you guys to review and if that's mixed around the casino floor uh I don't know if you want that in depth a review on the casino floor space itself well just the fact that you use the word a lot make it of interest to the yeah yeah I certainly I would certainly uh prior to approving anything share it with you with all of you on two by twos or anything like that to show you and if you would want a bit brought before you in an open meeting I certainly would would do that like two by two is we can't make decisions commission uh Karen what do you think is this something that's outside our purview I understand and correct me from Ron so there there's sort of two pieces one is the kiosk on the gaming floor yes I would suggest that the kiosk on the gaming floor the you know that would be something I would suggest appropriate for the i.e. being specifically Bruce's team could could do I think the threshold question is what do you do about uh this the the uh sportsway during kiosk that they want to place in locations beyond the gaming floor so do they want to have it you know in in the you know in the parking garage as those mentioned they want to have it in the ballroom do they want to have them in the restaurants maybe just an overall initially an overall conversation about how the commission feels about that for them some direction whether they're comfortable with it at all or what are the parameters and then you can decide after that conversation what level of detail you'd like to be involved in but the statute doesn't require our review I'm not sure if it I don't know Todd I don't know Todd and I can take a look at it but I'm not sure if it says anything in particular but this question of the only reason why I ask is because of Commissioner Bryan is left and I'm thinking about that kiosk that's next to the closest access you know or a whole slew of them that are right across from the elevator that the kids can turn to go to the you know and also do you want to have you know yeah and how close even though they're on the gaming floor that access and I have heard from other jurisdictions that close to the door is probably not advisable because kids can get so just saying so anyway that's this I thought something for us to consider commissioners in terms of how you know the overview of the placement commissioners I don't know if you want to add in on that but rusa two hundreds a lot huh yes go figure it's a big place so so um director Lillios I guess I defer to you and and to work with them with uh director van and and executive director wells as to as to the um our oversight on placement of the kiosks gaming floor otherwise commissioners does that seem fair for right now it seems fair but I do have a question I at least I speak for myself I'm due to go and see a couple of the casinos I hope within the next 30 days are we allowed to be shown where these kiosk going to be physically can hopefully I'll actually have blueprints that it will have them all depicted on the blueprints where they're going to put them so it would probably be advisable to see something like that prior to you going out so you'd have some idea and uh the uh managers will have a copy of that as well so it would be that you know a good idea to walk for with something like that I think I should have those within a week so I certainly physically would love to go out and see it yeah I think I just I want to check in with council grossman in terms of are we supposed to be doing site visits now or can we or so of course in your capacity as commissioners that oversee gaming you can go to the casinos to see the casinos what I would caution against is doing any independent analysis or research about sports wagering operations until we have the applications in and we have a structured approach to evaluating them so I might suggest that you not go look at where all the kiosks are going to be just yet it's entirely appropriate at the right time but this might be a bit premature so I'm asking sorry Commissioner Hill but yeah so and that's why I just wondered if it should come in front of us generally even if we don't vote on it I don't know but that's an action item for for the three of you um any questions other questions for director band okay next I'll turn it over to Loretta just to give an update on on the investigation side we're all mindful of the November 21 due date for the applications and the license commission is preparing to review those when they come in for administrative completeness and to contact the applicants with itemized deficiencies and work with them to cure them and in the meantime licensing is prepared to take in any applications that come in in advance of that deadline on a rolling basis and we would perform those steps before the 21st investigators are starting on the open source reviews that can be performed now in advance of the application receipt so those are underway and it's that's part of what's required under the new regs for that preliminary review in terms of the vendors we are currently in the process of confirming the search search warrant the sports wagering related vendors for the category one in category three tethered applicants and we next will reach out to the category three untethered applicants to identify their sports wagering related vendors and included in that category of vendors are them third-party marketing affiliates at this time no vendor applications are due that November 21st deadline does not apply to the vendors our starting point for official intake of vendor materials is through communications with the operators we require proof of business relationship between the operator and the vendor before we will perform any work on the vendor and that's really a resource allocation issue that's worked well for us on the gaming side with that said some vendors have already sent in their responses to the scoping survey vendors are welcome to do that we will then maintain it and have it on file and turn our attention to it at the appropriate time but we will not be evaluating those vendor scoping surveys until after we've worked with the operators and look at their selections at that at that appropriate time we will collect the certifications in the attestations regarding the vendors that are required under the regulation on the staffing side on licensing we have two new members that are coming on board they've already been cleared through our internal process I expect the two of them will hit the ground running they are already familiar with the licensing processes and on the attorney hiring level on the enforcement council side that is underway and we have one attorney with a start date that we're trying to determine right now and still in the process of identifying another one but that's an active process so those are some of the highlights of what we're doing right now. Thank you thank you Loretta. Questions for Director Williams. Excellent reporting. Help me? Yeah and just to wrap it up I think you know you're seeing the cadence on the on the regulations and I don't know if Todd has anything more to add but I it's been recorded to me we are on track with the regulations according to the schedule and we'll be checking in with Bristol periodically to ensure that you are matching up the legal department schedule and the commission schedule with the chair's approval. Todd anything else in the legal department to add? No I think that's pretty much sums it up. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate Caitlin. Caitlin circulated to the the status sheet the spreadsheet so thank you for that. It keeps us well informed. Anything else Karen? Not today. Okay and I'll just wrap it up with our final commissioner update. I don't know if Mills is joining. Crystal you're you've been involved I've kept I want to thank Commissioner Maynard for helping on the legal side I think I've mentioned this earlier public meeting and then Commissioner Hill helped on the media market he has experience in that world and so we've got planned for November 14th from 10 to noon a round table that will address the marketing and and advertising and really to help us understand the scope of our regulatory authority and to understand how these media markets work and how you know how there are innovations to address some of the concerns that have been raised at our earlier responsible gaming round table and then just among ourselves at various public meetings with respect to the intensity and frequency of sports wagering advertising Crystal I don't know if you've had the chance yet to update the agenda we've posted one in timely fashion and now you we're able to get a few more facts onto that so it's been amended to reflect our participants who are currently the American Gaming Association who we also heard from at our last at the responsible gaming round table we have a representative from the Massachusetts Broadcasting Association represented from Boston 25 from Nelson from Major League Baseball and then of course Anderson and Craig will first set the stage for us on some of the and tomorrow Commissioner Maynard's terms guardrails on on advertising so Mills what do you want to add we only also presented questions that I think Crystal you distributed to the commissioners I don't know this is an opportunity you may not have had a chance to digest them but this is an opportunity for add reflect on those and amend them Mills but before I turn to the commissioners Mills do you want add anything else chair I think you summed it up perfectly I the only thing I'll add is like all of our public meetings we will make sure that barring any technical difficulties the meeting is streamed on YouTube and our website so the questions I won't read but if you have them I did work with Commissioner Hill and Mills on these prompts the parties as you can imagine we're we're interested in getting some prompts we toyed with the idea of buckets you know like we've done for the a little bit you know shorter but for these this round table we thought the questions was a better prompt Mr. Skinner I don't know if you had a chance to look at it or Commissioner Maynard I'm good with it I defer I think we'll get we'll definitely get a good conversation I've encouraged those who are participating that we love the idea of them engaging in an organic conversation we have a lot to learn and I think we've got a great very very fortunate to have a table of experts there's potential for one more participant they haven't yet committed so this would be on Monday morning and to know right and that should help inform Councillor Grossman our thinking on the rags around advertising and just so you know the agenda actually sets forth section four that's relevant to advertising we thought it's important for the public to know that we do have some guidance right in our statute section 423 and all right any questions for me thanks to Jordan for the help on the legal side you were quite right to say that we needed that and then Commissioner Hill thank you and thanks Mills and Crystal for your your help along the way all right then hearing nothing else no other commissioner update and we need a motion to adjourn to adjourn second all right mr hill hi mr skinner hi mr Maynard hi and before I close I just want to thank every member of the public every stakeholder who stayed with us throughout this meeting and for each member of the team for all the contributions you've made it's really important as we move along on this important endeavor and you know the help comes from all angles externally and internally and we thank you very much thank you to Karen for your leadership thank you Todd for your legal leadership and we'll close with my yes we're adjourned