 Good morning, everyone. I've got all commissioners, okay. We're all set to go then Dave. Yep, that's good to go, just one live. Great. Good morning, everyone. This is a convening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and we're holding this meeting virtually, so I will do a roll call. Commissioner O'Brien. Good morning, I'm here. Commissioner Hill. Good morning, I'm here. And Commissioner Maynard. Good morning, I'm here. Great, we'll get started. Commissioner Skinner is out today, but she is going to be keeping herself up-to-price. Today is January 26th, public meeting number 429. It's started with an administrative update from Executive Director Wells. Good morning, Karen. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the commission. So for my administrative update, I want to let you know that the plan is we will not be doing the operation certificate tomorrow. We will keep that hold that we have on the 30th at noon. I think Crystal has already sent out an invitation for that meeting. So that would be the day we would do the operation certificate. So I know the commissioners are somewhat in transit. The plan is that for Encore and PPC, we have Commissioner O'Brien and then Commissioner Maynard would be on property at EVH and PPC in the morning, be able to do what they need to do as far as checking things at the last minute. And then we would do the meeting at noon. So you could participate at the property. So you'd be able to log in on site. And then for MGM, I know Brad, you and I will be out at Springfield. So you can drive in the morning and then do the meeting and then drive after the meeting. And then we would do the work we need to do for the operation certificate in the afternoon so that you don't have to get there super early in the morning. And then all commissioners would be together in Springfield at the beginning of the day, Tuesday morning is the plan. We still are working on all the final evaluations and checks to make sure that we are ready to launch and everything is in accordance with the law. So we will have that summary for you on Monday when you are brought the request for an operation certificate from all three of the properties. Any questions on the schedule? No, if somebody can make sure they give me specifics on Tuesday morning in terms of the reg hearing exactly where I'm supposed to be and where I'm supposed to be doing that. So I think I'll work with you on that so that I can cover if there's a gap so you can participate in anything that's going on with the property. I'll work it out with Carrie today but I'll be the cover for that while you're going on with the activities contract. Great, thanks. Okay, any questions? Karen, in terms of internal controls. Those are still in process of being evaluated. They had already been submitted. GLI has done an initial review then they got back to the properties anything that needs to be updated. And that is the current sort of step in the process. So there's still some back and forth that's going on. But the commissioners have to afford to be act on those. Yes, that's part of the operation certificate. Yes, yes. You would come to, the team would come to you indicating hopefully that everything is all set with respect to the internal controls therefore sort of allowing for that approval of the operation certificate. So it's a component of the office certificate. Are we going to be able to see they probably won't be able to see those much in advance then on Monday. Well, the internal controls are enormous. It's not as if- Enormous, right. Not you would not be, I mean, you would need the technical, that's why we have GLI with the technical expertise to do that. So it's not as if the commissioners have to individually review every general control and go through that. That would be overwhelming and GLI is the one with the technical expertise to do it. So it's basically, the commission has through their process indicated that they are having GLI go through the evaluation. But they would come, either they or through Bruce Van would come before the commission and indicate that it's all set. So I just wanted to clarify that for the commissioner. So GLI will be available for us to ask any kinds of clarifying questions in advance. Karen, just if you could lean a little closer, please. Thanks. Did you ask any questions commissioners? All set then. So noontime Monday. Yes. All right, thank you. Anything else? Okay. Then we're going to turn to director Vandermlenden and Dr. Andrews, the research manager for our research and responsible gaming division. Good morning to both of you. And I know that we have special guests today. I'll let you introduce them. Good morning all. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. I'm just going to turn it right over to Dr. Andrews to kick this item off. All right, good morning. So I'm here to introduce our guest speakers today. And the commission adopted a strategic research plan that outlines research in seven key focus areas, one of which is community engaged research. The objective of community engaged research is to understand and address the impact of casino gambling in Massachusetts communities. The specific research topic or question is developed by the community through a community driven process. As part of the fiscal year 22 research agenda, the commission funded NORC at the University of Chicago and the Institute for Community Health to engage with community members to design and conduct a research study that captured perspectives on the introduction of Encore Boston Harbor and how it has affected the day to day quality of life of people in the casino surrounding communities. The study team consisted of NORC, ICH and a community advisory board of community members living and working around Encore. The community advisory board ensured that the community's needs and perspectives were represented throughout the study all the way from design, all the way through sharing of the findings. The study also generated recommendations from participants including for Encore to reinvest money in nearby communities, provide support and resources for people who experience problem gambling and more actively engage with community members. In keeping with the community driven and community focused approach, study was presented to the community during the fall and we know how much the commissioners truly value community engaged research and wanted to make sure they're presented specifically to you as well. To further facilitate translation and mobilization of the findings to community members, the Massachusetts gaming commission also engaged the gambling research exchange of Ontario or Rio to produce research snapshots or brief summaries of the report's key findings in languages spoken in communities around Encore including English, Spanish, simplified Chinese, Haitian Creole and Portuguese. We're incredibly happy to have with us representatives from NORC at the University of Chicago, the Institute for Community Health and community interviewers for the study to present the findings. I'd like to introduce Dr. Jenna T. Serkin, principal research scientist at NORC who will introduce you to our team here for the presentation today. So I'll turn it over to Dr. Serkin for the presentation and thank you for being here. Thank you. If I'm just gonna try to share my screen first one moment. Does that work for everyone? Are you able to see the slide? That's good. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Just let me know if you have any trouble hearing or seeing the slide as we go. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today and thank you so much to the Massachusetts Game and Commission for inviting us and letting us share our research findings with you all. And I know that a few of you did attend our community event so you may be hearing some of this information again but we welcome questions and we'll try to go into a little more detail on some of our methods and recommendations today. So I'm a principal research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago, but I'm actually based in Cambridge, Massachusetts NORC has a small office in Cambridge, Mass where a number of our colleagues work from. I was the principal investigator for this study. I just wanna review the agenda for today. We're planning to introduce our team members and then we'll talk about the study methods and an overview of the study, the findings from our study and then some of the recommendations that came from our community participants. So I'd first like to start by introducing you to our study team and thanking again the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, particularly Mark and Marie Claire who we worked very closely with throughout the course of our study. I'm gonna introduce the members who are going to present today. Christina Dreiman, Petrie Ubrey and Jared Sawyer are all here with us from NORC. And Sophia Ladner is here from the Institute for Community Health. We also have the privilege of having one of our community interviewers with us today. Yanqing Huang is a fourth year student at Tufts University. She is studying community health and has previously interned at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center where she worked with high school youth to develop educational materials on smoking prevention. She grew up in Chinatown and is interested in health equity and healthcare access in the community. So I'm gonna start by talking a little bit about our study methods and the overview of our study. Our study used community engaged research principles to capture the community perspectives on the introduction of the Encore Casino and how it has affected the day-to-day life of people in the casino surrounding communities. And I'm going to have my colleague Sophia talk a little bit about our community advisory board and how we engage them throughout the course of our study. Sophia, I'll pass to you. Sophia, I don't think we can't hear you. Yeah, we're not hearing you. So we're still not hearing. Can you hear me now? No, I can't hear you. Yes, yes, I am. Sorry. Sorry about that. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the community advisory board and our engagement with them. I was saying also good morning and thanks for having us here. So throughout the course of the research study, we engage with a community advisory board made up of seven members. They represented the different community groups in the area surrounding the Encore Casino. So we had a rolling recruitment throughout the course of the project just to maintain a large enough group that could meet regularly. So we were meeting quarterly and we were also in contact with them between meetings. And also the members were compensated for their time. So they assisted us in the co-design of the study methods and instruments and they give us really important counseling as we approached different challenges throughout the project. They also gave direct input during the analysis of the findings by helping us to make sense of some of the things that were coming up. And finally, they support us in their dissemination efforts and the knowledge translation. So I could speak for our whole team when I say that the overall experience that we had with our community advisory board was really positive and it really helped to keep us in our project grounded as we were moving forward. And we just wanted to thank our CAB members that we have listed here. Great, thanks Sophia. So as Sophia mentioned, we continue to engage the CAB, I call them the CAB, the community advisory board. I'll try not to use acronyms today, but if we say CAB, that's who we mean. We engaged our community advisory board at each phase of the study. And that included developing the research questions and developing the materials that we would then use to go out into the community. The CAB also really helped to facilitate the recruitment of our community interviewers from cities and towns around Encore. And we recruited four interviewers including Yan Qing who's here today and our fifth was actually Sophia who just spoke who is also from surrounding communities around Encore. Collectively our interviewers let interviews and five different languages in addition to English. Those included Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian, Creole, Mandarin and Cantonese. And our team developed an interview guide based on the research questions and discussions with our community advisory board. The community advisory board then reviewed that interview guide that we then trained our community members and they to use the interview guide to feel comfortable doing conducting interviews. They were all done, they were almost all done virtually because it was kind of the height of the pandemic at the time when we did these. We also provided human subjects research training in accordance with our institutional review board at NORC. An important part of community-based research is to compensate those who are helping us from the community. And so we paid both the community members and study participants for their time as participating in the study. We, you know, as Sophia mentioned there were some challenges that we faced in recruiting and trying to get study participants as part during that pandemic time where we couldn't be in person as much and so the community advisory board was really instrumental in helping us to post flyers, design and post-fires in the communities and to really spread the word on social media as well. Study participants were eligible if they were over 18 and they lived in any of the surrounding communities around the Encore Casino. There's a list on the slide and they had lived in the community for the past two years. I just would like to recognize our community interviewers here. And as I mentioned, you'll hear from Yanching later today in the presentation. The, another phase of our study that came after we conducted the community interviews was to do an in-depth participatory data analysis. And I'll explain what this is in a non-research jargon. We, so what we did as the research team is we conducted the preliminary data analysis from our interviews using our qualitative software program and doing thematic analysis. And then we brought those findings back to the community through some of the participants joined us for a focus group and a small group discussion that we called a data party. These data parties kind of allowed us to have this participatory analysis or what we call sense-making, which is a process where we share our preliminary findings and the interview participants, we hear from the interview participants what their interpretation of the data are in the context as well. We also did a data party with our community advisory board. And so we then as part of our analysis kind of incorporated all of those different perspectives from the, to help identify the themes, the commonalities and variation across what we heard from participants from our community advisory board, from our inner community interviewers and from the research team. So all of that is what has gone into kind of the production of our findings from the study. And I just wanted to find the last important phase of this research was the dissemination and knowledge translation. So we consulted with our community advisory board to plan the community event that was in November, 2022. And we hosted it virtually and invited community members that was open to anyone who wanted to join. We tried to spread the word in a similar way that we had when we were recruiting study participants as well. And we had live Spanish translation as part of this community event. We also, as was mentioned earlier that the MGC contractor, Grio, produced two-page snapshots. And so we provided summaries of our findings and these two-page documents in the different languages that we are able to share back to the community members. And those are all available online on the site. So I'm gonna, and I'll just pause for a minute if there are any questions about the study methods. We will keep going. And Sophia, I'm gonna pass this back to you to talk about the participants. Yeah, so before we get to the fun stuff of the findings, I'll talk a little bit about who participated in the study. So we complete a total of 47 interviews with participants from eight communities surrounding the Encore Casino in Everett with the greatest representation from Somerville and from Maldon, followed by Everett and Riviere. As you can see, we had a representation from all the other orange-yellow cities and we did not have anyone from Cambridge participate, although we did have outreach in that community. So when folks signed up to participate in the interview, they were prompted to complete a series of demographic questions, which included their preferred language and race and ethnicity. So this is a self-identified race and ethnicity. So almost half of the interviews were conducted in English, so 47%, and over a quarter in Spanish. But we also had many participants who were interviewed in Mandarin or Cantonese, as well as Portuguese. And then a few interviews were conducted with participants in Haitian Creole. And then over half of the participants self-identified as Hispanic or Latinx, followed by 20% identifying as white, 13% as Asian or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and then about a 10th self-identified as black. Then finally, the majority of the participants self-identified as females, you can see here, 61%. And then the majority of our participants were 25 to 44 years old, but we did have a pretty good distribution of age representation. Thanks, Sophia. Christina, we're gonna pass it to you to kick us off with the findings. Great, thank you. So I'll start us off and then we'll have a few others jump in to share some additional findings. So as you can imagine, participants had some mixed views on legalized gambling. Some had positive views on legalized gambling and supported having a casino in their neighborhood. Similar to that first quote that you see on the screen, some participants actually believed that gambling is a form of entertainment and therefore community members should have freedom to gamble if it is legal and regulated. While other participants shared more negative views similar to the second quote on the screen, noting that they believed that the introduction of a casino normalized gambling and also promoted problem gambling behaviors. A few participants had more neutral views on legalized gambling, including both sort of just an ambivalence to it and also just like mixed perspectives, both positive and negative. And so again, excuse me, I'm just getting over some sign of stuff. But again, views were mixed when it came to the effect of encore on various social and also environmental factors. So many participants reported sort of driving past encore on Route 99, noting that its presence increased traffic in the area and then it resulted in longer commute times and also sort of increased congestion, particularly during the construction of the casino. On the other hand, many participants also said that roads surrounding encore are now easier to travel on. So that was more of a positive. Some thought that encore brought new construction and development to the area. However, several participants felt that encore could do more to improve local infrastructure beyond just the immediate casino grounds. In fact, a few participants noted that some construction equipment has still not been removed from the area, which is seen in that first photo here of the truck that you see. Additionally, while several participants noted that encore brought more beautiful landscapes, parks, and also just recreational spaces to the area, a few others had again mixed views on the changes to the skyline that the casino brought. And then lastly, for several participants, the influx of encore tourists really contributed to just a general increase in noise activity in the area, participants sort of described noise and light pollution from traffic and the building itself. So in relation to jobs, some participants believed that encore created jobs in the area. However, several anticipated that encore would bring jobs and money to local communities prior to its development, but they just really haven't seen that happen or felt like they haven't seen that happen. Participants who identified as Hispanic or Latinx and those who had lived in the community surrounding encore for more than 10 years often did have negative views of the casino's effects on jobs, including really sort of the quality of the jobs. And you'll notice that in the second quote where it reads, my friends worked there and now they don't because they went in with one salary but they realized that what was promised wasn't real. They also were treated very badly without human dignity. They told me that they had to ask permission to use the bathroom. So that was again just sort of one experience from our participant. Many participants also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic led to job losses at encore and uncertainty, right? Which is understandable and it negatively affected sort of the finances of its employees. In relation to small businesses, again, there were some mixed views on those effects. Some participants noted that small businesses in the surrounding community closed or lost employees and customers after encore opened. Some participants stated that the presence of encore made Everett sort of like a destination that attracts people who might not have visited the area otherwise. These participants noted that this boosted the local economy and clientele for surrounding small businesses. So that was seen as a positive. For example, the quote notes that the changes to the area Broadway specifically have brought in more money into the community. It's brought more people to the area and tourists that come and visit. People come for encore from other states. They come to play at the casino, but they also come to eat and enjoy the place. It's an entertainment attraction. They like to come. It's like a mini Vegas on the, on that side. So I'm gonna now pass it over to Yang Qing. Again, one of our community interviewers to present our findings on housing and also social connectivity. Thank you, Christina. I'll share a little bit about the impacts of encore on housing and social connectivity. Regarding housing, participants have noted a general increase in rent and housing prices in the region, as well as decrease in affordable housing, which forced many immigrant and middle-class families to move out of their home. However, some attributed this to not necessarily the development of encore in the area, but more as a general market trend that we have been seeing across the nation due to the pandemic and inflation. And here is a story of a participant noting some of the displacement in the area around encore. A lot of the homes across the street were removed to make space for encore and nobody really knows where those people went. A lot of people have had to leave because their rent is too high and they can't live in that area anymore. And here we see an example of direct displacement in which some houses were taken down for the construction of encore and indirectly because of the increase in housing prices. As I've mentioned earlier, immigrants families were no longer able to afford to live in the area and many had to move out of the surrounding communities. And next on social connectivity, there are mixed views on the impacts of encore. Some stuff that encore helped to increase social connectivity among patrons. They saw it as a place to gather with friends, to network or to go for de-stress after a long day of work. Some also said that casino gambling puts a string on relationships with friends and families. And here is a story of a participant sharing about her relatives who gamble to the point that they had to sell their house. And the quote reads, another thing is that when my relatives win money, they would tell everyone about the win. But when they lose money, they kept everything to themselves and don't tell anyone. This is a very bad habit with the exception of going all in, gambling to the point of losing all money. They won't tell anyone. My relatives ended up having to sell their house. These are real stories that happened in Maldon. Whenever I mentioned this, I feel very angry. And here on this slide, we also see a billboard advertisement in Chinatown about a shuttle bus that takes people to and from the casino. And other forms of advertisements noted by the participants also include free foods and gifts that attract people to go to the casino. And participants noted that sometimes they know or they themselves go to the casino without the intention of gambling. But once they are in the physical space, they were tempted to gamble. So altogether community members wish that there is a higher degree of control from the institution for people who wish to utilize casino gambling as a form of entertainment. And then I will pass it on to Jared. Thanks so much, Yan Cheng. Hi, everyone. My name is Jared. And I'm gonna be sharing some of the health related impacts that we heard from our community participants. The first of which is the both positive and negative to stress from the impact of the introduction of the Angkor Casino. Some thought that the Angkor Casino increased stress in the area due to increased gambling and people losing more than they can afford, leading to financial stressors, as well as increased stress from just the increased business of the area, as Angkor tourists kind of increased the amount of density and traffic in the area. However, on the flip side, some participants did note that they viewed the Angkor Casino as more of a form of entertainment and a place for relaxation. One participant shared that gambling is for way to de-stress. However, during our small group interview, one of our participants did note that this form of viewing the Angkor as a form of entertainment may only be for those who can afford to view it as such and can afford to play and gamble. The next health related impact we heard is related, same slide, is related to alcohol and some community participants shared that they believe that the atmosphere at the casino lends to increased alcohol consumption. In particular, one participant shared that they thought that when they went to the casino that they would drink, otherwise they would not have due to the atmosphere at the casino and that when they do drink, that they would drink more than they probably should. A few other participants noted that the Angkor Casino is one of the few places in the area where you can drink late into the early morning, offering this added opportunity for community members to drink alcohol. And lastly, related to health, we heard a lot of personal anecdotes and stories related to problem gambling and increased gambling related harms leading to things like relationship conflicts, financial loss and debt. Several community participants shared personal anecdotes and stories of community members who never would have gambled otherwise, as well as stories of community members, relationship conflicts and personal financial loss due to problem gambling, from gambling at the Angkor Casino. And now I will pass it to my colleague, Petri, to talk about recommendations. Petri, you're muted. It looks like you may be muted on the phone, Petri. I don't. I can't unmute. We're hearing that she's having trouble unmuting. I don't know if Crystal or Dave or Mills, we can help here. Let me see if I can. All right, this is a new software for us, so. Let's just see. Let me see if I can help you. Does that help? No? Here we go. Okay, can you unmute me now? No, thanks. Thank you. Thanks, we appreciate it. Thank you, I appreciate that. So we were able to ask participants what recommendations they had, key takeaways for the casino and the Massachusetts Game and Commission based on everything we had heard. So we heard three key recommendations. The first was that they believed the casinos should reinvest money back into the surrounding communities in multiple ways. This includes supporting community programs for families. That includes educational programs, rental assistance programs, youth programs, for example, they noted having baseball fields or other sports fields for kids to be able to play in the surrounding areas. They also noted similar to earlier findings that the casino should invest in additional infrastructure around outside of the casino, but in the community. So including things like public transportation, Papadashian Walking Bridge came up a couple of times, parks and additional green spaces in the surrounding areas. I'll just pause for a second so folks can take a look at the quotes. Next slide, please. Another recommendation was the need for support and resources for people who experience program gambling. We'll note that some of these resources already exist, for example, Game Sense, but the lack of recognition of the existence of these resources by the participants notes, there's a need to further promote their existence. There's also mixed feedback about who should be providing these resources. There were some participants who believed the casino shouldn't self monitor and that there were outside entities, the government and outside entities should be more responsible for making sure that people experiencing problem gambling had the support and resources that they need. Next slide, please. And finally, the third recommendation was that individuals should more actively engage with, the casino should more actively engage with community members. And a lot of participants noted that they wanted the casino to be more involved in the community, community outreach, be part of events, and really listen and understand the community needs in order to respond. And so I'll read this quote here. I would like to see the administration of the casino be more hands on in community meetings and advocating for the funds that they provide to be used directly with the community, not just giving a check to the city and saying, here you go. If they wanna be an Everett, they should try to put in a bit more effort into being known in the community and knowing what the community issues are in order to be seen as an advocate and not just someone who's there taking up space and making money off of the property in Everett. Next slide, please. Some final key takeaways as we think about what all of this means. We'll acknowledge that as Jenna noted, a lot of the data collection happened during COVID and we know that it's really hard to disentangle the impact of Encore which opened shortly before COVID from the impact of broader market factors. So COVID was happening, so a lot of unemployment. There was a lot of increase in inflation and rising prices which affected things like housing and the economy. So that's not to say that participants still felt Encore had a direct impact on some of these issues, but just kind of noting that other broader market factors were factors as well. It was the question of Encore for whom and had casinos may have disproportionate effects on their surrounding communities. So a lot of participants noted the need to make sure that communities around Encore, people of color, immigrant communities, et cetera really are being affected by the existence of Encore and that research and programming and services and policies should really make sure to take into account the effects of the casino on those communities. And finally, as I noted, community engagement is critical for determining community needs and how to allocate resources. And so as I noted in the final recommendation, community engagement came up as something that they wanted to see more from the casino, but also from local government as well to understand community needs and how their needs inform how money is allocated, resources are allocated and development around the community. Pass it back to you, Jenna. Great, thank you everyone. We are open now for any questions that you may have and I'm happy to feel questions to our different team members. I wanted to thank you for letting us share our findings today and join your meeting. Could you bring down this PowerPoint please? Yeah. A little bit more easily. Thank you. Commissioners, questions for many presenters here. Commissioner Bryant. I didn't have questions so much as I just wanted to say thank you for it. And I know it's difficult sometimes to separate COVID from other impacts. What struck me the most on this was we have Game Sense in the casinos and we have this robust program and the lack of awareness or not as strong of this awareness as I would have loved to have seen in the results. And I don't know if some of that was COVID when the casino was being shut down or we need to be looking more at how we raise the profile of that. So people know the resources there. Thank you. I will note that actually one, there was a representative from Game Sense on our community advisory board. So it was interesting to kind of have them interpret some of our findings as we were hearing that as well. And it definitely, I agree with your assessment that it seems like there was a sort of a lack of awareness among our participants of some of those resources that are available. And we did discuss that at length with our CAB as our community advisory board as well. Yeah. I didn't have a lot of recommendations or suggestions or something in that regard or Mark, whether you guys had thoughts either. Director Benderlin. Yeah, I mean it's a, the bulk of our awareness and the effort goes inside of the casino and to make sure people are aware that that resource is there. There's certainly, and we do actually have a limited amount of community engagement activities where Game Sense is out in the community but typically it's very targeted whether it's a specific community or a specific group where we would do that. I think as we continue down this path I think it's good feedback to see how else we can expand our communication and marketing to build awareness in these communities but also I think the sports way during the state fight. Madam Chair. Yes. So Mark, can you just clarify for me and I know we've had this conversation but I just can't remember the answer. When we're doing these types of reports and where the community is engaged and we get the community perspective is on core part of this discussion or are we just out in the community itself? You know, I mean it's a tricky dance. This is community driven research. The priority is to receive, to hear the perspectives, to hear the voices of the community. So by design, by intention, the casino isn't necessarily invited to the table on this. They did attend the community event when we launched it back in November. They're certainly aware of the presentation today. They're also shared an advanced copy of the report. And then I have a couple of follow up questions Madam Chair, if I could. So under the views on gambling, I know you said it was mixed. Do we have an exact percentage out of the 72 who viewed gaming in a positive or negative way? And I'd have the same question for the social and environmental piece of the report as well. I'm not very clear on out of the 72 where we fell. So this is, I just know that this is qualitative research. So we didn't, this wasn't a survey that research where we're reporting percentages. So you'll even see in the report that we use kind of terminology around fewer than half or some few, we kind of have a definition in the report of that terminology. So we didn't actually report percentages, but I can, in general, the views, I'd say, and my team can correct me here, there was probably around 50-50 in terms of the mixed perspectives of our participants. And then there were some who were neutral. And so we did note that in the report that there were some participants who were very neutral and didn't really have a perspective either way on gambling. Commissioner Hill, that's an interesting question. And this is very much qualitative study. We do have, we will have a quantitative study. We have the follow-up general population survey that will be coming to the commission in sometime in the spring that was, it's already fielded, they're doing the analysis. It takes a look at generally statewide through a population-based survey, people's perceptions and favorability towards casino gambling or gambling in general. And I think that will be an interesting follow-up from the same question that was asked in 2013 before the first casino opened up. Then Madam Chair, I too had flagged the problem gaming, getting the information out to the public and things of that. So I won't go over that question again. Thank you, Commissioner O'Brien for bringing it up. But I am worried a little bit at the fact that Encore was viewed as not being a community partner and that they didn't give back to the community and they should be more actively engaged in the community members. Because when we get our updates, our quarterly updates, we see a very different picture. So I'm throwing this out there, not necessarily as a question, but how do we get that information out to the public? Because in my view, they are doing a pretty good job of being in the community and engaging in many of the groups that were brought up in your presentation. So it worries me somehow that one, we're not getting information out on problem gaming, but we're also not getting, well, they're not getting out the information of what they actually are doing in the community. So those were the issues that kind of floated to the top with me. I too want to thank you for the report. It was excellent, very well done. So kudos to the team for putting this together. And at this time, Madam Chair, that would be all that I would have to say. Commissioner Hill, I had same observations as you and I'd like to just do a follow-up. When I read about the community engagement piece, maybe you can eliminate us, because I wondered if those who participated in the study felt as though, even if they knew about the community engagement that we knew, that we know about, that's reported to us, that they may not feel that it's the type of community engagement that they're looking for, that they may want to have the opportunity to speak directly with those who operate Encore, so they can speak about the exact issues that they raised with you. Am I right that that's the kind of community engagement they're looking for? Because Commissioner Hill's quite right. All three of the casinos in Massachusetts are quite generous and work hard to support various causes, grassroots efforts, but I wondered if it's just that it's not kind of community engagement this group seeks. I'd say, and Patrick, feel free to jump in here as well. I feel like it's a mix of both feeling like there wasn't community engagement, that they didn't see the community engagement and what you were saying, that it may not be, some of the things that they suggested may not be the type of community engagement that Encore is currently engaging in. And so it may be helpful. Can you illuminate on that then so that we could have an example of the type of thing that might be helpful for them on the community engagement level? Patrick, do you happen to have? Yeah, so for example, the participants mentioned things and this may be happening and maybe these specific participants were not aware of it, but they mentioned specific things like having community meetings and community forums in which I think, as you were kind of describing that they had the opportunity to really express what their community needs are. And I think they also express, I think something similar to what the quote at the end was trying to imply, like being able to fully understand where the revenue from the casino was going and what it was funding in their community specifically and having them have a voice in what those things were as well. So it really wasn't mixed, but feeling like the community wanted to be heard, definitely came up as a theme, as a big theme. Manager, thanks. Commissures, we might be able to facilitate that with each of the casinos but that kind of exchange of ideas and concerns and information, that might be a little bit different than what we've been seeing. Director Vanolin and I may have to interrupt you, I'm sorry. Yeah, of course. It's all on a spectrum, community engagement. Community engagement can be there to just share information or to inform, but you can also have community engagement that's collaborative and empowering to the community. And my general sense is that Encore does do community engagement, but to what extent is this engagement happening? How much is the community feeling like it's empowering and collaborative? And that's quite honestly, it's a higher level type of community engagement that's more difficult to achieve and takes a lot of time. And so we address this in our responsible gaming framework and I think maybe that can help guide a conversation that we would have with all of our lives. I just add one more thing that over half of our interviews were conducted in languages other than English and so part of it maybe that Encore isn't necessarily reaching communities, all the communities that were represented in our study that maybe some of that engagement is happening in English and not getting translated. And we appreciate that too. I know that that's an ongoing concern for this particular body, so thank you. Commissioner Maynard? I appreciate the opportunity. I like Commissioner O'Brien, Commissioner Hill and yourself Chair, notice some of these patterns and what I really took away from it was feeling like there's an opportunity for communication because for example, there was a statement in there about Broadway is the only street that is being kind of beautified when I know that Commissioner Skinner and I took a tour around some other streets that were getting some community mitigation funds. And so my first thought was there's a communication issue, like obviously the community doesn't feel like they're seeing that and not to say that there's not to Director Vendor Menden's point, opportunities for enhancement, but I think right out of the gate, there's an opportunity for communication. And the other thing I took away was the jobs piece and reading about how there was an expectation, there would be a lot of job bears, there would be a lot of bringing folks in and we look at jobs reports quarterly. And so one of my first thoughts was how great would it be if we could connect to the chair's point, the folks who are interested in employment opportunities and everybody including on court is fighting for workers right now, right? That's the one thing in this economy that is pretty strong, which is the workforce numbers and there's a lot of competition. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for communication. That's what I took away from this and hope that we can be good facilitators and good partners of that communication. Thank you. And again, I should state that I very much enjoyed the presentation today and the report. I think Director, it was actually Dr. Andrews and the Director Vanolin who noted that we especially love the community engaged research. So important for us to hear these voices directly. Anything else? Well done. Thank you for your thoughtful comments and we appreciate you taking the time to let us join your meeting. Thank you. Director Vanolin, we all set. I think we're all set. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. Excellent. Thank you, everyone. We're going to turn now then to item number four which was added to the agenda. We had recognized that we need a little bit more time to consider the House rules. So I turn to the second Director Wells and I guess Council Grossman and Director Ban. And... When we get started on that, I just want to clarify, make sure there's no miscommunication. So for tomorrow's meeting on the 27th, we will not need to do the operation certificate, but I did look up on the 27th. We do have legal, as a matter, the discussion on whether winner or cash prize has to child support attacks liability with the Commonwealth and the duties of the operator. So I think that will still be on. I didn't want to send the message that the meeting itself would be canceled. I believe that's still on for tomorrow, correct Todd? The tax piece, the S. Yeah, okay, all right. So that is our only item on for tomorrow. Yes. Okay, so will we get something? I don't know, maybe we've already sent it, Council Grossman, so that we can have a little bit of background on it. I think we probably all recognize the issue, but it would be great if we had something. I can circulate the existing MOUs and the statute. It's kind of a work in progress at this point. I actually need to jump off of this meeting to talk to the Department of Revenue about this issue. And so I will certainly circulate as many materials as I can. So with that, I'll turn it over to Director Banz. I know Council Grossman has to go, but we are ready to proceed with the approval of the House rule. Yes. Madam Chair, Commissioners, Skrull Carpenter's going to join me on this, Skrull. Here it is. Okay, with the House rules, we kind of reviewed these. I know that there's a couple of issues in these because the catalog we reviewed prior to the catalog being totally approved. So I guess we'll start it off with, are there any questions in the packet? I guess let's turn to the first page. It's a PPC Barstool page 93. I'm just reopening my packet, so bear with me. So it starts on page 93. And I think you see that actually right in advance of that on page 91, the regulation that we're following is put in. And then on page 93, PPC starts. And I think what Bruce was alluding to was fact that there's references to some events that are not part of our overall catalog. So I want to address that up front. Madam Chair, we are going back to the casinos and asking them now that they have the approved catalog to eliminate anything in the House rules that was not approved in the catalog. So anything in here will be amended to remove things like surfing in the PPC's catalog and any game that the commission did not approve or event. Mr. O'Brien? So one of the things I noticed when I looked at this and I wanted to flag and maybe they fixed it and look at it again in the last couple of days, but I think MGM, when they define how long a ticket is valid, so there's vouchers being valid for 365 days and then there's a reference to good for one year and then it says MGM says excluding any time that the sports wagering operator or the gaming establishment has to close. And I think that's a holdover from COVID because we had issues with people trying to redeem who literally physically couldn't be within it. And so we decided to build that in. I mean, I'm literally knocking on wood as I say, I really hope we never have that happen again, but I don't think it's a bad idea for the definition for all three to be consistent in that regard. Excellent point and we were also thinking that MGM brought that language into it and I thought it was a good catch on their part. Good idea, yeah, I think it was a good catch on that part. And again, I really hope we don't need it, but let's avoid the confusion later on. Yeah. So Commissioner Brown, you're recommending that PPC and CORE. And on CORE, I meant yes, yeah, that we have them match that language. Okay. We could have them amend theirs to add that, I don't think that would be any problem. Right, all right, thanks. And so back to the events, everybody understands that if there's any inconsistencies with respect to what we adopt in the catalog, it's our understanding they're going to have to stay nimble on these house rules in any case as that catalog shifts, correct, Sterl? Yeah, so the licensees when putting these together stated that what they'd like to do in other jurisdictions is place these in there and they presented to the commission of all the things in which they wish to have. And we did go to them and state that once officially, we will not like that format and we do not want any advertisements of things like pickleball and all the other things that they did place in here until they are approved. But they're using their formats that they use in other jurisdictions. But here in Massachusetts, we want to be perfectly clear what is allowed and we've reached out again to them. We'll avoid confusion, correct? Yes. Okay, so we've taken care of that and Commissioner O'Brien raised that important point. The other questions, I'll just offer up one. We have our regulation which outlines everything that the house rules have to include. I can't say I did a side-by-side comparison, but I am relying on you, Sterl and you, Director Ban. And I don't know if GLI was involved, but you're satisfied that it meets all of our, all of the requisite, the required elements of our question. So I did a side-by-side, I sent them everything with the side-by-side on 147.02 and I listed all the ones in which I could not find to the operators and they in turn had to remit everything with the address location if I couldn't find it. So yes. Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Maynor, do you have any observations or questions? Just to point out for the record that Bruce did stuff by my office and we had a long conversation about his comfort level and with these and the back and forth of, there have been a few variations and Sterl just mentioned it. And so like you, Madam Chair, I rely on our excellent team and I appreciate Bruce, you've taken the time to walk through it with me. Commissioner Hill. I would just add Bruce and Sterl have been a wealth of information over the last few days and they two stopped in and I saw Bruce the other day, we talked about it and Sterl, thank you for always taking my phone calls to explain to me what's going on. So I'm very comfortable moving forward and thank you both for a great job. Great job. Can I just, can we just go over Sterl and Bruce as the launch is about to occur on Tuesday? Where would patrons that we have obligations to post them in a conspicuous fashion? Do you want to just explain that publicly where the house rules will be posted and where they can be found electronically here, wherever they're going to be available for folks to read? We're kind of going through that right now with each property. I believe on quarters told me that they're going to be on their website, but they will also be located throughout their property as well. PPCs said that they're going to post them on their website and various places throughout their property, MGM on their website and various places throughout their website. The final decision, all of that is still being worked out, but you can see these are pretty lengthy. So all those things are being decided right now as we speak. Are there going to be hard copies available for people to take? That's part of the decision making being done because these are pretty lengthy as you can see in your packet. So that is still being decided. I think there'd be hard copies available for people to look at and see till they get put in electronically. There are reading devices. I know Enporter has one for our rules of the game, but that has yet to be ordered and put in place. And just to further note, every single kiosk has a tab right on its front page where you click on the rules and all the rules are displayed as well once they're uploaded into the platform. Very helpful. Yeah. And at the embedding windows, they would probably just have a hard copy available or something, is that right? Yes. So what Bruce is saying, we're reaching out with the determinations on just how it will be displayed to them, but there will definitely be some form in the sports book area as required. And also what else to be seen is maybe signed specific of at the windows to assure that everyone checks their ticket before leaving is one of great importance. Other questions as you think about patrons placing their first set on Tuesday commissioners about the house rules. Michelle Brownie. No, you asked the question that I had in terms of the accessibility to it. Is it, and I don't want this to be confusing. I had assumed it would be available like if you went to Encore's website, but I realized that in the next four to six weeks that might be a little confusing if people could access it that way, they might be thinking that they could bet that way too. So let's see what stick with sort of onsite for the time being. Yep, we will assure there will be some form for everyone to see all the rules. And just to throw my thanks out to particularly Sturrell, thank you so much for the affirmation that you did in fact do this side-by-side. No problem, thank you. Okay, well, I can tell you that I am absolutely lying on the expertise of this team and the years of experience, I'm almost afraid to be calculated up it might be our century. Thank you so much. So commissioners, keep me in mind the fact that these rules that are in our packet are subject to an amendment that I guess we're going to rely on Sturrell and Bruce if they reflect the catalog that we've adopted and if that's the correct word, catalog. I would recommend if we do move on this to reflect that amendment and we can approach it for each facility but you also have the amendment, Commissioner O'Brien that you raised. I'm going through trying to find the exact wording that's an MGM so I can make a reference. Yeah, I don't know if I noted it. I noted it in the last packet so my page is completely relevant. Well, MGM starts on 168. They have an index that's helpful. I know, Bruce. So I have the rules open. Unfortunately, I'd like to look at the rules and I did not, it's under number six under general sports book rules. So that's page 171. It looks like it. It says sports wagering tickets will be honored for one year after the date of an event excluding any time. The sports wagering or gaming establishment has to be closed. Yeah. Which I think, I don't know if that's the exact language we use during COVID but it's the same idea. It does. It sounds really close if it isn't, right? Yeah. So it's just that, it's just the language excluding any time the sports wagering or gaming establishment has to be closed. We just need them to add that. Yeah. I'm sure that the others will have no problem with that. Yeah. They won't. Do I have a motion or a motion? Are we doing them all as a group then? We can, Commissioner. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I move that the commission approve the house rules submitted by the category one sports wagering operators, PPC, MGM, and Encore of Boston Harbor as included in the commissioners packets and discussed here today with the understanding that they will be further modified to reflect the commission's vote at the last meeting concerning the catalog that was approved for acceptable wagering in the Commonwealth and further that PPC and Encore amend so much of their house rules to reflect that tickets are valid. Sports wagering tickets will be honored for one year after the date of event and add the language excluding any time the sports wagering or gaming establishment has to be closed. May I have a second? Second. Excellent. Any questions on those? Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. So for Sarah, thank you so much. That's it. Excellent work guys. Gentlemen, thank you so much. All right. Now, we're gonna be turning to our leader and Councilor Grossman's out. So I'm turning to Councilor, or you see, good morning, Carrie. Good morning. Sorry, having a little... That's okay. Technical problem, but Associate Councilor Wang is actually going to take this one for us. So I'll figure this out while she's speaking. And I'll make sure I'm not holding you up. I think it's just my camera. I have a separate camera. So I think it's just me. I'll figure it out. Okay. Good morning, Carrie and Heidi. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Having your packet, a draft of 205-CMR250 on protection of minors and underage youth from sports wagering, along with an amended small business impact statement. This regulation governs the protections in place to prevent minors and underage youth from engaging in sports wagering. When this regulation came before you on November 17th, 2022, you voted to promulgate by emergency and also to begin the formal regulation process. The regulation has been working its way through the process and a public hearing was held on January 24th, 2023, presided over by Commissioner Jordan Maynard. We received one comment, which I'll ask Annie Lee from Anderson Krieger to discuss in more detail. At this time, we're looking forward to finalize the promulgation process and file the regulation with the Secretary of State. I'll now turn it over to Attorney Lee to discuss the comments and answer any questions. Thank you, Ying. Good morning, commissioners and Madam Chairwoman. So as Ying stated, we received one comment from an operator specifically on subsection 2504, which is on packet page 302. Just one minute. Okay. Yep, we've got to meet now. Thank you. It's two, which one? I'm sorry. It's 2504 at packet page 302. Thank you. 2504. Mm-hmm. And so the specific comment from the operator is that in 2504, we've asked operators to provide to the IEB a monthly report that gives numbers on the number of underage youth or underage individuals. So those who are under the age of 21 who are found in a sports wagering facility, who are found in a sports wagering area, and who are found attempting to sports wager on a mobile platform, as one of, as the operator noted, there are going to be some operators who don't have a physical location in which sports wagering will occur. So for your category threes, they're going to be conducting sports wagering through the apps and it simply wouldn't be applicable for them to report on the number of persons under 21 who are found in the sports wagering facility or attempting to sports wager in the sports wagering area. Based on that distinction, they, that operator suggested inserting to the end of the introductory sentence in 2504, the phrase as applicable to either in-person or mobile sports wagering operations. In discussing this with director Van Der Linden as well as the legal team, we would recommend adopting this change. It doesn't, it doesn't give operators sort of a loophole in which to not report information. And it certainly helps sort of make things easier for operators to provide the commission the information they're most interested in learning about. I have to say I noted this and couldn't remember our conversation why it was limited to just retail commissioners. Maybe you can remind me of that discussion, but obviously the KYC element for any of the mobile operators would apply do you want reporting them? Yeah, no, we remember it because we want it even if they found out someone breached the mobile controls and somehow managed to go past the verification and get in, we would want to know about that. So we may be getting numbers that they realized they had a breach and they had under 21's on the platform. I think it's going to happen very often but it does capture them. But the point of as applicable, obviously makes it realize they don't have to keep saying, you know as to like one and two, zero, zero because they don't have a physical space. So they only report on what's relevant to their operations. Commissioner O'Brien forgive me but I'm just doing a bit of catch up on this. So this still in your mind would only apply that breaches at the facility or talk about in March when there's also a breach on the device. Yeah, so look to 250.043. Yeah. It talks about younger than 21 being found or attempting to wager on a flat. And so that does take in the cat threes. It's just they would have to keep telling us zero as to one and two. I see, just for their reporting purposes they don't have to worry about one and two. One and two would always be zero for them. That's right. But three, we expect that disclosure. Yes. Thank you. Very helpful. So if the exact language that would be recommended again, Ms. Lee. The exact language that we would recommend is inserting in the first sentence after month and before the colon as applicable to either in person or mobile sports wagering operations. Ms. Lee, can you repeat that a little slower for me, please? Thank you. Yes, of course. And I will happily read out the full sentence. So the proposed amendment would change the first sentence of 250.044 to read each sports wagering operator shall submit an underage person report to the bureau by the 10th day of each month reporting the following information for the previous month, comma, as applicable to either in person or mobile sports wagering operations colon. Are we fine with that approach? And again, for the record, only 04 subsection three applies to the mobile operators. That's correct, Madam Chair. Okay. So thank you. I read that a little bit too fast last night. Okay. You're looking, we must move on this today if we want this to be adopted fully. Do I have a motion with that particular amendment in mind? I moved that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement in the draft of 205 CMR 250 as included in the commissioners packet. And it's further amended here today, specifically inserting the language at 250.04 in the opening section after the comma as applicable to either in person or mobile sports wagering operations colon. And further, the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth to finalize the regulation, prologation process. Thank you. Second. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. I'm ready for the discussion on that. Very, very helpful to both me and Annie. Thank you. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. So yes. Thank you. Okay. Then we're now moving on to 251, the operation certificate. Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, commissioners. I have for you on starting on page 305 of your meeting packets, a final draft and the amended small business impact statement for 205-CMR 251, which governs sports wagering operations certificates. It was also approved on November 17th, 2022. We received zero comments at the hearing presided over by Commissioner Maynard and also no comments in advance of today's public meeting. And I'm joined by outside counsel, Mina Macarius, who will walk you through the most recent draft of the regulation. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. As Judy said, there have been no changes and no comments on this one. So I will, I can do this fairly quickly, I believe. As a reminder, 251 governs the issuance of posting of operation certificates. You start with an issuance piece that it's actually the process you're going through right now to ensure that all requirements and all regulatory prerequisites have been met before opening and before any category of a licensee can start operating. There are a few more references to category one or category twos because there's some more physical pieces to the opening, but in general, this is another one of these regs that tries to capture everything else that happens. That's really the gist of 251.01.02 governs a test period which I understand you're in for some of the category ones. And 251.03 gets into the effective date and duration of the operation certificate which really makes it consistent with the term of the license itself. And again, we've received no comments on this one. I think one of the questions I think I'd raised is that was that any concern for the mobile? But it does allow for them to post on either the website right on the app itself. For the operation certificate, let me just... This is category one or category two. Or more mobile app for category three. But we, yeah, I had one right. It has to be website or mobile app. That's right. I was just looking for the exact language. It's on 251.01.02 for category three. It has to be promptly displayed on a category three sports region website or mobile application. Okay. Thanks. Commissures, any questions? I have a motion. Madam Chair, this is 251, right? That's right. Yeah. I move that the commission approve the amended small business impact statement in the draft of 205 CMR 251 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. And further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any questions? That is commissioner Brian. Aye. Mr. Hill. Aye. Mr. Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes. Okay. Born server. Thank you, Judy. And thank you, Mina. Now we have next up is the occupational licenses. Correct. So one page, just beginning on page three, 11 of your packets commissioners. You have the final draft of 205 CMR 235 sports wagering occupational licenses. This is also approved by emergency on November 17th. And we've received only one comment. Written in advance of today's public meeting. And attorney Paul commoners from Anderson creator is here to walk you through the final draft of the regulation and the comment as well. Morning. Good morning, Madam chair commissioners. As a reminder, 205 CMR 235 was based closely on 234, our vendor reg and the occupational licensing regulation. In the gaming series. We simplified and streamlined the levels of occupational licensing. To account for the fact that there are that the. Statute only provides. For a solitary level of occupational licensing under qualification. So there are. Two comments. The second one is came in quite late. And so it's buried at the end of the packet. I'll start with a comment on page 319. Ben MGM has asked that we add definition for pit boss. We touch base with the licensing division in advance of this meeting and licensing. Said that they've not received comments or had issues with the from the operators. And reflecting any issues with the definite with the. Set of occupations subject to occupational licensing. So we do not recommend adopting this comment. The second comment appears on page three. 330 of the packet. The comment notes that the expiration of all. Licenses on March 1st. May create a crunch for the commission. The expiration of all licenses on March 1st is actually a response to the statutory requirement that all renewals. All renewal applications be received by March 1st of the calendar year. So that crunch is imposed on us by the statute, not the regulation. Licenses will not expire if a renewal is not processed by March 1st. That's made clear in the regulation. And it's consistent with the background rule of state administrative law at this point, which comes from chapter. Section 13 of chapter 30a of the general laws. So we do not recommend adopting this comment either. This problem is handled as well as it can be within the statute that we have. And then if there are no questions on the comments, I believe attorney McCurious has won. Cross reference fix that he would like to bring up. Any questions for. Okay. Section 13 of chapter 30a of the general laws. So we do not recommend adopting this comment either. Okay. Madam chair, before I just mentioned the cross reference, let me also just add. Slight amendment to what Paul said. Although I don't think you need any further clarity on the renewal issue. It is something we will also make clear in the forthcoming renewal wreck, which, which the commission asked for. So that's something that can be covered again there. On the only other change we would recommend is 23510. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Disciplinary action currently refers to 23411, which is vendor licenses. If you recall, these were both passed before. We had our discussion the other day on 232. Our recommendation would be to change. And this will come up as we do other regs as well. Cross references to enforcement. Um, the County can improve. Can we see the references to 23411 and 231. 23411 would just say 232. Oh, and, um, and I would actually just strike the second sentency. The appeal will be covered through the same process in 232. Any questions on that commissioners. Okay. five CMR 232 period. No, the first one would say yes. So it would end after the first citation commissioner, Brian. And, but it would change to 205 CMR 232 and I would strike the second sentence. It's kind of duplicative to say, because the appeal process follows in it. And as we talked about last time, it's not always direct appeal. So we need a motion on this as well. Nice to see these coming to completion. Great work to all of the legal team. This started in November. And now here we are. So congratulations on that. The motion was the amendment in mind. Mr. Mayter. So I just want to make sure that the amendment was already included in the PAC, correct? No, it's not in red lines. So that was, but I'll get you the page number. It's page 318. Maybe you don't have it in front of you, but it would just be strike. It would be changing 235.10 disciplinary action to exclude, to change the reference from 205 CMR 232. So striking 232. And strike the last line. And then the second sentence gets stricken all together. Yeah. So strike the second sentence and then 205 CMR 234.11 would instead be 232, correct? Yeah. All right, I can do that. Thank you. All right. I move that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement in the draft of 205 CMR 235 as included and amended in the commissioner's packet, specifically packet page 318, 235.10 disciplinary actions to strike the reference to 205 CMR 234.11 and add in its place 205 CMR 232 and to strike in its entirety the last sentence of that paragraph. And further that the 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. Excellent. Okay. Any questions on that? All set. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes. 404.0. Excellent. All right. Back to those definitions, right? So, 202, please. Thank you. Exactly. If it feels like Grimantau Day, it's because it is. You're seeing definitions again. The definitions just as a reminder have actually made their way fully through the promulgation process. They are in effect. So what we are looking for today is an amendment to 205-CMR202 to include some new definitions, which I'll let Meena walk you through, and also to include a new section 202.03 regarding construction and amendments, which also relates to a waiver process. So with that, I will turn it over to Meena. Oh, I'm sorry. This starts on page 322 of your packet. Thank you, Caitlin. So again, this begins at 322. The definitional changes added here consist really of two topics, two types. One is another calling through of all past regulations that you've now passed to make sure we capture definitions here. Most of those you'll see as cross-referenced ones, as well as one or two that are a handful that I will just highlight that there's been requested clarifications as the team has worked with operators to start setting up and so on. So some useful clarifications. And as Caitlin mentioned, there's also 202.03, which I'll get to. So on page 322, a couple of smaller ones, brakes, cash and cash equivalent have all been defined now and are used in the internal control regs. Brakes was defined in the statute as well, but it just wasn't used in the regs before. So those are simply added in. The following three, category one license, category two license insertions, that's just a correction. The statute 23N uses the terms category one, category two, category three without the word sports wagering. If you recall, we added sports wagering in the definitions because of the potential confusion with category one and category two under 23K. So that's just a clarification. Check as chief sports wagering executive are two more that came from the internal control regulations. If you recall, those ones actually also have their own definitions sections, but since they may be used elsewhere, we want to just make them. So that is it for page 322. And 323, if you go down to page 324, there's one more like that segregated account is using the internal controls. And I want to stop there before, as well as actually I'll just mention it's sports wagering counter is also used there. I just want to stop there before we get into the change to sports wagering area. If there are any questions about any of the ones I've mentioned so far. Questions, commission? I'll set them in. Okay, thank you. The change here and there are sort of two related changes to sports wagering area and sports wagering facility. We want it to be clear about the distinction. And I know we've talked about this in the context of internal controls and others. A sports wagering area is a part of a gaming establishment that is used for sports wagering. You would be approving the floor plans in either case, but we want it to be clear with that a sports wagering facility is really an add-on to a category two. So we've tried to make a clearer distinction between the two before the language in sports wagering facility in particular suggested it could be in either a one or two. That was initially intended to capture a sort of by the side of a sports of a gaming establishment area. So sort of two separate entrances, separate buildings. However, I think that that attempt was getting confusing and it made more sense since the gaming establishment consists of more than the gaming area itself to simply separate out areas category one, facility is category two. And I think that's a definition that the legal team found to be more workable in going through the other regs. So our suggestions to do it that way. We did want to emphasize the approval by the commission in both cases that's also obviously reflected in the internal control regs as well. So any questions on that change? I think I just need some clarity. Yeah. I'm sure this is right, but so area only applies to the category one are current, you know, licensees or under gaming. And then cat, and we know that those facilities they're gaming for like changes then we have to approve it. The facility has operated by a category two. Should there be one, right? Are we, will there be designated gaming areas that they also would be subject to our approval? Should they start to put kiosks somewhere else? It's a different process, but how do we, how do I sort of think about this? Sure, that's helpful. So if you can imagine, I think that the reason we divided them out is a sports wagering area. I think it's important to keep in mind that's part of a gaming establishment as opposed to the gaming area. So sorry to add sort of another definition to the mix, but remember that the gaming area is some sort of the more traditional gaming floor. But if you think of Encore, the MGM facility, for instance, other parts of the facility are part of the gaming establishment. And what the first definition sports wagering area means is that you are, we would have areas of a, wherever sports wagering might happen by category one would need to be part of the gaming establishment and approved by the commission. So if you did have a standalone kiosk in an area, it may be an island in a way that is an expansion of the gaming establishment, but more likely than not, it would be within it. Within the overall gaming establishment, even if not directly on what we would think of more colloquially as a gaming floor, this sort of area that has tables, table games and slots. A sports wagering facility would not have any gaming area or any gaming establishment. It would be regulated under your authority to regulate simulcasts, et cetera. And so the sports wagering facility would be that facility and again, to the extent that there is a kiosk or is a area that there's sort of multiple areas you could still make them part of the facility but that would just be shown on a floor plan. It may mean that they're not contiguous in all cases. That's a decision for the commission, whether that's okay. So if they decide, for instance, to put kiosk in a side building, but that's on their property, that would not be part of the facility. It would be if you approve it to be, you would have to approve them putting the kiosks there and then it would be part of the facility. So it's approval, okay, so the kiosks themselves. Now, how much of an area around the kiosk? I think one of the questions that has come up as just a operational one is things like access controls, et cetera. I think those are the details that have to be worked out facility to facility and that's where the commission's discretion may come in of whether it's appropriate to have a kiosk or a counter, a sports wager counter in an area that may be not as connected to the rest of a place. I'm trying not to use facility or establishment to the rest of the operation. So because I would have to go back to each right, what I'm understanding is that when we approve the facility, but even if we approve the facility, they still have to come to us for, continue to come to us for placement of each kiosk or a window or anything to do with placing a sports wager. You're approving the floor plans, that's correct. And so you'd have to do that. And then I do believe, and this is only by regulation so you could change this, but you have put some limitations on where kiosks can go already and other regulations, but the point is all of this is by, comes through the approval of the floor plans. The change here was really meant to to uphold a duplication between the two. Oh, well, thank you for watching me through it. Any questions, commissioners? There you are. Commissioner Maynard, commissioner Hill, commissioner Bryan, all set. Is there anything else on this, Greg? If you go down further on page 325, construction, yeah. This is just, well, there's a few more sort of added definitions from other sections. I will note just because I know it's come up in our discussions a few times, just this is not being finalized. This is where third party marketing entities are captured or sports wagering vendors. That's not a change, but I'm just highlighting it because I know the conversation came up there. So at the bottom of 325 is this new addition, construction amendments. This is one of those that was probably true before, but your 23, your 100 series regs have broad statements about how to construe the 205 CMR, your regs in general. They include references, for instance, to gender and plurality, et cetera, sort of your basic interpretation stuff, but also noting the broad authority of the commission and that basically that if there went in doubt that you read these to effectuate the purposes of the statute and the regs. This simply, 202.031 simply carries that through. The other part is making explicit the waiver process that you already follow for gaming operators where there's a request for a waiver from application of a reg would apply to the entirety of 205 CMR, including these regs. Questions on that, commissioners? Mina, can you just bring us back to what you were mentioning in terms of you said the third party? Oh, yes. So that was not a change, but at the top of 325 sports wagering vendor, I'm only noting it because I know I've answered the question this is where it is, this is how you wanted the places at least where third party marketing vendor entities are captured or sports wagering vendors subject to all the other requirements for vendors. Yeah, thanks. I definitely remember that conversation. Wishers, okay, any questions? All right, I have a motion on this one. So I guess the only, the question I have is, so this is being requested by emergency is that because we're making these edits. Yes, the edits, we're asking for this by emergency because the edits would impact some of the regs that would be in effect for the CAT-1 launch. Got it, okay. So 205 CMR 202, the definition section. I moved that the commission approved the small business impact statement and the draft of 205 CMR 202 as included in the commissioners packet, specifically the red line or I guess blue highlighted edits to the pre-approved version and further discussed here today. And I moved 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. And that staff be authorized to modify chapter section, numbers or titles, file any additional, file additional regulation sections as reserved or make any other administrative changes as necessary to execute the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any edits, any questions? Okay. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes. Excellent. There we go. Councilor Grossman, just in time. And we got through item number five. Is there anything else that you need from us today to the legal team? I don't believe so. I think we're probably okay for today, right, Caitlin? Yes, okay. So if I'm right for tomorrow, there are no regulations. Caitlin, for tomorrow or are there still some? I do not believe we have any regulations for tomorrow but Carrie, correct me if I am wrong. No, no regulations for tomorrow. We've got through everything. And on Monday, we have the certificate of operation, but no regulations, am I correct? I believe that's also correct. Oh, right. I don't know if Yang and Judy want to join us but I think this is a nice time for us to thank this legal team, Nina. You'll have to pass it on to your colleagues at A&K but congratulations. You've put up the framework, the regulatory framework that Caitlin, I know that you worked on early on to sort of develop it all along with your colleagues support and Executive Director Wells knew in our heart that this could be accomplished and we recognize you take a lot of great work with your diligence. You have stood up the framework that is needed for your Sting Morning's launch and for that, we congratulate you and thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And while we won't turn down the thank yous, I just, I want to be clear. I think we may be bringing back a few more for final implementation in the next couple of weeks. So you're not done with the week. No, this is just for Tuesdays. This is just for Tuesdays. No more for Tuesdays. Okay, just to be clear. Oh, Nina. Oh, no, this is just for Tuesdays. Just for Tuesdays, okay. Well, in fact, congratulations on getting this far. That's right. And so it was, it takes a lot of coordination. I want to thank of course, Crystal and Jacqueline and Trudy for always working side by side with you to manage the calendar to accomplish this outcome. And Karen, thank you so much for your leadership on this. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate it. All right, and we look forward to Wednesday's Greg's meeting for Thursday, whatever's in the future, we know they're coming. So thank you so much. The back commissioners, I don't know if you want to say anything to the legal pool, but if they have any commissioner updates. No, I want to express my thanks to them as well. It's going to feel like you just took ice skates off for a while and you're probably going to feel like you're still doing this. And I'm low to do the thank yous now because I feel like we're inviting something needing to be fixed at the last minute, despite all the work that they've done. But I don't think anybody not involved in the process outside of this body probably doesn't understand the lifting that went on to get this done. And they all deserve a round of applause for that, which we'll say again, when we really get to the end of it, but thank you to everybody. Commissioners, all set. Patricia Hill. Many thanks. I got to see most of you yesterday and personally thank you, but to the two that I didn't, many, many thanks for a job. Well done. Mr. Maynard. Madam chair, as you know, I keep a sign on my desk that says it's kind of fun to do the impossible. And we got to see that with this team and what they've done over the last few months to get this ready for Tuesday. So much appreciated. And thank you for doing the impossible. Thank you for all those kind words. Thank you, madam chair and commissioners. I really appreciate that it was a labor of love. I will not fully exhale until the first wagers are placed next week, but so far so good. And we do have these, this issue to discuss tomorrow, but I can just by way of sneak preview, tell you that it looks like everything will be okay and we'll be ready to go for next week. But, you know, just keeping our eye on all of these moving parts is a challenge and we'll get there. Right. And we know there's a couple of pieces of work to be done in the major piece, but with respect to the regulatory framework today to care for some important work and we appreciate it so much. And yeah, exhaling is a good exercise to do, Todd, but we understand your conservatism. We're all, we're very, you know, eager to see Tuesday go well, but we'll have a couple of more meetings before that. But to this team, thank you for getting the regs needed in place to move that ahead. All right. And Judy, you're not done. You got one more day with me, so. See you Tuesday. That's right for the public. All in order and all organized. So thank you. So do I have a motion to adjourn? Move to adjourn. It's before noon lunchtime. That's excellent. You have a second. Okay. Thank you so much, everyone. Chris O'Brien? Aye. Chris O'Hill? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes for zero. Thank you, everyone. Have a great day.