 Thank you. Thanks. Also. Thanks, David. Good afternoon, everyone. And just a couple of minutes late, we were just taking care of some just administrative matters with our esteemed panel today. We're really delighted to have a group of experts in the responsible gaming world. We're very proud of what Massachusetts accomplishes here in its casino gaming landscape and we can be proud in many ways because the legislature had the foresight to provide us with resources that allows us to accomplish a whole lot under the director, the leadership of director Mark VanderLinden with director VanderLinden's coordination. We have really found a group. And Mark, I know I insisted on a finite group. So you did have, you made decisions around expertise, diversity of expertise. And Mark will go into that. But we want to acknowledge that you, we have, and I'll just list the group and then each will introduce themselves. But we do have wonderful contributors for today's roundtable discussion. And that's Alan Feldman, who is coming from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a distinguished fellow there. Alan, thank you. It's nice to see you again. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll have an introduction. We have Rianne Dorechelot. And Rianne, it's nice to see you again. And she is in a consulting world of fabulous resource, really worldwide. We have Keith White, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling. Keith, it's nice to see you. We're looking forward to hearing from you. And of course, you were just recently here in Boston with your conference, which I could tell is a huge success. Marlene Turner, our very own local resource and really a familiar face and problem gambling and really the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health. Marlene, of course, is very involved as the executive director with the contract that we have on Game Sense. Then we have Michael Wall, Professor of Department of Psychology out of Carlton University. And I know, Michael, you're working on, I believe, a project for us right now on our Game Sense program. And we will be looking forward to that in the future. And delighted that you could be here today. Kate Devon, Vice President, Strategic Communications Responsibility of the American Gaming Association. Kate, it's nice to briefly meet you recently. And some, and we're so interested, of course, we follow closely what the American Gaming Association is doing. And often we're working in parallel tracks and often resulting in great intersections. And then finally, another regulator. We are delighted to have, I see that you do go by Liz, but it is Elizabeth Lanza, Office of Compulsive Problem. And we have a, I think, maybe, Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. Yes, the Office of Compulsive and Problem Gambling. I think that word just got left off my apologies. Oh, no problem. And she's coming in from Pennsylvania on the regulatory side. We so appreciate your voice today. And we are now, I just want to have Mark help on a further introduction than what we are looking forward to our discussion ahead. Mark. Yeah, thank you very much, Chair Jed Stein. Good afternoon, Commission. And good afternoon to all of my colleagues from near and far around the country on this important issue. I did want to say, you know, in 2013, in advance of licensing any casino and definitely even while we were going through the application process, we hosted a very similar forum where we brought together experts from a wide range of fields to help the commission form our strategies around problem gambling and around responsible gaming. And it ended up, the accumulation of that ended up being our responsible gaming framework that was drafted shortly thereafter and has continued to be a central document for the gaming commission and guiding our work. This is not that different in my mind. You are experts with a wide ranging sort of perspective on the issue of responsible gaming and problem gambling. It is very important as we consider how we move into this new digital space and how we move into this new form of gambling that we are going to be regulating. I feel like the stars must have aligned in order to have all of you here, given just your schedules. Sorry. Mark. Yeah, I'm going to pause before we do any further business. One of my fellow commissioners was nice enough. I got so excited about turning this over to the experts that I forgot to do our world call for a virtual. Okay. So just to confirm, because we are using virtual technology, and it gives a quick opportunity, we will have the opportunity commissioners to say hello again. Commissioner O'Brien. Good afternoon. I'm here. Okay. Commissioner Hill. Good afternoon. I'm present. Good. Thank you. Commissioner Skinner. Hello, everyone and welcome. I'm here. Thank you. And Commissioner Maynard. Good afternoon. I'm here. Great. Thank you, Mark. Thanks. Well, anyway, just a sincere thank you for setting this time aside from your schedules to join us to advise the Gaming Commission in a really substantive way on this issue. Much like in 2013, we have some really good direction that comes from the law. And then the expanded Gaming Act, now the Accredulating Sports Wagering. We will certainly pay attention to that, but it leaves a lot of room for us to make sure that we implement measures that are meaningful, that we can implement, and will guide the work of the Gaming Commission. So understand we take your advice incredibly seriously. I do. And so I would love to turn it over and just as Chair Jett Stein mentioned at the beginning of the meeting if you want to introduce yourself. And as you said, Chair, just as you see fit, whether it's your work with the Gaming Commission or what you consider your role in this space of responsible gaming and problem gambling. I know we have a very full agenda, so I think we want to keep it relatively brief given your range of experience you've probably gone for quite some time. But just briefly, you could cover that. Does that sound okay, Chair? Absolutely. Thank you. And we'll turn to, should we all decide to do first names? Would that be comfortable? Okay. Turn to Alan. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi, everyone. I'm Alan Feldman. I am with UNLV at the International Gaming Institute, where I have been since 2019, so for the last three years, no more. Prior to that, I spent 30 years with Mirage Resorts and MGM Resorts. And 30 years ago was involved in one of the initial bills that was presented in Massachusetts that ended up at the time going nowhere. But then years later, I was privileged to be able to meet with legislators and with community advocates about the Massachusetts gaming law. And it was notable to me then and it is notable to me now. The commitment to this topic, the commitment to research, which was really critical. And I'm still sort of new in the university environment, so I'm not your standard research is everything. I believe that before I got here. So the fact that Massachusetts is doing as much as it is is, in my mind, pretty remarkable. Just for the record, I'm chairman of the International Center for Responsible Gaming. And I also chair here in Nevada, the Nevada State Advisory Committee on Problem Ambly. Thank you. Brian. Good afternoon, Chairwoman commissioners. It's a pleasure and a privilege to be here. I began my career in problem gambling actually, I think a week after Mark started at the Gaming Commission. So in 2013, where I served as the director of government relations for Marlene Warner at the Mass Council. Several years later, I transitioned to go work for Mr. Keith White as his legislative director at the National Council. And for the last several years, I've been taking my work in the US and applying that globally. I do a variety of different things, both in the responsible gaming space as well as with regulators and legislators as it relates to policy creation and problem gambling. So like I said, it's a pleasure and a privilege to be here and I look forward to some robust discussions. Thank you, Keith. Hi, I'm Keith White. I'm executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling in Washington, DC. I've been really proud to help support the commission and the work of the responsible gaming framework over the years as well as the Mass Council on Gambling and Health. We often refer to the Massachusetts model. And sometimes when we're feeling really good or the Massachusetts miracle, because we do think that this is a precedent setting national best practice in terms of responsive gambling for the state regulation of casinos and now soon to be sports betting. So yeah, just please, please to be here and appreciate the invitation from the commission. Right. Thank you, Marlene. A familiar face to us all. Thank you, Chairwoman and thank you commissioners for the invitation. So we've been operating in Massachusetts first as the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling and then in September of 2020, we changed our name to the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health. But we've been operating since 1983. So as we head into our 40th year, it's really exciting that we continue to be able to serve the people of Massachusetts across that full spectrum of prevention through long term recovery. But most pertinent to this conversation today, we spend a good portion of our time operating the Game Sense Information Centers and being the vendor to the Mass Gaming Commission as it relates to the Game Sense brand and the Game Sense program. And just kind of as a side, we've also been doing a fair amount of international work through an association with Spectrum Gaming Group and the Spectrum Safer Gaming Advisors. So I'm so pleased. We've spent a lot of conversations. Alan alluded to this earlier that it took a solid, I think, 12, 15 years for Casino Gaming to come to Massachusetts. And literally, and there was this time. You're not counting bulls that ended up in someone's drawer. Well, that's a good point. But we spent a lot of time, my predecessor, Kathy Scanlon, and then myself, when I became executive director in 2011, talking to the legislature, and I will say that this commission has been amazing and was created through that legislation. And really from day one, I think Mark was employee number five or six of the Gaming Commission. So really from day one, this commission has taken this issue seriously. And evident by this roundtable, they will continue to do so. But I do want to kind of give a shout out to the legislature who is constantly open, always has an open door for us and wants to make sure that they get this right. So kudos to them for wanting to stay and be in the forefront for the citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Thank you for having me. Thanks, Marlene. Thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you for inviting me here today to speak. My name is Michael Wall. I'm a professor and graduate chair in psychology at Carlton University. I've been doing research on factors that predict disordered gambling, including erroneous cognitions and facilitating the use of the responsible gaming, creating limit-setting tools, testing limit-setting tools for about 25 years now. I run the Carlton University gambling lab here. For the last number of years, I've been working alongside Mark in the Research Review Committee. I've been working alongside Mark in the research review committee. I've been working alongside Mark in the research review committee. In closing, I'll echo Keith's sentiment. I like the term the Massachusetts model. Massachusetts' commitment to research and form decision-making is a model that should be held high. And that's why I'm excited to be involved in the decision-making and research that occurs in Massachusetts. And I applaud Massachusetts for having this roundtable meeting about sports betting as it becomes legal in the state. Thank you. Kate? Hello and good afternoon. I'm Kate Dabon, vice president of communications and responsibility at the American Gaming Association. We are just down the street from Keith here in Washington, D.C. And among this group, I'm new to the industry, with my background span in social marketing and health behavior change for other industries. I wanna thank the chair and the commission for hosting this important conversation today. And my appreciation to Mark for including me among this impressive list of experts in responsible gaming and problem gambling. The MTC has proven it's leadership in responsible gaming and I commend your efforts. I know when I first started I was learning a lot remiss to not mention that this is a timely conversation. September marks the inaugural responsible gaming education month. I know it's everyone, most everyone on this call's favorite or second favorite month of the year. This is in this extension from a week to a month is an important one for this industry and reflects the growing commitment we have to responsible gaming. I've had the privilege of working with Mark in long over the past few years. In fact, I think Mark was the first person in the RG slash PG space I met back in 2019. I trust that as the MGC considers this discussion today, as they have in the past evidence-based responsible gaming protocols and regulations will be the top priority. And I'm very excited to join this conversation. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And last but not least, Liz. Thank you so much. As you mentioned earlier, I am a fellow regulator and in Pennsylvania. We started our casinos back in 2004 when our first slots casinos slot only casinos bill was passed. And then in 2010, the table games bill was passed. So then our casinos also offer table games. And then in 2017, we had a huge expanded gambling bill passed that included video gaming terminals at truck stops, online gambling, sports wagering, fantasy contest wagering, and some other forms as well. So in 2017, we had a lot thrown at us and we had to really put some thought into regulation and developing policy, but also be prepared to hit the ground running. And that's really what we did. And as we move forward and as Massachusetts moves forward as well, I find myself as a regulator oftentimes going to the Massachusetts website or going to long or mark and getting information because there is such, Massachusetts has put in such as many of everybody else has said here today, Massachusetts has put in such thought into their responsible gambling programs. And it's something that I as a fellow regulator lean on and I look to and I look to your white papers and it's a great resource and I'm happy to be able to help you guys in any way that I can as well today and in the future as you move forward towards, you know, promoting responsible gambling in Massachusetts. Thank you. Thank you. Now before we move on to our, our need of our discussion, I would like reaching my fellow commissioners to introduce themselves and give a little bit of a snippet of your background and I will start with Commissioner O'Brien. Thank you. Certainly. Good morning. I guess good afternoon. Thank you to everyone for being here. I'm Alina O'Brien. I'm a commissioner with the Game and Commission. Before I came here, I spent 16 years as prosecutor in Massachusetts first in the Middlesex DA's office, then in the state attorney general's office. I was head of the special investigations narcotics group. We did organized crime, including gaming cases, wiretaps, that sort of stuff and then moved on to be senior trial counsel for the criminal bureau for the AG's office. And then just prior to coming here to the commission, I was the director of oversight investigations for the inspector general's office. So my areas of expertise, clearly criminal law enforcement and as well as investigations and then regulation, we did a lot of referrals in the AG's office, non-criminal referrals, looking at primarily the expenditure of public funds. But I've been with the commission, closing out my fifth year. It will be five years in spring. So I am constantly learning the statute and our responsibilities. I echo everyone's comments about Mark and Lana and the team. They do a phenomenal job. And I look forward to hearing not only their comments, but everyone else's comments today. I thank you for your time. Thank you. It used to be that Commissioner Hill was relatively new. But after about a year, right, Commissioner Hill year, Millie, I'm one of our more senior commissioners. Well, I certainly have gotten my feet wet over the last year. And I was saying to my wife, literally over the weekend that in four days, I will have been here for a full year. And I feel like I was disappointed yesterday. So the year went by very quickly. And as we've already spoken about a lot happening in one year, with now the creation and the law that was passed for sports betting, but of course, keeping up with what the former members of this commission did in getting our casinos up and running. But what I just real briefly, before I was appointed a commission, I spent 23 years in the Massachusetts legislature. And I can share everybody's pain as we were waiting patiently for some type of gaming bill to come forward. And it did take many, many years. And I've told this story before, and I'll try and be as brief as I can about it. But it's important for today's discussion. During the debate of those bills, problem gaming was an issue that kept coming up over and over and over again. And the meetings that we had with many of you, actually, were very important in putting that piece of legislation together. And how proud of a popper I was to come over here and see that we what we had put into the legislation actually came to fruition and how proud I was to see all the people that we've helped over the years with the programs that we've instituted. And of course, game sense, I now know after a year how important that is to our casinos and to what we do here in Massachusetts. So yes, we are a model for many, but I think we still have a lot of work to do in regards to sports betting. And I too, I'm looking very, very much to our discussion today. Thank you. Thank you. And again, everyone, my name is Nikisha Skinner. I am one of the newer commissioners recently appointed this past March. So six months isn't almost I prior to my appointment served as licensing division chief for the mass gaming commission. I started in that role of in November of 2020. So I am coming up on my two year anniversary with the agency. Prior to my role as licensing chief, I served as a government attorney. I was general counsel for state agency, the mass department of transitional assistance. And prior to that, I served as general counsel to an independent city agency, the Boston Public Health Commission. So though I am relatively new to well, new, not relatively, I am new to the gaming industry. I do have experience working with vulnerable populations, such as the individuals that you all serve that we all serve. I'm not worried that I am newer to the responsible gaming world because we as an agency have all of you to advise us. We certainly have our director and mark and long to carry on, you know, to live up to the accolades, all of the great accolades that you all bestowed on them at the earlier part of this meeting. So once again, welcome. Look forward to hearing from all of you and lively discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. And now, so on August 1st, that was my birthday. And I was monitoring the phone at 5 a.m. because we were monitoring the progression of the Sports Creaturing Bill throughout the night. And I am delighted that my birthday gift was the appointment of Commissioner Maynard. And I was, I guess, we were pleased that we now had our marching orders. I would say I'm not sure it was exactly a birthday gift, but it certainly was clarity as to what we'd be doing on August 1st. So Commissioner Maynard has been here just over a month. So, Commissioner, great birthday gift. Thank you so much. And as you discussed, I was appointed on August 1st. So I am the newest commissioner. I spent approximately six years with Governor Charlie Baker, where I served as Chief Secretary and also as Director of Board of Commissions. In that capacity, I got to deal with every commission and board in the Commonwealth, including the one that I now serve on. Prior to that, I was at the division of professional licensure, which is now the occupational licensure, where I helped support boards that licensed and regulated over 580,000 individuals across 150 different disciplines. I'm also an attorney by trade and sit in the policy and legal seat. And I kind of cut my teeth in administrative law at Social Security Administration, representing folks with disabilities. I do understand addiction, although not gaming addiction, but I am a caregiver to an addict. And I think that it's important the work that's been done and look forward to this robust discussion. Thank you, Commissioner Maynard. I won't elaborate on my background. I think some of you have already heard it, but I'm fortunate enough also to come from Governor Baker's legal counsel's office. Most recently, I was appointed in January, I mean, I'm sorry, in February of 2019. And I came over from having served him as his deputy chief legal counsel. Jordan and I did not cross paths, but I am very aware of what his job was that he assumed after his predecessor, who I worked with closely. I was also fortunate enough to serve as deputy legal counsel before proceeding. Governors, although not always, I wasn't always in the office. I was a returnee. I was privileged to serve as Governor Patrick's Executive Director of Judicial Nominating Commission. And then I had really the chance, I think, when we first worked together, it was when I had a special appointment down to the Massachusetts State Lottery, and we all know terribly successful, the most successful in the world, generating over a billion dollars of aid money. And again, a model with respect to its work and Marlene and I met then. That was a special assignment, and I was lucky enough to have the Treasurer Appoint me to be General Counsel after that that work. So I have been in state government really, probably about since the year 2000, consistently, but prior to that, I was in the private sector. So as a lawyer, I am very happy not a lawyer in this role, although it does come in handy. But what has always been of import to me, and Mark and I, even before I came here, was aware of the my inclinations to want to promote this important work. Again, like Commissioner Skinner, I've had the opportunity to work with different populations that may be at higher risk of lots of troubling addictions, including one that we are looking at today. So if you don't mind, I would like to briefly say hello to our Executive Director, Karen Wells, who is here, a resource that many of you are already familiar with, Karen, but we are very happy that she is at that in that leadership position for us as we move into this new industry. With that, let's get started on sharing all of the expertise. We've got a few prompts, Mark will guide us. I know that you received from Mark some helpful information that would prompt our discussion. I'll probably start randomly with one of you, and then I'm hoping each of you will chime in. No pressure, but I may call on you. But again, if you're not ready to answer, it's only because I have to use the virtual format. If you want to lean in, that's helpful. Again, nobody has to talk at the dinner table, but we are sure delighted to have a conversation. So with that, one of the probably the more complex conversations we may engage in today has to do with the important topic of voluntary self-exclusion. I understand at a very high level there are various policy approaches that are being discussed right now, particularly as we have both casino gaming in play and sports wagering and different devices being used. So I guess if you don't mind because he's at the top of this. Ellen, are you comfortable starting? Would you like to defer to someone else? Well, I'm happy to kick this off and then have others because we have quite a few people with a lot of experience in this. And this may actually be a good broad point to raise about sports betting in general. The academic literature in this field is very thin and very young. And what we believe we may, I'm going to use air quotes here for the word know, what we believe we may know may actually not turn out to be true in six months or six years time, depending on how research is able to continue to guide this. We are about to see the early stages of some input from Bowling Green University, which has a three-year contract to do some evaluation. But there's an awful lot more. We're getting ready to do some pretty interesting things here at UNLV and we'll get into it with other topics. As far as self-exclusion goes, self-exclusion seems to be one of the standards of any responsible gaming program. And yet, it isn't used by that many people. Now, those who use it all think that it's terrific. So that's important. But I have for the last year or more really been taking about why it gets so little use. And I think that this is probably true of safe play tools, responsible gaming tools generally. I think it's the way in which it's presented. It's presented as something that's incredibly negative. You must exclude. You must see us an officer of the state. Depending on circumstances, it may not be this way in Massachusetts, but you maybe ask to go to sit in a room and sign documents and have your picture taken. And this can be incredibly off footing. I would love to see self-exclusion reimagined and reimagined with some of the great marketing minds in the industry, up to and including renaming it, giving it a different perspective that would encourage people who need a timeout, who need to just close off their relationship for a period of time or forever. I think this is one of those areas where innovation and creativity is in desperate need. Thank you. And if you want to lean in one way, it's also to turn off your mute button. That's what we do. Commissures, if you have questions, follow up. We're looking for this big conversation all the way. I know we're really desiring input, but again, I'm hoping to move the conversation in any direction to get answers that you need. Please chime in. Marnie, do you want to add in in terms of the thoughts? You're familiar with of course the program here. I'm happy to do that. I think Michael's waiting to respond. Oh, my apologies, Michael. Thank you for the help on that. So thank you. All right. So, Ellen, I couldn't have said it better myself in everything that you touched on in terms of that sports betting is so new that I can speak a little bit to what is out there in terms of what academics are finding. But I agree that it's green and that we need stronger methodologies and research funding to truly understand the causes and consequences of making sports betting legal. For many, sports betting presents a means to enhance their enjoyment of sports events. For others, it's going to cause severe financial personal and interpersonal problems. And what leads one to one path versus another, we still need to better understand it. In terms of voluntary self-exclusion, yeah, for people who use it, it's very good if they can understand it. There's also some messaging issues. In Ontario, the Canadian province where I'm situated currently, there's been issues in that players didn't understand that they had to apply to return. They figured that if one year was up that they could come back. There are issues around language. Is self-exclusion a good term? From the psychological literature on ostracism, the terminology around exclusion is not good. People don't like being ostracized, being excluded. And using terminology around exclusion can dissuade people from engaging with the program. There's movements in some jurisdictions to change the term to play break, which I think is more in line with what it actually is. You're saying that you need a break in play. And I think that that may be more easily digestible. Of course, research needs to be done. Whatever change is made. And there'll be plenty of time. And I apologize for harping on the need for research. And throughout the course of this discussion, you'll hear me. It'll be a broken record. But this is also where I think Massachusetts, again, to steal Keith's line is the model. It's a great model. And you have wonderful things in place to make informed decisions, to fund research, and make the informed decisions in the short-term and long-term. And I'll pass it over to Marlene because I think... And unless I'm missing somebody else, Marlene, thank you. I'll defer to Keith, who took his mic off. And I'll go after Keith. No, that's all right. I think I'm going to say a lot of the things, Marlene, that we've said over the past couple of years. But just to keep it very short and simple, one good reason to change the term is that it's not exclusion. When you look at it from a consumer perspective, from an advocacy, from a person with a problem gambling perspective, it's not exclusion because you can walk right back in. If not to the casino, then to the online, the offshore sports book, to the lottery terminal, to a casino in another state. And then once you walk back in, in almost every place that you gamble, you're not required to show ID. So you're not prevented from... You're not excluded from entering. You're not excluded from wagering. And you're not excluded from losing. What you're really excluded from is winning. Because it's only when you win a jackpot big enough to require the production of an ID that the vast majority of people who reach their self-exclusion are ever identified. And so from a consumer perspective, it's a total misnomer because we don't have controlled access to gambling. We don't have controlled access to the facility. We don't have controlled access to gambling. We don't have controlled access to losing. It's only when you win that you're identified. And that is when the vast majority of people... And that breeds a remarkable cynicism among people with gambling problems and those in recovery that quite frankly, nobody was ever able to identify me until I win. And then they swoop down and they take my jackpot. So exclusion, again, we strongly agree that it needs to be reframed, but until... We place, I think, far too much emphasis on self-exclusion or voluntary self-exclusion in the Massachusetts terms, this should be part of a continuum of care. And frankly, I think it's good. Most people don't use it because right now, the more people that use it, the more they're going to see the massive flaws in the system. It is not consumer-centric. It's not portable. It's not even portable between various sectors of the gambling industry, much less when you go outside Massachusetts to another state. It ignores everything we know about not just gambling behavior but consumer behavior. Consumers don't just gamble in one vertical. They don't just gamble in one state. They don't just gamble in one company. They see broadcast advertising. So self-exclusion, voluntary self-exclusion needs a lot of work and we agree it should not be relied upon. It should be a resort for people with severe problems and most other people with problems, less severe problems, should be put in almost any other program because self-exclusion is going to be a false promise. It's going to be a hollow commitment to the vast majority of people here engaged in it as it's currently practiced. Thank you, Ernie. Keith's wrong. I wasn't going to say all that, but that was an impressive amount. But I do agree. I do agree that it's difficult. I think I'm going to take a slightly different perspective to say, and this is, you know, there's been some research done on the Massachusetts approach to BSE but very little. One of the reasons is once people self-exclude, they really don't want to talk about gambling any part. So they don't want to follow up with the survey. They're not terribly interested. So that's a whole another thing to consider down the road. But having said that, let me just say yes, what Michael said, yes, what Alan said, yes, what Keith said, all of that is accurate. It's slightly different here though in the sense that just responded with what Keith was saying is that a lot of folks are actually found on the floor by our Game Sense advisors. And so that Direct Connect has been monumental. So I'm terribly concerned in thinking about how do we replicate that online? When we think about mobile applications, those relationships aren't going to be there. So that's of some concern to me. And I've been erecting my brain as to how do we handle that. I think the other thing to think about, and I know at some point we're going to get into the conversation about one or two lists, but the idea of what's been surprising to me is sometimes we say, this is meant to be a tool for the player, put the decision in the player's hand as to length of time, put it in the hands of the player as to whether they want all of it or some of it when we think about the one or the two lists. But the operators, this is not an easy task for them to discern who's on the list, when are they off the list, how does this work? We have the reinstatement sessions, how to hand someone the ability to go and take themselves off the list that they put themselves on voluntarily and give them the opportunity to go gamble if they choose to do so in a streamlined way. These have been huge roadblocks. This will get easier when we think about mobile platforms. I guess I'm concerned about that relationship and concerned about how the interface will happen if a casino, which likely they will, will have a sports book onsite at a brick and mortar casino, and then they have an online or mobile platform. Those are a couple of pieces. The other thing I'll say, and I think Keith may have said a little bit about this, is we have been talking about for a while that a lot of all of the casinos have social gaming platforms and other places where if you are voluntarily self excluded, you are allowed to go into those platforms because you are not actively gambling, but you are engaging with the products in other ways. You are building points. You are still in their radar. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. We don't have research to tell us that, but I have some concerns related to that, and at the very least, we aren't messaging that to the customers. They presume that what they've been excluded from is bad and everything else is okay and good, and there's not a distinct line there. I'm happy to weigh in more around BSE that I should just say for everyone's sakes, though, too, that currently the vast majority, like 98, 99% of the voluntary self exclusions are done by the Game Sense advisors with the gaming agents backing them up, but the vast majority are done by the Game Sense advisors mostly in person, but increasingly a lot more of them are being done virtually like this on a Zoom platform. Yeah, I should have said, Mass does it better than anybody else. It's just there's a lot of flaws in the system. I appreciate that. Liz, I see you, both of you. Oh, who went first, Brianna, or it doesn't matter. I just went, so go ahead. You go ahead, Brianna. I was actually going to, if it's okay, talk a little about your program, some of the things that we've seen go bad, so maybe this will be a good intro to what you were going to say, but a few things, having been a part of seeing what self-exclusion looks like in Massachusetts and comparative to other jurisdictions. To your point, Alan, I think that there is a lot of negativity that is associated with self-exclusion and how it's framed, but the same can be said for responsible gaming tools in general. A lot of resistance to utilizing these tools is there's this assumption that you only use them if you have a problem, not as a way to keep your gaming safe and fun. I think that's an issue that's plaguing this entire ecosystem, not just self-exclusion. Yet to Marlene's point, Massachusetts does a remarkable job in breaking down some of those barriers and resistance by not making it security-focused. Having third-party individuals who are trained and empathetic in this issue, those are all really positive approaches to self-exclusion, but self-exclusion needs to continue to be customer-focused. The more barriers there are to entry, the less engagement you're going to see. By that, I mean having durations of time that seem achievable for someone who's in crisis. In Michigan, when sports wagering was introduced, they introduced self-exclusion at a two-year duration. Previous to this, it had been a lifetime-only ban. Lifetime seems like a really tremendous hurdle when you're thinking about taking that first step to getting your play under control. I'd love to see as Massachusetts continues and thinks about self-exclusion, keeping up your policy that you have to complete a shorter duration of self-exclusion before you opt in to lifetime. Another best practice I've seen for recent states that have legalized sports wagering is to go back to individuals who have self-excluded to ask if they would like to then also be self-excluded once sports wagering goes live. I think it's something that is important to communicate to those that are currently on the list and give them the opportunity to decide what's best and appropriate for them and also talking about cool-offs. Cool-offs are, I think, part of self-exclusion, but kind of like on a satellite, not quite the same. And I haven't heard anybody talk about, and I know you do remote self-exclusion, right, Marlene? But I think that you're talking about a new product that's consumed on your phone online. We should talk about people being able to have access to self-exclusion at the same way that they're playing. Keith and I, when we advocate that it's something that we talk about, you should have access to your consumer protections the same way you're playing and engaging. And I know Liz actually in Pennsylvania, I was poking around in her step. She's got a nice portal, but she has separate lists. So I was wondering, actually, if I could put forth the question or her about having those fractured lists, and do you think that's a barrier for entry to customers because they're overwhelmed? And how's the portal working out? Should other jurisdictions follow suit? Well, thank you for those questions. So the separate lists, I definitely have a love-hate relationship with our separate lists. We have four separate lists, self-exclusion lists in Pennsylvania. We have casino, self-exclusion, iGaming self-exclusion, VGT establishment self-exclusion, and fantasy contest self-exclusion. And quite simply, the way that our act is written, our chief counsel's office just came out and said, we have to have four separate lists, the way that the law's broken down and everything's under different sections of the law. So what my office did was, okay, you have four separate lists. How can we make this as easy as possible for somebody who may want to sign up for one or two or three or all four at the same time? And that's when we developed our online enrollment process also because of online gambling now being up and running, we needed an online enrollment process for self-exclusion. So we did that. And we, going through the self-exclusion process, we made it where an individual can select to self-exclude all at one time for one, two, three or four of the lists. And it's been great. We are just starting to, we just hired someone to come in and completely redo our whole entire portal and our whole entire self-exclusion database because it was started, the database was started 10 years ago. So it's on very, working on very old technology. So I'm excited we're getting that all revamped. And one of the biggest things when we're revamping everything is definitely ease how to make this easy for somebody who wants to self-exclude and how to make it better, better worded, I guess. We want everybody to be able to understand. And as a regulator, we do have a lot of legalese that we have to put in there. We have to. But we also want to explain everything as detailed as we can to individuals without, you know, having the process take two hours. So it's a fine line. And we're still, I mean, we make changes to the information we give to individual self-excluding. We make changes on a regular basis because we want everyone to have correct information and we want them to have it, you know, at their fingertips. So we try to get everything, we're constantly updating and don't be afraid to update is what I always say because I will find out that mass is doing something like, oh my gosh, why didn't we think about that when it comes to self-exclusion? Let's do that. So we definitely have borrowed from other states, other jurisdictions. But I would say that working on a new self-exclusion or if you're doing one list, but I would say the biggest thing is to make it easy for everyone to enroll. You guys do such a great job with the remote option with Game Sense. So you guys are already, you know, mass is already, you know, the model when it comes to even the self-exclusion program. It's definitely not a perfect program. As Keith stated, we all have the same concerns as he does and we all, you know, are tirelessly working on how to improve these programs as best as we can and, you know, just waiting, leaning on one another. You know, I've reached out to Long and Mark on self-exclusion and things like that. And I think that's important just to constantly reach out to other jurisdictions and see what they're doing as well. Hey, I'm going to start with Marlene. I see you're leaning in, but Keith, want to go with Kate? Yeah, go with Kate. Yeah, absolutely. Sure. I, listening to this is interesting because it reflects the broader conversation among the industry with self-exclusion. And, you know, and even broader than that, the need to differentiate between responsible gaming and problem gambling and the way we communicate that to players, you know, we did some recent research with consumers and there's not a lot of differentiation among the consumer type. So, you know, thinking about how we present these ideas and concepts in ways that show the difference and help avoid that judgment is something that is important to consider. In terms of voluntary self-exclusion, sports betting and particularly online gaming presents the benefit of technology, right? You're on an app, it seems like it could be easier to self-exclude and it also presents the difficulties of technology. I know I've been in a number of conversations in my time at the AGA around, you know, how can we make self-exclusion more universal? How can we get these, you know, technologies to communicate with each other and not a project to solve here today that could be, you know, multiple roundtables in its own right, as it has been before, but something to consider as you look at Massachusetts in terms of a hub for New England. And then finally, I know that it's important to think about their self-exclusion with, you know, legal regulated gaming and you can opt out of certain apps that the Commission has oversight of, but there's a lot of gaming beyond the means of your regulated space and the legal market is, you know, one of the top priorities for the American Gaming Association and our members and there's other ways that we can protect customers, you know, DraftKings, for example, has partnered with Betflocker and FanDuel offers Gamban and there's, you know, other technology to consider and while, you know, and have operators allow them the opportunity to consider what works for them and their customers, but something to protect players and another level. Marlene, and Marlene, you have your, do you want to chime in on your reacting to this or take, I think one question I'd love to address is the list. I'm hearing technology issues. Is there advocacy for a single national list that certainly has come up? Is there any state, are there any states that actually have reciprocity around? I don't know if I don't know the answer to that, Marlene, if you want to chime in on what was going on. Although I guess you should consider, as sovereign nations, there probably the best indication that this can happen across government, various governments and them in Oklahoma, they are able to share lists across multiple sovereign nations. Thank you for that. But beyond that, there's not currently a model. We got really close in New England, but we didn't get it over the finish line. I just, I guess I just wanted to say two things, kind of in response to Liz, but one is that we do a fair amount, I mean not the majority, but a fair amount of voluntary self-exclusions in other languages. And we have the, you know, really distinct pleasure to have a very diverse staff. So we have over, we have 15 languages spoken across our team. And I bring that up for a variety of reasons. You know, especially in some of our, one of our casinos, there's, we have a very large population of folks from various Asian countries. And we, again, are able to talk with a number of them in those languages. But when it comes to self-exclusion, they're also able to conduct the self-exclusion in the legalese is in their own language. It was a big hurdle for us prior to and only the VSEs were only in English and, or we didn't have someone to speak those languages for folks to feel comfortable because they are literally signing off on a legal document. So it's quite a big leap. So I just would want us to think about that when we think about, again, going mobile and having that level of engagement with a customer so that they really understand what they're doing. We also, and I think Liz talked about this related to whether it's in English or another language, are really trying to break down what the legalese means. And probably some of our team members go to greater lengths, probably not to the two-hour mark, but sometimes maybe the one-hour mark to get that understood. Because we've had feedback in the past, and, you know, I see Burke is on the call today, but, you know, having the on-site gaming agents wanting to make sure that folks truly understand what they are and are not allowed to do, again, that resulted more than just checking boxes. It really needs to happen through a conversation often. And then the last thing I want to talk about is just the family and how the family is directly impacted by gaming. And, you know, our casino statue of 2011 has a third-party exclusion piece. We're still trying to figure out how to operationalize that here in the Commonwealth. But I often think about the family as it relates to mobile and where do they turn to at least, although they often don't, you know, they talk to someone who's sympathetic, they don't always have a lot of tools, but at least they can walk into a casino and say, I can't get my, you know, spouse out of here. How do I, I mean, our game sense advisors talk to spouses fairly regularly. But the opportunity to have someone to reach out to in a sympathetic year or somebody who can actually offer them a resource I think is going to be really key. So when we think about self-exclusion, we should also be thinking about a companion piece to that as it relates to family. Excellent. Commissioners, we've now gone around the table on an important subject matter. I want Mark to help us on any nuances, but any immediate questions that you have or the experts that certainly a lot of points that I know have caught my ear. Commissioner Brown, are you leaning in? Madam Chair, I just wanted to let you know Alan was waving his hand to make one last comment. Yes, thank you, Alan. Thank you, Brad. Again, I appreciate that so much. Thank you. And thank you, Commissioner, for that. There are a couple of things that I think we've heard from, you know, pretty consistently. And one of them, it seems to me is that the construct of self-exclusion, which is currently a government-based program, needs to be flipped. We need to put the consumer first. And if this were a consumer program, I heard play break earlier, which I think, you know, a break in play is a pretty common sports term. So is time out. And time out is generally has nothing to do with the penalty. It's just the time out. You need a moment to regather, regroup. And so the language of that in a sports setting strikes me as something worth exploring. The second piece, and it was referred to briefly, was the idea of what are we limiting? What is the timeframe? I think it's really important to remember that one year, three year, five year lifetime, all of those were random. All of them were just to get started. None of it has been, when I say tested, I mean from a consumer appeal perspective, it's never been tested. The other point that was raised, I'm going to then bring these two together, was that we are dealing with an incredible technology base with sports gambling. And so when you put these things together, you could create an unbelievably customer focused, friendly customer controlled kind of an experience. So maybe one year, five year is meaningless. Maybe the customer should be asked how many months or how many weeks or how many years do you want your time out? Customer could be asked, would you like any further services such as Gamban or Becklock or both, which are excellent. Another could be, is there anyone else you'd like us to notify your time out? I sort of think of this as the, you could send your flight itinerary to a loved one or a friend. In a similar sense, is there anyone else that you would like us to notify? Just put in an email address or in some cases maybe a phone number. So I just wanted to share that I like the fact that we're having the conversation. I think it's been incredibly robust. But those were some of the things that I was, I think that I was hearing among others as it pertains to what we currently call self exclusion. One last thought, this national idea. The closest you're going to get to that is when there is the self exclusion in a casino, in any state, major national players will exclude that person everywhere. That's both good and bad because in some cases you do have participants who may live in Springfield and they want to exclude in Springfield, but they have no desire to exclude in Las Vegas or in Biloxi because that's where they go on vacation. And on vacation, it's time limited. So they're not as concerned and they're prepared to manage themselves. But when it's open-ended, they can't handle it. Here again, it's one of those things that I think it would be fascinating to experiment with putting that decision in the control of the individual, letting them affirmatively say, this is what I'm trying to do. And then I know we have licensees on the phone. I'm sorry if I am burdening you with any of this. But the technology that we have access to today, I think we'll make managing this significantly easier than it would have been 10, 15, 20 years ago. That is, wow, that's really great stuff. And I think there's so much there in that summary that could revolutionize self exclusion. But just to pick up on the one point to change the discussion, I think right now we're focusing in terms of enforcement of these lists. We focus mainly on the operator. And as Alan, I think said, there are a number of people in that ecosystem payments. We've had a global payment self exclusion with a particular vendor since 1998. But that doesn't transfer to other vendors. But the concept is you want to make sure that you're also screening payments and marketing, loyalty, all too often. It's only security or it's only players club. And there's a number of other points where, again, technologies are friend. And if someone does slip into the casino, but they get they do get spotted, because they try to use a player's card, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, that that really helps enforce this this commitment to help keep keep folks out. So just just to point on all those other vendors, and especially third party vendors, who play an increasingly big role in that information ecosystem that's directed to gaming. Mark, you want to I think I saw your eyes pop open wide when I heard the word revolutionary. Mark, what are you trying to do? We'll turn to the commissioners and again, people will chime in in between. But and we have other topics. But this is it was at the beginning for a reason, Mark. Yeah. So since the beginning of our VSE program, we talk about it being an engaged approach and steering away from it being an administrative response. And I think my key question is how do we how do we keep this as we move into a digital space, a new form of gambling, how do we keep it as an engaged approach that really prioritizes the person who is who is taking the courage to step forward and say, I need this help. And Alan, I think your recommendations were were I hadn't thought of those before. And I think those are really, really great. I think that it's absolutely worth exploring. And to Michael's point, where he's going to bring up research a lot, I think that as we continue to evolve voluntary substitution, how do we how do we test whether this is something that is really working for for patrons? I still come back to like the nuts and bolts. Is it administratively, it seems like it's much easier for one one list. But in terms of what's clinically or what's more person oriented, it doesn't make sense then to have two lists or in the case of Pennsylvania four lists to be as responsive as possible. Alan, I think you're right, give as much control as as possible to to the person who is stepping forward and and take and doing this. And and so to that end, I would say, yeah, let's let's offer offer two lists, we just got to figure figure it out. And so maybe just back to the group, how do we make sure that we stay engaged? Is it do we keep the reinstatement session? Do we make it multiple lists? Like what is what are the key elements to an engaged approach in this new space? Liz, are you responding? Yeah, I just wanted to jump in and say earlier, when I started talking about the separate lists, I alluded to my love hate relationship. And I never got to the part where, you know, it's a it's a real you hit the nail on the head. It's a real pain administratively. You know, for us on our end, however, and you spoke to it after I hit unmute, but it is so important to have individuals choose exactly making those decisions for themselves and choosing what they want to be banned from so that, you know, when I when I first learned that we're going to have all these separate lists and the administrative side and, you know, how are we going to, you know, push these programs out to the consumer? I was, you know, a little taken aback. But now that we have the programs up and running, I think it is important that aspect, you know, that again, they're choosing the length of time that they want to be self excluded. And I think it's important to also allow individuals to choose what gaming activities they are excluded from. One other little piece for self exclusion that I wanted just to throw in with in Pennsylvania, because of we allow online sports wagering and in person sports wagering on our self exclusion list, our online self exclusion program covers our online sports sports wagering sites. And our casino self exclusion list covers our in person casino sites. So if somebody or I'm sorry, in person sports wagering sites. So when somebody wants to ban themselves from sports wagering at a facility, they do enroll in our casino self exclusion program. If they're having their issues online sports wagering, they would sign up for our gaming self exclusion program. And if they're having issues with both in person and online, they would have to sign up for both programs. So that's how we run our programs here in self, or in Pennsylvania, our self exclusion programs. But I do, I think that's really important what Mark was saying about and Alan earlier about allowing the individuals to make those choices for themselves. And I'm not sure who went for it. I love that we're using the reaction. Michael or beyond. I don't know who went first, chime in. Beyond, why don't you go right ahead, Michael? Thank you. Is it me? All right, I feel bad now. But, you know, I don't want to throw too much of a wrench into this conversation, because I agree with everything that has been said. I think that we also have to take some pause as well. Remembering that players who are, who approach a Game Sense advisor to self exclude, or whether, you know, it'd be online, are in a hot emotional state. And thus presenting them with too many options is going to be overwhelming. And what we tell them may not be remembered well. And that's where, you know, in other jurisdictions, you know, problems have arisen, even though players have been informed that they have to re-enroll, they're not remembering that they want to exclude and get out the door as fast as possible. And so while I agree that there are options that should be presented to the player, we also have to recognize they may not be in a cognitive state to make those kind of decisions, or at least many decisions. But the length of time, yes, that's something that's, you know, one year it's random. The reason why it was one year is random. And maybe they simply need a month. Maybe they need a week. We don't know, and as, you know, more research is needed. I just want to make it clear that we shouldn't be, you know, moving in a direction where we present the player with, you know, 12 different options. They may not be in a state where they can properly digest that and make the right decision. Thank you. So I'll turn to Breonna and Kate in learning. I think if you allow me, I'll turn to my fellow teachers for anything you want to drill down on. We'll then move on. This is a very, very critical conversation and one that we will be addressing Commissures. So I'm sure you're feeling like I am how important this intelligence is. But we'll want to get to our other topics. We can always turn back. So, Breonna. Thank you. You know, the one thing over the duration of my career in gambling has always been how impressed I am and taken by the gaming industry's ability to utilize tech and innovation. And that's something that I think prom gambling has not accessed enough of and we could really learn from the gaming industry. And I think sports wagering is the opportune time for government agencies and prom gambling public health officials to think about it. Marlene had mentioned something about how game sense advisors will sometimes target individuals or recognize someone who might be in distress that needs to utilize VSE. And how is she going to do that when you're online? And I'd like to point to several international jurisdictions and soon to be the first U.S. jurisdiction that actually is going to be requiring operators to have AI indoctrinated within to their betting platform to track player behavior. And when problematic behavior is flagged, there would be an intervention directing them to tools, resources, and information, which brings me to the second technological advances come up several times of bet blocker and gambam. Now, I've often referred to blocking software as that secondary step or that guardrail after an individual has utilized self exclusion programs. Here's that next step for protection or a barrier that you can take because these blocking softwares don't only prohibit your access to a regulated legal operator, but also all those black markets and arguably gray areas in some cases day trading and other things that are gaming like and can invoke the same type of concerns for an individual that problem gambling brings forth. Bet blocker, in particular, I'm going to call out here speaks and actually offers something that Alan was talking about. It's all about customer empowerment where it really allows the customer to set the duration of time that they feel is achievable for them and it can range actually fascinatingly enough as much as a day and you can set it for it. So what I find so incredible is you could say, well, I know pay day is on Friday and I know that I maybe have a tendency to overspend and I really want to ensure that I don't overextend myself until all my bills are paid a week later. You can put in the one week duration of time as kind of a risk mitigation tool for yourself and then you could have access to gaming platforms or after. It's really an interesting way to empower the customer to do what is best for them. I've never thought about it in the context of being a substitute for self exclusion, but the more I hear the conversations about customer empowerment, it makes me wonder, although I understand Michael's point about being overwhelmed. Either way, I want to do all to know that there are technological systems that are either already deployed or being considered by other jurisdictions. They do exist and I do believe that they warrant some further exploring here as you develop VSE. Just also for the record, both Colorado and New Jersey are two other jurisdictions that are looking to streamline self-exclusion, or at least considering do they want to go all to one list. So you have regulators who are in a similar position as yourselves right now. It's Colorado and Dan Hartman. Actually, I believe you're on the panel with both and Director Reebok. They are seeing similar questions in their jurisdictions. Thank you. Okay, thank you for that. And a reminder of those technological tools, which we will maybe be touching on in our next discussion as well. Kate and then my fellow commissioners. I don't want to belabor this too much and the inner kind of public health social marketing nerd in me is delighted by all the new ideas. What I would really encourage is the industry is at the table for this conversation. There's great resources that we understand in terms of the technology available. Talking about AI and player monitoring and intervention, a lot of that is already underway and there's resources committed to that. So as the commission considers how to pursue this or how to best capitalize on the technology that exists, I would encourage you to bring the operators and licensees to the table to understand what is available. I know benefit to the things that they're working on in New Jersey. The DGE has worked in partnership and heard from those operators and licensees about what is feasible to advanced player protection and it's been mutually beneficial to the regulator, the operators and ultimately player protection. Very helpful. Thank you. I just wanted to say one other thing, which sometimes I assume the commissioners know all of this, but I don't think I've got a chance to explain some of these things to some of the newer folks. One of the things that happens currently in Massachusetts is not only are you go through the self-exclusion program application process with a Game Sense advisor, but at one point during the application process you are able to opt in to getting a follow-up phone call one week after you've excluded from a member of our team. I'd say probably, I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but it's probably somewhere in the range of 30% of people opt in for that. The folks who do that typically report and we have done a little bit of evaluation of this report that being very helpful and then at that point they are connected to additional resources. Not only are folks going through the voluntary self-exclusion program, but they're getting a chance to have a phone call. To Michael's point, I know I had also said that the consumer focused and consumer led process is important, but I totally agree with not letting it be everything because they are in great distress when they're talking. They usually are trying to get the hell out of there and oftentimes we're handing them a packet of materials. We try to go over it with them, but oftentimes they just want to get out of the casino. They're in great distress. That follow-up I think is really key. In fact, I would love to see in this new iteration for it to be an opt out instead of an opt-in and have the opportunity for us to really be able to connect with folks a week later when they're a little bit in a better space. That's my two cents. Thanks. Great. Commissioners, particular questions. Who's leading and I mean? If this is really easy, forgive my ignorance, but we have a statutory obligation in the statute that was just passed to create a reg that speaks to directing pop-ups either by text message or by the internet to people who are on the BSE. Can anyone speak to the ability of technology to do that or any regs that might be helpful in that regard? Is there anybody who wants to lean in? But that is, I think, Kate, you were touching on exactly that, the tools that we would be using, so I don't know. I see Alan has, and we'll go first with Alan and Kate. I'm going to give a, when I say a partial answer, it's a partial experience with this topic. Anything that is directed from the company to a customer's control when it's direct. What is much harder and maybe even impossible to do is if there were an ad that is or a pop-up that's connected to third-party website, that anyone who sees that third-party website will now see that. I don't know that that's anything that you could get around. I mean, this is, to a certain extent, this came up in land-based operations years ago when land-based operators would have people that they were, that had been asked, where the individuals had asked to be, not receive mail, not receive promotions, not receive anything. But the company bought a list of Chase rapid rewards credit card holders and sent out a promotion to all of them and this person received a promotional offer. So I think, and I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not trying to parse the law here, but I think that if there is a way to find a distinction between a directed message to a customer as opposed to a customer being exposed through television, through other social media that's third-party, that's how I would think of that distinction. Right. I mean, unfortunately for us, our directive is conflated. That's why I was, I'm curious to hear your experiences and the other people's experiences on this. I was trying to quickly bring up the proposed rules from the Ohio Game and Control. I do believe there is some mention in the regulations about push notifications. I also just want to highlight that there are some larger platforms now that allow the consumer to direct if they want to be the recipient of any gaming advertising. I believe Facebook and Twitter perhaps to name just a few. I think that could maybe perhaps be part of either the exclusion process to let the consumer know how they could go about restricting themselves from getting the advertisements on these kind of like platforms that as Alan leads to the operative can't necessarily control. I know it's not the perfect remedy, but I think that there's some creativity to be had here. And I know that other platforms like Yahoo and Google, I believe, are talking about this as well. In Europe, this was a big emphasis not that long ago about putting the control in the hands of the consumer to restrict just global advertising. Right. I mean, on the one hand, it's nice to be in control, but on the other, putting it in there, putting that responsibility on them as opposed to on the... I know. I will look up the Ohio though and see if it's in there. And I'd be happy to send your direct message to Mark if it's in there. And if I come across any others, we'll send your way. Great. Thank you. Kate? Sure. Thank you. Building on Alan's comments, I think the nuance here is a reasonable effort. So, you know, we can control what we can control and there's things that are beyond that. And so as part of even the AGA's responsible code of conduct, which all members need to abide by, there is language around self-exclusion and, you know, marketing efforts and the reasonable effort to ensure that those individuals aren't receiving the messaging. But again, reinforcing what Alan said, there are places where, you know, we have limited control over how the ad is executed to a certain extent. And so it's something to consider as you nuance that language. And what about text messages? In terms of... It's not going to be a little bit more... Well, so they conflate in the one requirement, both the unsolicited pop-up on the internet, but then also directed text messaging. I'm assuming that's much easier for companies to implement. I would defer to Alan here, given his experience, but that'd be my assumption as well. I believe the answer is yes, because I think that as you're doing a text message campaign, you have the ability to screen the list. So this is, in its own way, a technology version of the old rules about direct mail. I do not call. Right. Right. I could just jump in really quickly. In Pennsylvania, we basically, our regulations say that if you're putting out any type of targeted marketing, regardless of what it is, if it's targeting and you know who it's going through or going to, you cannot direct it to a self-excluded person. So whether it's a pop-up, if technology allows for companies to see the individuals who are getting these pop-ups, they would have to remove the individuals that are self-excluded from receiving those pop-ups. The operators have to do that. So whatever medium it's in, they are required to, and I use this term loosely, but scrub against the self-exclusion list. So taking out those names that are on the self-exclusion list, depending on, you know, if it's a mailer or, again, I'm not sure how pop-ups work exactly right now, but if they do have those targeted pop-ups or text messaging, and that is a phone number that a self-excluded individual provided during their enrollment, they are, you know, they're not able to market to those individuals or to those phone numbers. Very good. Another question on this, I don't want to take up too much time. I want to let everybody else have their questions. I'm good. Thank you very much. And we might actually get into a little bit more in the next couple of subject matters if we touch on them in a granular way. Commissioner Skinner, Nakesha. Thank you, Kathy. So first general comment, I love how you all are engaged in this discussion, and we've only covered just one topic area. So I think it's fantastic, very informative. You all, several of you, rather, have referenced, I think, software, and I know I'm not saying he's right, but BetBlocker and GamBam or something like that. So if you could just kind of describe what that is for us. Let's see, who mentioned the software? It was Kate, I think, mostly, that you mentioned the names, right? Yeah, so it's BetBlocker and GamBad, and both of those softwares have individual partnerships with licensees. Brianne can definitely help me on this one because I know she's equally as familiar, but they're essentially tools that individuals can apply to their, you know, cell phone, their computer, across their kind of technology to that prohibit loading and access to gambling sites. And that's both in the regulated industry, as well as offshore illegal sites. So it provides another layer of protection beyond self-exclusion. Before we go, Liz, you've notified us, and I forgot to leave that mark, very careful about them. Liz does have a deadline, and so we want to thank her for her participation today. And that was a very, very important note that Kate made. Liz, I think we know how to find you. Yes. And to all folks at Pennsylvania who are always generous, we thank you and we thank our fellow regulators. I'm quick to say we're takers, happy to hope that we can contribute in this world. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much. And I know that Commissioner Skinner said we're only on one topic. Nikisha, we did anticipate that this would be a very major, so there is a little time keeping going on, and I know that Chris is going to help me on that. But this was the topic that I knew we wanted to save time for, and I'm glad that we put it up front. It does involve a lot of issues that actually are relevant to our future discussions. So thank you, Kate. Kate, in terms of the names, it might be hard to have them muted yourself. So Fett Blocker, B-E-T-B-L-O-C-K-E-R, one word, I believe, and the other one is GAMBAN, G-A-M-B-A-N. And if I'm not mistaken, they're both UK-based companies. And how is that software incorporated in any regulator requirements or regulations or anything like that, if at all? To my knowledge, it's currently not. And it's something that operators have proactively integrated into what they offer players. And I believe it's a broad belief that that's a great place for those conversations to stay as another tool and resource for players and for each organization to be able to make those partnerships as they see fit for their customer, though welcome comments and thoughts from the group. I may. I'm sorry, Brianna. I'm just going to say it. Oh, okay. Real quick, Fett Blocker is available for free. GAMBAN is for purchase. And as Brianna said earlier, some operators will offer them, will offer free or discounted subscriptions to their customers. But that's where that is at the moment. Just to piggyback off of what Keith said, it may not be right now seen in any regulations from a gaming entity. There are several departments of public health that have purchased subscriptions or have distributed the link for Fett Blocker as part of their problem gambling responsible gaming initiatives within the state. There's a variety of different approaches to it. It is its own standalone app, though, right? I just wanted you to download either GAMBAN or Fett Blocker as its own standalone product onto your either online, like your computer, or mobile phone. And it just naturally intersects with whatever you're trying to Google or access an app that they have targeted or labeled as being problematic gambling or gaming. I do want to emphasize, though, that it is a significant as a ban, right? You can't call them up and say, I changed my mind. I want to undo it. They really pride themselves on the threshold of the ban that you said and for that duration of time will stay. So for instance, when I have been trying out both of these products, which I have, I'm very familiar with both. I've had to tell the CEO or the person who's handling the account, hey, look, I'm going to try this out, but I'm going to need you to undo it because I need to access all things gaming for my job, right? This is just it. So anyway, I would just encourage you both. I think someone put the links in the chat for everybody. Please just note that if you do actually download it, the ban will really stay. So we'd be happy to put you in touch with both entities. So you might be able to experience it or test it out yourself without being on a permanent ban. The other thing to say real quickly, Commissioner Skinner, is that they're not perfect. So they depend on identifying the Internet gambling websites. And there's unfortunately a segment of the unregulated industry that is constantly switching URLs and disguising their sites. And there are, in fact, we've all seen the ads, there are unscrupulous online casinos that advertise themselves as not enabling you to gamble, even if you have that blocker gambling ban. So again, not a reason not to do it, but there is a constant cat and mouse race. There are people that then try and deinstall it or get around it and use virtual things. It's the same problem that GEO comply has, right? When they're trying to verify someone's identity, whether or not they live in Massachusetts or New York, 99.9% of the time, it's for vast majority of people, it's going to work and it's, you know, but never it's none of these and none of these sites would say that they are perfect, perfect. Very helpful. Thank you. And Madam G, if I have one direct question to Breanne. You talked about the first US jurisdiction to, or you referenced it, to incorporate AI into their mobile platforms, but I don't think you told us who that jurisdiction is. It was, it's New Jersey. It is at the direction of Director Reebok. Actually, that announcement happened really around the time we were all in Boston together. There's two things that he has come forth with as part of requirements for his operators who have been very complimentary and very committed to this. They included having the requirement to have a responsible gambling person on staff to handle these things and then looking into incorporating some of these AI platforms or developing their own algorithms right directly into their products. There are some third market entities out there that do this. I'd be a lot of them come out of Europe similar to blocking software that we just talked about. And so I think we'll see a variety of different approaches, but they are the first US jurisdiction to have this come forth. It will go live in January. I apologize. I can just add one thing for Commissioner Skinner. I mean, you would be hard pressed to find a gaming company at this point who's gone online who is not already created an algorithm or is not saying that they're about to release something. This has been a conversation for a while. So it's not exactly a unique thing other than that it came out of a regulator versus an operator, but many people have been studying this for a while. I'd say studying from an operator standpoint, the research standpoint, I don't think we have nearly as much information, but a lot of the operators do have disability. Thank you. If we could pause. Commissioner, do you have any other questions on this matter? I would like to be able to move ahead. I think we do health and wellness first. I think we do need to take a five minute break and stand up because of the length of our meeting. We are scheduled to go to four. Unless there's another question, Brad, Jordan, I'll set. Jordan, are you all set right now? And again, we are doing first names today. Mark, do you think this is a good chance to pause and then we'll reset? Maybe you can launch into the next topics we were touching on it, but I think we're looking, perhaps particularly with respect to play my way in Game Sense, where Nina has already touched on that too, but adapting again, we're thinking sports wagering, we're thinking mobile devices, online devices, and then we're looking at C, which is our age restrictions. Those who know the commission, we get regular reports of compliance around Liners with respect to our casino regulated facilities. We'll be looking, I'm sure, with a keen eye on that. So if we could almost think about C and B together, I want to reserve a good chunk of time for marketing and advertising. So if we could break from $2.45 to just $2.50, is that sufficient just a five minute break? And then think about maybe to $3.15 with the idea of really getting advertising and marketing to the conclusion and just save maybe the last 10 minutes of our time for anything that's been sort of outstanding. We do know how to contact you, but this richness in the conversation is so important. And they all laugh. I guess they know your number mark. So we'll break from $2.45 to $2.50 and that outline sounds okay. That sounds great. Yes, thank you. Okay, excellent. Thank you, everybody. Very, very, very helpful conversation. And Dave will put up a screen saver, thanks. Dave, we can start to take it down. Thank you. Also, thanks, Dave. Brianne, I might have said Brianne. So forgive me if I miss her next. That's okay. Thank you. Thank you. So before we begin our official business, I do have, because I love small world stories, I've had Judy Young turn on her visual because I just learned that you probably have pictures of Judy in her prom dress. Absolutely. Hi, Judy. Hey, Mr. Baumann. Okay. So Judy had her camera off as many of our team right now doing because everybody is multitasking because there's so much on their plate, Judy is a member of our legal team. So she is busy writing regulations and I suspect she may be quite involved with supporting Mark's work here, but I understand that Judy went to the same school as your children, Alan, and that is how she ended up in competition. And they were not only classmates, they really were friends. So it was just an unbelievable delight to run into her. I think at the time you were interning, weren't you? Yes. Yeah. She came to us. She came to us. Yeah, which is a great get for the commission. Judy is extraordinary. Always has been. Truly, truly. So anyway, forgive me, but I love that connection. Teresa Fiori, who worked, many of you know, in the world, she worked here and is staying very much involved in the responsible gaming. I would often say that she was in many of the prom pictures at our home because my son and Teresa were not only classmates but close friends. And so I love that we share, we share probably the same generation, Alan, you know, that we have these star young people who you have watched grow up. So thank you. So Judy, thank you. And when you're comfortable, you can turn off your video. That'd be just connected in the hall that way. All right. All right. So I am a sucker for faults for small, small world stories. All right. We'll just have to do our virtual roll call again because we are reconvening what is public meeting number 392 for the gaming commission. We went straight into our introductions earlier. I don't want to make the same mistake. So Commissioner O'Brien. I am here. Thank you. Commissioner Hill. President. Commissioner Skinner. I'm here. And Commissioner Maynard. I'm here, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you. We'll get started again. We had a really in depth conversation. We knew it would be just that for VSE. Let's kind of collapse the next two because we're sort of touching on a little bit of already got covered in VSE. But I think to be fair, we're really thinking about how to use to how we integrate the issues around our RG, particularly you're all familiar with our RG special programs Play My Way and we'll pause to say the self congratulations that all three were very privileged to have only three, but they're all world-class organizations who are great collaborators on this issue. All three now have Play My Way and their slot machines as a responsible gaming tool. And that just happened Monday. Congratulations to Mark and Long. So it's great accomplishment and a great accomplishment for Encore Boston Harbors. They launched September 12th. But we have our Play My Way. We have Game Sense. We're thinking about how to use that with sports wagering, particularly with respect to the digital space. And then also the challenges that we have with respect to enforcing our 21-year-old restriction on sports wagering. The same age, the same age as, of course, casino play, slightly different than our horse racing. Our horse racing is 18. DFS, Chair Stein, is daily fantasy sports also 18 or is that 21? We don't regulate that, but I thought it was, is it not 21, Pete? There's an 18. I would defer to the to the Massworks. I'm sorry, I just, yeah. It's the same companies providing that same. Well, I am appreciative of that. My eye on fantasy sports more than ever, particularly as we think about the advertising and marketing world, and we're going to get into that. Does anybody can somebody? Crystal says it's 18. We trust in Crystal, yeah. Thank you. So it is 18. Okay, so another challenge. Yeah, big one. And honestly, their marketing and advertising styles for fantasy are something that's on our minds. So at least on my mind. So let's start the conversation. Thinking about both age restrictions and these tools we touched on the technology. Who would like to start? Everyone's getting more comfortable. Raise your hand or lean in. Okay, I just kind of set the stage with what it says in the act regulating sports wagering just so that we're all on the same page. So specifically what it states is that an operator that operates sports wagering through a mobile application or other digital platform may allow patrons to set self-imposed limitations on sports wagering when the patron joins the mobile application or digital platform. And what I would want to emphasize is that play my way is exactly this type of self-imposed limitations that are contemplated here. But the act goes a step further and it doesn't state specifically that it's only setting a budget. So there is many other examples of directions that we could go with this, whether it be win limits or time limits or bet limits. There are many different types of self-imposed limitations that we could contemplate here when implementing this part of the act. The other piece is, and much like play my way, is that it's intended to be voluntary as I read the act. Thank you. And who should I turn to? Can you play? I'm going with you. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So just a couple quick thoughts to start the discussion rolling. One is that while many of you who know me may be surprised for me to say we need more research, advertising is an area where we definitely need more research and rapid research at that. We can't afford to wait several years. I think research in particular on the impact of advertising on youth, there are a number of studies coming now from the UK where they've had widespread expansion of sports betting and there's particular concern about sports betting advertising on football soccer matches that show a high percentage of youth in the UK are routinely and regularly exposed to gambling ads during sporting events. And I think I expect there would be a similar situation in the United States, but there is very little evidence on the impact of such advertising on children. The evidence we do have from the UK is routinely negative. Their kids who see these ads are more likely to gamble, more likely to believe it's a good thing, more likely to engage in riskier behavior, blah, blah, blah. But to my knowledge, there's very little of that in the United States. And I think we need it urgently because we have considerable concerns that most gambling advertising in the United States is not age-gated. And it is frankly broadcast and broadcast often to audiences that include large proportions of underage people. So I think that's one important thing to start with. And you're going to tip it back to the technology right now because I know you're jumping into advertising marketing, which I appreciate because we just touched on that interest at the fantasy. Do you mind maybe in terms of the subtopics? Right. Yeah. Okay, thanks. So I think Mark's, I think play my way, being able to expand that into additional limit setting features is good. It's a very pro-consumer, pro-social responsibility tool. You know, expanding that in the online space and making it more of a central part of a consumer's journey, I think has a lot of advantages. This harkens back to the discussion on self-exclusion, where self-exclusion is perceived of and I think it should be a tool for people with severe gambling problems, where play my way, limit setting, cooling off periods, self-initiated limit setting, especially through the play my way brand, if you will, I think has a tremendous amount of saliency for people who are just general players. You know, play my way is a great brand for that and I think it helps get at that discussion that we had earlier. So I think there's a lot of both evidence and anecdotal evidence to support the expansion of play my way, utilizing that as sort of a primary tool around responsible, good consumer behavior in the online sports fighting space. In terms of our product, there we go, Alan. We're thinking of budgetary other and other limits and restrictions, Alan? So I think that play my ways modification online isn't a technological issue per se as much as it is one of marketing and relevance in a sports context. So deposit limits, withdrawal limits, frequency of deposit kind of limits, all of that and then of course frequency of play, which is already part of the play my way system. All of those things can and should be considered. There is the one thing and I'm only picking on it Mark because you said it the idea of a win limit. I think that has great relevancy if you're a scientist. I think that is a huge negative to customers in terms of how you present it because it instantly comes off as we're going to limit the amount of money you can win. And it's it just I don't think that that's where that's where the field ought to be going. I will throw out one thing that we're beginning to look at here at UNLV and that is a measurement of risk and whether or not it is possible on any one bet to offer a measure of risk. It's a score. Let's just say it's out of 100. A very risky bet is going to be 90 points. A reasonably unrisky bet doesn't mean you're going to win but less risk might be 20 points. And the point system may not be the way to do it. We're still trying to understand this conceptually. But I bring it up in this context because this could become if we get to it this could become one of the ways that play my way is engaged. I don't want to don't let me take that's over a certain risk threshold. That that that just may be one of the ways to get at this. I just also want to very quickly talk about game sense and by the way, Mark, thank you for the game sense chapstick. Appreciate that. I actually think that games is almost already set up to be online. It's got a wonderful personality. It has a lot of a lot of animation to it both literal and graphic. I mean it's it's got a lot of I think it has a lot of compatibility to an online use as it relates to advisors. You know that that I very strongly advocated that company employees become advisors and separate have a separate role from from other people. And I'm still going to lean in that direction not saying that's the only way to do it. But you know they're they're the ones who are going to be there with access to data in the moment and that's part of what is tricky here is that this this can happen very very quickly. And so the idea of having someone who's looking at a variety of the markers that we've referenced previously but whose job it is to be trained to to intervene and have have a conversation I think might be way to go. Alan, can you just do a quick major adjustment? Are you advocating that games obviously GameSense is driven by at MGM corporate-wide it's driven by its employees as GameSense advisors and is that what I just heard you advocating for there? In an online setting I yes short answer is yes. Okay. We'll shift over to Michael and I'm sure there's questions that commissioners are thinking of. I mean I said Michael but I'm at mining I'm sorry because I I now see that there is a row that whoever signs in goes first so I'm learning. Michael has definitely had his hand up first so he can go ahead. I don't know Michael I'm sorry I thought we um Michael commissioners we have not used the reaction tools um as consistent but we don't normally have quite so many participants so Michael thank you. Thank you um I'm going to bring part one and part two of Keith's comment together just weaving in the advertising I'll have more to say about advertising later but I think the immediate um accessibility and ubiquity of online sports betting marketing that you will soon experience if Ontario Canada is any example it's ubiquitous that it may be challenging to control sports betting involvement but this presents an important opportunity for RG education and expansion of play my way. Now I will say you know we've been discussing just briefly sports betting in general where my particular concern is in relation to in-place sports betting so making the micro bets throughout the course of the game on whether it be the score or who kicks the next field goal who hits the next home run the availability of in-play betting may have benefits in terms of the customer experience because it provides more flexibility in terms of their betting. It's evident at least from the preliminary data that it can be used to increase the speed and event frequency of sports betting and ultimately facilitate the the facilitate extensive intensive and excessive online sports betting sessions and so I think this is where playing my way can come into play so to speak. You know I've been thinking over the past little while what kind of tools new features could be included in in play my way for sports betting in particular in play why I'm worried about any plays it really does turn it sports betting into into a continuous form of betting not unlike slot machines you can continually bet bet and so one possibility might be asking players if they want to set a limit on how much they want to spend over the course of a game and that they can make in-play wagers within the context of how much money they want to spend over the course of the game making in-play bets and maybe including messaging that every time they they place a bet you now only have you know $10 left of that that limit you set for yourself. I think that there's other opportunities and I'd love to discuss those possibilities of course again research is critical but I think that some time and focus needs to be placed on the consequences of in-play sports betting and I have I do have some preliminary data because this is an increasing interest of mine as sports betting expands and from the preliminary data that I so I collected some data recently immediately following the last Super Bowl and the March Madness final and I had a working hypothesis that one of the reasons why people are playing sports were engaging in in-play sports betting was for emotion regulation purposes whether it be to increase their excitement or decrease perhaps their excitement or even hedging their bets so maybe they want the Patriots to win but they're going to bet against their their opposition or maybe for the Super Bowl sorry I was thinking Tom Brady and so it would be the Buccaneers right now but they're but they bet against the opposition so that that's a way to regulate their emotion either way they're going to win either their favorite team wins or they'll they'll win some money. What we found is that the more that the players are making in play sports wagering for that kind of emotion regulation purpose the more that they spent in the more in-play bets they made throughout the course of the game so and we now have three studies that we replicated we also ran a replication study with the Champions League final and so we're in the midst of mining those data but in-play betting is something that should be a focus of attention in Massachusetts and I'll stop talking. Thank you. Thank you. We'll turn to Marnie. Thank you so I think one of the things that's really key for us to you know step back I know everyone kind of knows this and I know that the commissioners heard this last week from Dr. Wohlberg and her report but we're talking about a really at-risk group when we're talking about people who choose to gamble on sports in a way that we haven't fully considered I don't think and a group that is the hardest to intervene with when we think about young men who aggressively gamble on sports it's a group that when we've looked at our positive play data here in Massachusetts they're still the hardest for the game sense messaging to reach so I just want to kind of state that first so we have to be creative and think outside the box and I say that knowing that it's on my list but it's not something I've figured out how to achieve. We do have some examples of entities that have gone online with game sense so we wouldn't be the first and our counterparts at British Columbia Lottery Corporation have already been working on this issue and figuring out how to find ways to intervene with folks who typically are young men who aggressively gamble and I think there are some ways for us to pull in some of that information but we also tend to do things a little bit differently here so I guess that's one piece. The other thing I just want to say is that the limit setting I think is in this group in particular is often about the action and less about the money I mean the money is an important piece of it but the action is so important that I don't again have an answer for this but a way to talk about the number of bets that are happening or the frequency of betting within a certain period versus just thinking about time elapsed and money gambled. The last thing I want to say is that there are a lot of there are a lot of ways for companies to give people access to this information but typically we don't see that people have easy access to these tools often two three clicks they have to go searching they may have to go through customer service we'd want to make this as easy as possible and so you know one of the things I advocated hard for the exact language didn't end up in the bill but I advocated hard for was a dashboard so that really no matter where you are in the site no matter what how long how much time has elapsed you have a constant reminder of how much you've gambled how long you've been on the site and what has transpired in your own case and what to compare your data against normative data and I don't know how easy or difficult that is that would be a question for Michael but you know having an opportunity to compare yourself against other players like you I think would be really useful with that. Should I follow that? So my colleagues and I have recently created an extension of the pause of place scale called the pause of play quiz and so what we what we do in a particular jurisdiction is we try to gather some normative data and in the pause in the pause of play quiz they fill out the pause of play scale and they're provided with both personal and normative feedback as well as so in terms of how they relate to the typical player in that in that jurisdiction and then they're giving they're given tips so you've scored you know below the norm of players on this subscale here are some tips to increase your gambling literacy here are some videos that you might want to watch and the like so so that is possible. Thank you. I think to piggyback off of that and I had referenced this when we're talking about self-exclusion is right now a lot of these features and functionalities in RG about limit setting are often perceived by consumers or players as something that's only needed by someone who has a problem not as something that can help keep them safe and engaged in a healthy way and I think that some of the narratives around the limit setting that you're going to offer really has the opportunity to increase that gambling literacy and really change that perception that consumers have right they're designed because they work sure do we need more research yes but I do want to point out back to your point mark I heard you say that the statute says that this is to be voluntary what if it's an opt out not an opt in and it's presented to the consumer at the time of registration right and we wouldn't want people to feel like they're the anomaly here you know I can appreciate that quiz Michael I think I've actually seen it but what if it's you know 98% of our people set a daily limit or a monthly limit and here's the time and the wage or limit I do want to point out that the Netherlands recently decided to forgo loss limits the research that they have led to consumer gravitation towards the black market with two stringent of mandatory limitations especially as it pertains to loss limits although I do want to also highlight simultaneously the Netherlands as well as Australia have some concerns around the efficacy of having your limit setting in many fractured places and so as a result Australia has this public health initiative where there will be monthly statements provided to betters as a way to help them continue their gambling literacy and inform decision making if they're really spending within their means this is a very new and it's very much an infancy stages I'm very curious to see what the research highlights and its efficiency but we know that from some of Dr. Gainsbury's work that consumers overwhelmingly not just in gambling underestimate the amount of money and the amount of time that they have spent and so the more real-time checks and information we can be putting forth and right in front of them I think the more sustainable and healthier the gaming ecosystem you'll have in the Commonwealth. Thank you for that Brienne and Kate. Hi there I know we're past our earlier time so I want to add a few comments you know first I think it's important to reflect on where the market is broadly so there's 32 jurisdictions today with legalized sports betting and I would contend that you know the growth of this market there's been a proactive approach to responsible gaming where there you know there's leaning in by the operators and industry around these tools and resources and marketing you know for example just last week DraftKings rolled out new TV commercials and digital advertisements that feature people like Tony Hawk in the Mizz talking about who's a wrestler for those unaware talking about the tools that are in their app and how you can engage with them to set your limits and create a safe fun environment so with that in mind I would encourage as this discussion moves ahead places where there can be you know reliance on best practices or collaboration over statute so that we're building upon existing frameworks and tools and resources that operators have already invested in versus replacing them for you know one jurisdiction and additionally you know I think it's interesting the conversation around normalizing behavior and obviously important research that needs to be done there but I would want to make sure it's considered that those things are so unique to the individual what is affordable for me is different than what is affordable to anybody else on this call or anybody else engaging in sports betting similar to usage you know it all depends on the individual person and there's a lot of research needed in that space and you know finally this is a nascent market you know barely four and a half years old and we're still learning how players interact with legal sports betting there's yes of course lessons to be learned from other countries but this is if we all know that the US and the Commonwealth are unique jurisdictions in their own right and so as we grow as an industry there's important learnings that need to be applied and I would caution against you know making judgments that sound great that aren't based in research and that could limit player interaction and ultimately keep players in the illegal market where there are no consumer protections. Thank you. Just one point to follow up on what I think Mark was asking initially if there's an opportunity so I guess the question is whether players should set limits you know through play my way as a centralized resource or they should continue setting limits as the approach is now in most states with operator by operator by operator and you know I think there would be great utility in looking at the concept of you know right now player play my way is a consumer centric focus right you sign up for it and you you set your limits you know applying that same principle in the online space might mean going to a play my way site and saying okay I want to set my limits on you know my deposit limits and then that could be you know sort of provided to each of the each of the licensed operators in the online sports spending space in Massachusetts. I'm not sure how the technical details and things would work but it's so centralizing your limit setting I think has some advantages especially when it's in under the play my way umbrella you could do it with each operator as well and perhaps but I just think there it's something to it's something to consider how you want to architect that system because right now it's your players are forced to go to each separate site to set their own limits they might not have the same limit options you know most operators have different types of limits beyond what's beyond what's required and so you know it's just a way to kind of make a again a more consumer centered approach but just something to think about. Commissioner Hill are you trying to chime in? I was and I'm trying to in my mind figure out how I'm going to say this I'll just say it as I usually do and it's a question whoever can answer it great and thank you it's going to be a legal question as we as people who're putting in the regulations can we mandate especially with what was put in the law mark can we mandate that if you're going to do business here in Massachusetts that you have to have a program set up within your company that would be you've mentioned a couple of programs already to help you know self-exclusion you know not that one but putting limits on what you can bet can we put that in regulations can we mandate that a company have a program set up if you're going to do business here that would mandate that they have to offer a program like this that we're talking about? Yes I think Mark you want to reread the language that you said and I think it's important to remember that it does say upon joining the mobile application of digital platform right under right so there's two pieces here one is that it that it directs the commission to implement responsible gaming programs that include and so it does lead to me it leaves the door open to to implement responsible gaming measures that the the gaming commission feels are appropriate and then going back to the exact language that it an operator that operates sports wagering through the mobile application or other digital platform may allow patrons to set self-implosed limitations on sports wagering when the patron joins mobile applications so word may is in there but I think that it's that that platform exists that it's voluntary for the patron to engage with it which is our our general approach. So Kate I have a question for you then and I'm sure you've been hearing this across the country so what I'm hearing is there seems to be a lot of the operators understand the issue they want to be helpful to the issue and they are actually technologically putting things in place to help folks and I'm also seeing and I think it was your product and I just can't remember but I saw we have a local TV station here called Nessan and what I saw recently was I think the program that you mentioned early on and I'm looking for the name of it having a game plan and I think it was a 32nd commercial and I was shocked to see it to be honest with you because of all the advertising we've been seeing with all the other operators but boy was I glad to see that if they're willing to be able to do something like that I would think the technical stuff that they have at their disposal they would be able to do this pretty easily I think. I would contend and I don't want to be absolute but most if not all operators have these tools in place on their legal on their sports betting platforms so I don't think it's a question of whether limit setting should exist or not it's how you go about doing that whether it's something that is under the play my way banner and I think you know Keith's idea of some kind of universal platform is really interesting and sounds easy I think it creates some technological complications that may make it more of a difficult barrier especially when you're considering the number of licensees in the state have a game plan that responsibly is our public service campaign the AJA launched in 2019 and you know we understand that responsibility is you know a foundational part of growing legal sports betting but it also is important for others in the space media leagues teams to participate in it so the ad that you saw with Nessan they're one of the partners of the campaign as is the NHL, MGM, DraftKings, FanDuel, Penn and each operator and partner of the campaign is activating in different ways so we have a public service campaign ad that is provided to all of our partners and I was actually in Boston three times this summer for gaming conferences you guys all had the hook on events this year and it was one of those moments where you know I was leaving a restaurant around Fenway and I saw it on TV myself and I was like this is it we're doing it the industry and our partners and members are doing it and you know similarly I was at Logan Airport leaving and saw the ad there and I think you're going to continue to see more commitments and more prioritization of this message because it's a cultural shift among the industry and it's started at the top and I don't mean to be you know overly self-corrosional of you know what we're doing but this is a serious commitment and I think credit is due to the companies that are joining in to advance this message we understand there's no you know legal gaming market without responsibility and we're falling through on that promise. And what I'm seeing is that the operators recognize it and want to be partners. Exactly. Is that accurate? Yes Exactly. And Michael I'll just end with this if you want to talk about the advertising that's going up in your neck of the woods you should see what we're getting Baraj. We have four states that surround us and even though we haven't yet allowed sports betting here we have more advertising than you can shake a stick at as they used to say. But what's been interesting is the advertising in even a year's time this gets back to Kate what I was just talking about. We are starting to see phone numbers now for people who need help. I mean it's not this little print it's actually in pretty big print and as you were talking about the wrestlers who sadly I do know who they are. Doing these advertising in these PSAs we're starting to see a lot more of that than we've ever seen before. So I'll end with that Madam Chair thank you as always. We're going to pivot right back to advertising Brad. So hold your I want to turn to Alan and we might be concluding on a topics B and C. Alan? So the one quick point I would like to make is that we're missing an issue. One of the issues is do you have the tools? I'm with Kate. Every single operator that I've seen has tools of some kind. The next question is how easy are they to access? Are they up front? I'm not trying to engage in a debate about opt-in or opt-out I think there are benefits and minuses to both. But how aware are your customers that you have tools in the first place? And I would urge whether it's in a formal way or just an informal way as you speak with the licensees and I know you do on a regular basis. I'd ask to see that. How does someone engage with the tools? Does it take 10 screens to get there? Is it part of the sign up? Is it part of any new deposit? You know, what's the functionality of this? How's it built in? And I just because that's how I think to the extent that it's possible to allow these companies to brand their tools and keep them within their brand personality. I think that that is beneficial. I think that that's going to make customers more comfortable about it. Whether or not there is then some technological interface along the lines of what Keith was suggesting. I think that's a different story. But I think we've got to pay some attention to accessibility. Well, and just to follow up on that, Alex, I think you're absolutely right. And I think we've asked operators and routinely they've refused to tell us the uptake of their responsive gaming tools. The research we've seen in Australia suggests that it's extremely low, like 1% low of their customer base. So it's not much of a tool. Most people aren't using it. But I think to extend that concept even better, one thing I wanted to throw out to the commission and I'm not a tax expert. So I don't know exactly how this would work. But Dr. Rachel Volberg said in an interview in the last day or so that she was trying to figure out a way to how the commission might pay operators to promote responsive gambling. And I think the concept is operators do a lot of incentives and bonuses to players. Why not just allow them but encourage them to incentivize players or bonus players to do things like complete a responsive gambling, complete the positive play quiz. You get it in the play my way. It's I think a $5 bill coupon or something. Why don't you make that tax deductible? In state after state, we're going back and forth over whether or not promotional plays deductible or whether or not these kinds of comps are deductible. Well, what if certain types of promotional materials were deductible? Any bonus or incentive that you give to a player that encourages use of responsible gambling tools to play my way would then become, there'd be a financial benefit to the operator. And we know long term, it actually it's a double benefit because they build a more sustainable consumer which has longer lifetime value and the whole theory of responsible gambling. But applying a market-based solution to the issue of, as Alan identified, these tools generally are available. They're not being used and part of the reason not being used players aren't aware of it. Part of it is the operators aren't doing a lot to promote them. They're doing more. But any sort of market-based incentive to encourage, you know, and I know some operators have their KPIs, you know, their bonus structures based on in part achieving the responsible gambling tools. So there's, I think there's a lot of ways you could work these incentives, you know, back into if a certain company has a responsible game plan that has, my target is to have 50% of my players use, you know, sign up to play my way, then both the company might incentivize their employees. But the commission might incentivize that company or reward them perhaps from reaching that target. Anyway, just very, very humble and actually very timely Keith in terms of Keith is really shifting into and as Brad did the discussion around advertising and marketing. And Mike, I'm not predicting any of the time. I think that this is a good time to shift. But I want to get back to Michael to that discussion. I would love it if we also think as we're thinking about them marketing and advertising also help on on youth. I know AGA you've got a lot of target information about that. I want to I want to first talk Eileen to ask her question as a follow up and then we'll turn to Michael and then we'll shift more naturally right into marketing and and advertise. Thanks. Eileen? Yeah, to follow up on some of the ads that Brad was talking about that he's seen. If we could wait on just to see if Michael is going up. Oh, sorry. I just want to make this comment to before I forget it to this audience and also I'll follow up with a photo I meant to get this uploaded so I could screen share for this. It literally took ages to back up and pause sufficiently to get a screenshot of the phone numbers for the various jurisdictions problem handling hotlines. Pennsylvania and New York's fonts were large, you know, viewable, but he was up and gone like that. And so in terms of writing the regs to something that we need to keep in mind is being specific about what the requirement is to be is the requirements of and to see prominently displayed what that means in terms of time, fun, access, etc. I know Kate you probably hate hearing me say this but you know to have federal standards on some of this stuff would be great so that you're not doing jurisdiction by jurisdiction. But I do think I don't want the Commonwealth to be the tiny, tiny little print with the phone number that nobody can read. I want it to be actually something that means something. And then in terms of segueing into the next topic and we can table it for expedition if you want. But I'm really looking for anybody to talk about technology for any of these kiosks where people can actually do biometric or some sort of recognition testing for whether you're really 21 and up. And just so we're all clear to the the daily fantasy sports and masses 21 and up there's no conflict there. Okay, so we can forget about that potential conflict but though that's the comment and then my question is if anybody can respond to what technology is out there in terms of independent kiosks in 21 age. Could I briefly comment on the helpline? So I think one of the ways to consider how you solve for that and it's not just the Commonwealth but other jurisdictions is Keith and I have we're not often partners in crime but over the last two years have been working diligently to streamline helpline resources pushing a national helpline number. So 1-800-GAMBLER was adopted by CPG as a universal helpline number and there's some work underway there. But as part of that regulatory requirements change so that in multi-state or national advertising that's the helpline that is you know promoted and that can help solve if you know everyone's on the same page of the helpline we're all sharing it allows for everyone can be in that large font because it's just one number and not 12 and there's 15 states right now that allow for 1-800-GAMBLER or a national helpline to be used. So something to consider as you look at that disclosure not just the sizing of it but you know what number you're using. So it has to our number by statute has to be approved by DPH so it's a process that's not only just our choice but you know Marlon would probably know more about this than me but it has to be a number approved by our DPH. Yeah well we won't take over the discussion about helpline yeah but yeah easy thank you um Michael. Just to quickly follow up on what Keith had to say is that he was speaking I felt like he was speaking directly to me so a couple of years ago I published a position piece in the journal international gambling studies where I suggested that one way to increase the uptake of responsible gambling tools is to reward players for using them for adhering to a limit. More recently and when I say more recently I meant mean two weeks ago the journal international journal mental health and addiction accepted a paper of mine where we asked players whether or not they would be more willing to use responsible gambling tools if they were rewarded to do so and in one we had a we ran an experiment where we randomly assigned people to one of two conditions one where we just told them about a new responsible gambling tool where they could set limits and another where we told them well with this tool you will be rewarded with loyalty points for adhering to your limit and then we said how willing would you be to use these tools and there was a massive significant difference between conditions people were much more willing to use them if they felt that they they had added value meaning that they would be rewarded for engaging in those tools should members of the commission or the commission want a copy of those papers let me know I will forward those papers to anyone who would like to read them but I think that this might be the future of RG RG programming to increase the uptake this has been a be in my bonnet for a few years and I hope to conduct some research sooner rather than later at casinos where we can explicitly test this hypothesis perfect conclusion to our earlier discussion mark you'll make sure that those papers are distributed I we've already started to talk about advertising and and promo marketing mark why don't you just set the stage a little bit I'm going to be mindful of time it's 20 minutes it's about 25 minutes off than what I had hoped but we're a big group and this has been a hugely deep conversation mark real real quick on advertising you know you've you've seen our white paper that we what really happened is I think Commissioner Hill and I were exchanging texts one night and just realizing how much we were being bombarded during one of our beloved Patriots game with with all kinds of advertising and Brad was new and said hey what's up and and I said I don't think we've taken a deep dive on advertising not just with respect to sports playdream but with respect to gaming altogether and responsible gaming so that was the impetus for that that's a very beginning of our conversation today is going to be a really important discussion even if it has to end shortly but so Brad I didn't mean to cut you up earlier but I was going to give you that exact moment and you've already watched we it's been on on on Commissioner Hill's mind very very much so mark sure thanks so exactly we released a white paper just a few months ago on advertising and marketing responsible gaming considerations for advertising and marketing when the bill came out when the law passed it also included a number of measures that were very specific to advertising relating to deceptive false misleading and untrue advertising unsolicited pop up advertising advertising that the commission deems unacceptable advertising deemed to appeal directly to a person younger than the age of 21 advertising on billboards or other public signage which fails to comply with with federal state or local law so I think that a good chunk of of what the commission care about is captured within within the law the white paper that was produced goes several steps further and has a number of other considerations that the commission could consider I'm curious from the group um in addition maybe one are there ways or considerations of how to implement these directions that are outlined in the law and two what additional matters whether with captured within the white paper or outside of the white paper should the commission um think about as we're drafting a regulation on this and and maybe final you know I mean to Keith's point um and I know the AGA has spent an enormous amount of time thinking about this too um what what falls outside of regulation and and where where our partnerships agreements and uh where does that lie given that perhaps regulation can only take us so far when we think about how expansive um advertising can be of what we have control over and what we don't have control over this who would like to smear in first on this big topic um oh I see Keith thank you very much I feel like I've jumped in so I'll just keep doing it until someone says no um no on on one of the points I think mark is is is dead on in that what the people you regulate are probably not responsible already for the majority of advertising it's third parties that are unregulated unregulatable by the commission because they're not gambling entities and especially affiliate marketing and affiliate sports marketing companies which play an enormous role in the sports betting ecosystem um already in the united states um most of them are not regulated by any gambling commission so they operate effectively without oversight yet they are the ones who are driving by some accounts the majority already driving a majority of traffic to online sports betting websites and so they're these affiliates the affiliate marketing system New Jersey is looking at license there are a few states that do try to regulate affiliate but marketing but it is very very difficult many of these firms are located offshore but that's where most of the risk that's where a lot of the risk in the in the direct marketing is because they're incentivized they operate by getting back a percentage of your first month's loss or your lifetime loss and so you know affiliate marketers are incentivized in many ways to go after people who are big gamblers anyway so the affiliate system I would say is something you really need to look at you most commissions do it by proxy they they regulate they require the operator who is regulated to have certain conditions and requirements that they impose on their affiliates because those affiliates are outside the scope of regulation generally unless you unless your statute specifically talks speaks to that but then even beyond the affiliates who at least have some sort of commercial relationship with operators then there are a wide variety of third-party sites who are totally unaffiliated with with operators and I'm not sure how the commission would get your arms around that and and again I believe that's where these are anything from social media influencers to you know gambling talk radio shows you know internet-based webcasts podcasts they're offering odds betting assistance they may or may not have gambling industry sponsorship but it might not well be any gambling company it's regulated in the state of massachusetts so that's where I I see most the risk coming advertising directly by a regulated operator in massachusetts is something you can easily get your hands around that's subject to your statues and regulations I think that's not going to be the majority of your advertising and I think that's going to be a minority of your concern the majority of the concern I think is much harder to get your hands around and that's what people will be struggling with in this information economy so I'll just leave I'll leave that out there I don't have any good suggestions for it except to make sure that you hold operators to a high standard for the third parties they have direct business relationships with in the advertising marketing affiliate space Michelle right you touched on that one of our meetings I did I wanted to bring that up because that was one of the things that one of the trainings that I was at is that whole concept of how keyed in they are and how motivated they are because if they get particularly a portion of the activity then they're more motivated which in my view we have the ability in our recs to make them a vendor qualifier such that they would have to get registered a license with us it's something I'm absolutely interested in doing in that general vein to talk about marketing and advertising if at some point before we hop off people can talk about celebrity endorsements it comes into the same issue with you know it's one thing to say national company national countries in in Europe can do that but being a commonwealth surrounded by a number of other states whether that's even something we can consider and if so ways we might be able to do that in the commonwealth does anybody want to weigh in okay I see that you turned out here yeah I don't have a kind of direct response to that I can speak broadly though to a few things here um one uh you know advertising and the volume and you know you're seeing a lot more of it uh I'm sure you will as as um NFL continues as you know you go live eventually and part of that is consumer education and you know drawing folks away from the illegal market consumers are still very confused especially when a state goes live around who is a legal regulated operator operator and has the consumer protections that you provide and the industry commits to and who is an apharias offshore actor and we have you know google data google search data that we can point to that shows you know the customer confusion and how when a state goes live searches and for illegal operators go up and so I think that's an important consideration when looking at advertising broadly um I think in terms of you know specific restrictions on advertising um it's becoming much more national in nature you experience this already given your location surrounding of other legalized states um but the the more the market grows and more access to legal sports betting across the country the more national uh advertising will become and so there's um you know limitations to what can be done there and then finally um I would just reiterate and reinforce the work that the AGI and our members have done with our self-regulation model which is modeled after distilled spirits and beer industries and you know the processes they've had in place for decades and you know how that creates a means for regulation and modification and high standard that is not just for AGI members but all operators in this space. Thank you. Thank you. I think when we talk about advertising everybody talks about in the context of restrictions right but I think we should also be talking about the affirmative I think this was alluded to when you're talking about that you should have the font in a certain size or you should do some standalone uh responsible gaming advertising as a part of licensure and a privilege to operate within the state um things that I also feel have significant good and evil components are these celebrity endorsements right. Kate highlighted a wonderful new celebrity endorsement around RG that was just unveiled last week that has power to influence consumers to engage with these RG features we've seen similar type of advertising and alcohol um so I don't think when we talk about the power of celebrity endorsements it's fair to just think about the the negative side but there's also real power in having a celebrity come out and say hey look I I take a break sometimes that's okay you should too and I think that these operators need to be incentivized more to lean into that to adopt RG messaging and to use their celebrity power to highlight all of these great features and functionalities that they do offer consumers to help keep their gaming safe um on the other side I think it's very appropriate for us to look at some of the more mature markets especially in Europe that have concerns around celebrity endorsements and their impact on youth for the negative and I think that we've seen a few US jurisdictions that in regulations have put forth that no endorsement can be with someone who is under the age of 21 or tends to resonate most with a younger demographic I know it seems kind of common sense but I think it's an important thing to highlight I'd also just like to leave on the note of I didn't hear any real mention about risk-free um I know that's a topic in regulations uh right now there's no such thing as really a risk-free bet many of us would argue so maybe considering not having that you know a term that is allowed to be used in advertising some jurisdictions have moved in that direction also mark um I'm sorry you were going very quickly through the statute but I also don't know if it talks about advertising cannot encourage excessive wagering um I think that's another important component to be considered and I thank you Madam chair if I may I also just wanted to highlight the great work of UNLB um and examining this issue and and Alan is raising his hand I wanted to acknowledge the work that he had done in this area and how it was a a key resource for us in developing our life so the AGA and and I'm going to be correct and the AGA I'm sorry the AGA yeah certainly um and and please I know that you all have a good relationship with Mark please pass along links to your materials he will make sure we see them we are building up you know a treasury of um treasure chest really of these valuable um uh research documents and it will help us as we moved into setting up our regulations Alan so a couple of things um and thank you mark I appreciate the shout out um I think we need to understand how young the field of study is about sports advertising sports betting advertising and therefore I think on this topic in particular I think this is generally true in online betting regulation but on the regulation of sports betting advertising I think you've got to keep flexibility in mind you've got to be prepared to make changes when there is evidence to support it um and and so this is kind of the the other end of the precautionary approach that is very much a part of the framework and should be but the sort of the flip side of that is when you get new learning you've got to be prepared to make a certain adjustment um the the notion of celebrities might be one of those examples there there's some research on it but virtually none of it here in the united states and and how we process ideas of the celebrity at the same time several companies are running responsible gambling ads with celebrities so I don't know that we necessarily want to just cut that off I think that's an area of growth that we probably would like to encourage um and then last point I want to make I agree with everything philosophically that has been said about things that the commission can do things that licensees can do to prevent promotion and uh and encouragement to an underage audience the most impactful group however are parents and I think this is a shared responsibility of government of a regulatory body like the commission of the public health uh apparatus within the commonwealth and operators to start to put out educational programs to parents to knock it off I spoke with someone today who told me that when she was six years old six her father would go to the track take her and give her six dollars to age her and that's how she learned how to gamble that that is absolutely nuts and yet it's a unbelievably common part of our society it's one of those things we're just going to need to chip away at but getting parents involved in reducing incidents of youth gambling I think is a critical part of the mix okay I'm just going to pause I'm looking at the time 357 Michael and Marlene are next and um this is a really big topic uh Marlene I guess I just want to say that um I disagree with what Alan just said in terms of us being on the other end of the precautionary approach I think that with an issue so large that we are not sure of the impact of um advertising and as as you know folks have heard me say a million times um as the mother of two sports crazed teenage boys I am concerned beyond belief given especially what I do for a living um that and to Alan's point I'm certainly a parent who talks about gambling with my children um but I am concerned about the cumulative effect of advertising on my children um here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and we haven't human legalized sports wagering yet I can't go to a Fenway with my kids and not see sports advertising everywhere or excuse me gambling advertising everywhere that they then connect back to the advertisements that they see on NECN they see on the internet they see so I don't have a solution but I I totally disagree if that's what Alan was saying that I totally disagree with the idea that we need to wait till we get enough research I think we have to pay attention to the most vulnerable populations youth being one of them but certainly looking at communities at risk and we we know who some of those communities are already through our other research here in Massachusetts and I think the time for the gaming commission to act upon this and think about um bands or limitations on advertising is now not not until we have it all figured out Marlene if I can if if that's what what you understood me to say I might have misunderstood but oh I misspoke I completely agree that at this moment paying attention to advertising and promotion that is directed toward youth that is a serious problem what I'm getting at is some of the things that we're talking about with youth in mind like celebrities we don't know whether or not youth are responding to them and depending on how they're used there may be enormous benefits to getting celebrities involved in um in in responsible gambling advertising and promotion when I said the other side of the precautionary I'm only talking about the commission's ability to get new learnings continually improve make changes that's all I'm talking about I am absolutely not suggesting that the things you've recommended here are uh you know are to be avoided simply because there isn't evidence yet I didn't didn't mean to give that impression and I appreciate the clarification I think I was hearing that in this little word that I get I currently use a lot but we need to really remain nimble as more of evidence comes in so that we want to build that flexibility into our regulatory structure to be able to pivot if that's a fair summary Alan that was kind of what my quick takeaway I also really appreciate in our main giving that parental point of view um I only have adult children so I can only imagine the challenge for those who are raising their younger children commissioners I know that Michael wanted to weigh in um these guys can I turn to Michael and can we just have a few more minutes to wrap up commissioners are you okay with that we all right um and and guess I understand we're running a little bit beyond form so Michael so Madam Chair I'm cognizant of the time so I'll be quick I'll just quickly follow up on uh one of the things that Alan said you know there's a unique opportunity especially as the holiday season rises for an ad campaign about not purchasing lottery tickets for your children as gifts um I'll also just state quickly about advertising is that it's widely recognized that wagering advertisements tend to emphasize the positive aspects of gambling experience and skewed outcome expense expectancies towards inflated prospects of winning um the there's only a small body of literature but the body of literature does tend to show that marking material that this kind of marking material tends to increase the desire to gamble among problem gamblers moderate low risk gamblers so that's something that should be taken into consideration um moving forward thank you for that um I want to just one for terms of clarification the gaming commission doesn't have regulatory oversight over the lottery and um I'll leave uh any kind of a campaign around lottery ticket sales to um treasurer Goldberg who did appear in front of us uh earlier this week so um but I can just interrupt and say that because you know so typically done this because they're lottery agents so they've been cooperative partners in that holiday campaign the ncpg and the gill university right and so I was going to say we we uh do that in in collaboration and it's pursuant to uh chapter 23k which um in fact is exactly what treasurer Goldberg was testifying to earlier this week about um continuing our our relationship to support the benefit of the lottery which she explained as I mentioned you know does have such an important role in providing unrestricted local funds but I just wanted to make sure you know that we um we work with them don't control that okay um other questions now for my double commissioners this is such a big topic I think it might even require a reconvening if our guests um would be willing um as we work uh word up I see case cover hand up yes sure just a a few points and I'll be brief um some context so sports betting advertising only constituted one percent of total broadcast ads last year so putting that in perspective of all the advertising we're seeing it's a very small percentage um you know partners in this space like leagues and media companies uh have limits that they've set for themselves for example the NFL uh has limitation of one ad per quarter and pre game and post game so six games per session or per game um and are considering other means for um their own regulatory self-regulatory guidance um and you know in terms of bans or significant restrictions um and I don't mean to sound like a broken record uh but it will only impede the ability for the legal market to find a way to attract new customers um I was looking at some of my notes and um in just the first two months of 2022 internet searches for illegal offshore sports books increased 22 percent year over year and almost all almost 60 percent of all sports book searches were for illegal sites both well above the national average so there's an uphill battle uh to get consumers into the protections of the legal market and then finally in terms of where these ads are placed um the aj's marketing code uh you know requires that ads are placed in means broadcast cable radio etc where at least 73.6 percent of the audience is reasonably expected to be of the legal gambling age and that's tied to nielson and census data and is aligned with other such standards set by discus and the distilled spirits council and the beer institute for their self-regulatory model so it's a broader industry uh and advertising standard so just a few fine points to put on this conversation thank you thank you commissioners questions and I'll turn to mark two of course but um I I know that we're short of time but I do have one question that I'd love to follow up on selfishly it may only was involved earlier in the earlier conversation I'd like clarification from alan when we were talking about setting limitations with respect to um tech tools like play my way that could go on to a mobile device you talked about taking risk into consideration and the the the fats and how uh I guess I'd like to know is that practical is that something the operators can do is is that just so complex well it it may be complex I can't even tell you today whether or not it's relevant what what we are trying to find are alternative ways of communicating with gamblers to help them contextualize what they're about to do right so the idea of putting how much weight you're during the session how much you've won or lost during the session is one of the ways to provide context to the players we we want to take a look at whether or not risk factors will will enhance responsible play or god forbid make it worse right because you know if you there are some people who seek out risk and we've got to be careful about that this this may not work so at the moment this is a hypothetical discussion we've been having and it's not ready for implementation anywhere right so at least in terms of the analysis so I guess we won't worry then about whether it's actually technically um feasible okay thank you this really helpful advertising um I have one other question there have been considerations about require does any other jurisdiction require an operator to does to rather than adding on language with every single ad about responsible gaming to have a certain percentage of their advertising budget be actually dedicated to strictly rg messaging no gaming promotion you know we operators and and something that you know it's it's aligned with what what aga is providing we also can consider commissioners whether we use them of our budget to also do public service um advertising that's something we haven't talked about it can be but have you heard about requiring because honestly our our licenses are are following our Greg and they do on the billboards put language up the font size could be increased right and and that might be helpful but not as effective and I also just think it takes away from their own effective you know customer marketing goals have you heard of a percentage of budget and what do you think about that I don't believe there's current regulations to provide a percentage of advertising that goes to responsible gaming and Brian would probably be the person who can keep me honest there and I um you know the commission getting engaged on this space we there's other regulators who have promoted have a game plan so it's in a kind of open source the platform that welcome a conversation there and then in terms of a percentage that one is a tricky one to suss out um each operator it would be so nuanced to each operator that it may be hard to set a specific standard and but know that I can I can have a whole presentation on the various programs that are in place today in terms of responsible gaming and how operators are advancing that um both you know individually but with their league partners and media partners so um you know I think that's something left uh best best practices than necessarily statute I think I think Chair Juddstein to your point we I've we've been thinking about that a little bit because I do think now most of these helpline regulations were conceived in the 80s when before this saturation of advertising I do think there's a a white noise problem if you will where you know the numbers just everywhere in tiny font whatever regardless of the font size it becomes meaningless and so I think I've been thinking exactly longer lines of of saying you know maybe there it's it's almost like a an election you elect either to say okay I'll do you know 20% of my ad budget would be towards pure responsible gambling and then that means the other you know I can reduce it or something like that or I like to put just the number on everywhere just saturation vomit you know I don't know um so we're it is I do think that our helpline regulations need to adapt I think again Massachusetts might find itself being the only place that doesn't use 800 gambler within a few years um you know everyone else is shifting towards that um and that we have to think about whether or not in this modern age just slapping a helpline number on everything is the most effective approach or whether we want to be a little bit more selective you know with with a more targeted specific ad just for all the reasons you said so I don't know that I think in case right I don't know that anybody's gone down that road yet um you guys again might be a leader and and starting to think about that but I encourage you to do so it's it's a conversation we'd really like to have I don't know the right answer and I certainly think there may be some arguments why there should be the number everywhere but I kind of lean towards where you're going I think maybe there's a better way to approach this in this in this in this era thank you I'm going to take two short comments from Brian and Ellen just because they have their hands up and I'm going to have to put it just sadly um we have um obligations I know personally so Brian I just wanted to confirm that Kate and Keith said that there aren't any current regulations or even statutory requirements around a percentage that being said several several jurisdictions excuse me are considering maybe a certain number of responsible gaming standalone ads we know the efficacy of a standalone ad is far more significant than that of a small font I think it also far extends just a helpline number to the terminology play responsibly very subjective someday I'd love to have a discussion about we can all define what is drinking responsibly but none of us could probably come up with the same answer for playing responsibly um anyway I'd be happy to talk more about what other jurisdictions are considering for those standalone or particular font sizes um but anyway I think it's far more than helpline I think it goes to just rg messaging in general yes thank you Ellen well actually what I wanted to say really does piggyback nicely on Brian's comment um setting a percentage I think is a sticky topic however uh causing licensees to demonstrate what they're doing I think that is an absolute necessity and you know one of the things that that happens among competing companies is you know if you're the one walking in with a very unimpressive presentation you're probably not going to want to have that happen again um and I just I think that this is an industry that is learning to to approach these topics trying to approach these topics I don't know that forcing that is necessary other than to say once a year or once every six months whatever it's going to be you're going to come come forward and show us what you're doing show us your work well that's really really helpful and I understand the stickiness um we've got the sticking matters before but I think um we we also know that I think you're leaning into what we do hold our licensees accountable for reporting but it also if we engage in any kind of a competitive selection process uh there's an opportunity here I see my fellow commissioners nodding their head to this become an important part of the criteria that we would look at for final operator licenses so this has been really helpful to me commissioners I I don't want to be the last question unless it surely is the last question thank you Commissioner Hill no I want to say thank you to everybody who was here today this was very informative taking more notes today than I think I've ever taken I'm in my year's time here so a lot to to digest and a lot of great ideas that I that I think we can maybe implement as we move forward so looking forward to that conversation amongst the amongst the commissioners and again thanks to everyone who came today it's great job yeah thank you any other comments from my fellow commissioners Commissioner Maynard I just wanted to say thank you to all of you all of you I I had a lot of questions that were answered in the midst of your conversations and discussions and you know I never want to hear myself thrown on so it was good to hear the experts become this Kate you'll be happy to know that both Commissioner Hill and I are huge wrestling fans and knew exactly who this was when you spoke about it but it definitely does give us a lot to think about as we move forward and I do believe that if there is competitive process that most of what was said here today not just in this section but others is going to weigh on on me excellent thank you Commissioner Skinner I just want to second everything that Commissioner Hill just said every single word thank you all thank you thank you Nikisha and Commissioner O'Brien I'd like everybody to be able to leave so I don't think there's anything I can add that hasn't been said other than thank you and this probably is not going to be the last time you're going to pass excellent so I want to extend the appreciation beyond what you've heard I think we led with that appreciation and you have been so so helpful to us we thank you for your time we thank you for your generosity mark if I can allow this to be the last word mark will be in touch no doubt mark that's the last word thank you very much thank you I'm I feel very grateful to each one of our families truly these are a long time colleagues of yours we thank you for all the insights that we knew we would be able to achieve and again the shortage of time my apologies for keeping you beyond the four o'clock thank you have a do you need a motion madam chair to adjourn oh yes thank you a second second all righty commissioner o'Brien hi commissioner hill hi mr. Skinner hi and commissioner Maynard hi it takes a village and I appreciate everyone's help I vote yes have a great great evening everyone thank you bye