 Great. Thanks, Dave. Good morning, everyone. This is a convening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and this meeting virtually, so we will take a roll call. Good morning, Commissioner Brown. Good morning. I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning. I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Good morning. And good morning, Commissioner Maynard. Good morning. I'm here. Excellent. We'll get started today is March 9th. We had a very productive meeting yesterday and part of our work will continue from yesterday to today. It is public meeting number 442 before we get started. Tomorrow is a day that will put into effect the law of the land with respect to sports wagering and allowing for online sports wagering. We will not be gathered tomorrow. So before we get started, I want to express my thanks and I think I can speak on behalf of the commissioners for now. Karen, for your leadership as the executive director to have shepherded this process over the course of seven plus months since August 1st. The commission has been able to convene and accomplish its work because of your leadership and the team's work. So I want to express my personal gratitude and to thank you, Karen, and the entire team. I think that we know that we've met probably around 80 public meetings averaging, I think, over five to six hours daily. We did that work not because we need to hang out together virtually, but because you and your team organized us in a way that we could accomplish everything that the legislature intended and that the law requires. So thank you. Thank you to each and every one of you. We'll get started then. And we have some meetings. Yes, Madam Chair, I would move that the commission approve the minutes from the October 20, 2022 public meeting that are included in the commissioners packet subject, tending necessary corrections for typographical errors or other non-material matters. Commissioner Hill, how long are those minutes? Oh, they're quite long. I think 16 pages or something, right? You're all going to enjoy reading them if you haven't already. No, I'm hoping that I'm going to ask that. I'm assuming everyone has a chance to read who's going to vote on them today. Okay, good. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Commissioner Skinner. All right. Mr. O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi, and if I could, Madam Chair, I also want to put out a quick thank you to the legal department who I've been working with to get these minutes to you all. They've been working awfully hard on them and hasn't always been easy. We've needed to make some changes here and there, but they've been wonderful and great to work. Thank you. And, you know, I think all of us say in that note, Commissioner O'Brien also was secretary. Okay, thank you so much for that acknowledgement. Okay, any other edits or comments? All right. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Mayer. Hi. And I vote yes, five zero. Thanks to the legal team. Thank you, Todd. Okay. So now we're going to turn to item number three on our agenda. And we have guests from the Attorney General's office today. I'll let them in. Good morning, First Assistant Moore. How are you? Good morning, Chair Juddstein. Can you hear me? I can hear you and I just want to say that it's, it's, it's wonderful to see you. I wish that we were all meeting in person, but the virtual format, as you know, works very, very well. We want to make sure that your other team members have been able to join. Are you doing this now on your own? No. I see. I believe everyone has been able to join. I will have some brief introductory comments and then we'll turn it to, to my team members. First Chair Juddstein, fellow commissioners. I want to express our appreciation for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Pat Moore. I'm the first assistant to Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell. With me today are my shy Snape, the acting chief of our consumer protection division. Liza Hirsch, the director of our children's health care. And Jared Reinhimer, the chief of our data privacy and security division. As chair Juddstein just noted, gambling in our state is about to enter a new phase until now. Legal gaming has predominantly been combined to a handful of brick and mortar sites. Now every spark smartphone has the potential to be a sports book and sports betting at the same time. The verge of becoming mass market products in the Commonwealth. We know this commission is full of dedicated public service. And I know that personally in some cases. We know further that you've undertaken extensive work. To issue regulations over a short period of time to govern this rollout. We know too that the commission has a national reputation as a responsible gaming leader. For brick and mortar facilities. As you look to achieve. And establish that same reputation in the context of mobile sports betting. The office of the Attorney General looks forward to partnering with you. Let us be clear about our interest today as we enter this new phase of gambling in the state. We understand and we support the legislation authorizing sports betting. We know betting on sports can be entertaining for adults in this state. As it is for some of those testifying before you today. There is a population of people who will be negatively affected by mobile sports betting. We'll slide into addiction and possibly face continuing personal. Financial and mental health challenges. That population is part of the public who our office is duty bound to represent. We intend to give them a voice. The legislature enacted not just sports wagering. As we know that you know. But safe and responsible sports wagering. We intend to do our part to hold the operators. To the safe and responsible part. Among other things. That means requiring the operators to abide by our consumer protection laws. Particularly as to the marketing, promotion, and even the design of their sports betting apps. As this commission knows well. Gambling can be addictive and give rise to considerable public health concerns. As we enter this new phase, we all have a responsibility to make sure that the sports betting apps are marketed and promoted. And that they operate in a way that mitigates addiction rather than furthers it. We know too that a critical amount of money is spent on sports betting. We know too that a critical mass of sports bettors are 40 years of age or younger. Sadly an age group. I just phased out of. Even many of the gaming operators who are at least temporarily licensed in the state recognize that customers 25 years or younger are particularly at risk of experiencing problems with gambling. So a substantial portion of those using these new products. Will be vulnerable to gaming problems. This new phase therefore demands for vigilance. As we approach Friday. We are seeing betting apps being promoted through credits and even referral bonuses, which often lock users in for a particular period of time. Or till they have spent a particular sum of money. These promotions are not permitted in other industries that pose public health risks like the sale of alcohol or marijuana. And the burden should be placed squarely on the operators to show why any particular promotion should be permitted here. Let's consider how one of those promotions may operate as soon as tomorrow. Take for example a dorm of upperclassmen at one of Massachusetts as many colleges and universities. Inundated with advertising, one student realizes a referral bonus is available within hours. A dorm full of students have downloaded the apps one benefiting from referring another. Now the weekend's activity is sports betting brought to you by referral bonuses with potentially habitual use thereafter. Is this the safe and responsible gambling that we intend to foster? Take next a new gambler who lives alone. Bombard in with advertising. They download an app to see what the fuss is about. Then they turn on the game. A broadcast personality associated with their favorite team encourages a series of profits that $100 and quintuple your money in a segment sponsored by a gaming operator. The TV personality has special access to the team, watches them practice, speaks with the players, giving their betting advice the gloss of expertise. Of course the gaming operator itself thinks that the bet is unwise and all likelihood their customers about to lose their money. This type of promotion appears to be prohibited under your draft regulations and certainly seems inconsistent with the operator's legal duty to clearly and fairly market their products. Yet it's running on TV now during every single Boston game day. Once customers begin to use these applications, the operators will possess data that is breathtaking in scope. They'll know when and where a customer likes to bet their customers' favorite sport, their favorite team, their favorite type of wager. The commission must put into place strict regulations to make sure that data cannot be used to target customers with notifications and alerts. Picture a casual gambler who is becoming a more habitual better even as they try to tap the brakes. That customer has placed a bet on each of the last three Celtics games who wants to take the night off. Without oversight an operator will be able to send a nudging reminder, notifying you that your team is about to take the floor, but you've forgotten to bet. Query whether that conduct is safe or responsible. Query whether targeted digital advertising that nudges a customer back onto an operator's application by leveraging the operator's knowledge of their preferences and habits is safe and responsible. At minimum customers must be afforded frequent, clear and conspicuous opportunities to opt out of this type of marketing. Through our diligence we understand that at least some of the gaming operators, pardon me, would be open to this type of regulation and it should be adopted without delay. In addition, the gaming operators, which as you know have access to the best data as to when their customers are engaging in problem betting, should be required to use that data, not to market but to offer interventions before a habit turns into an addiction. Other states, including New Jersey, are instituting this practice and we commend it to the commission. Before I turn it over to my colleagues from the attorney general's office to address, for example, the importance of shielding young people from the current deluge of sports gambling advertisements and the importance of closely reviewing the design elements of each app, I'd like to emphasize a final point. Our goal, like yours, is compliance. We want to work with the commission to ensure the safe and responsible marketing and promotion of sports betting in the state on the front end, including as necessary through the adoption of comprehensive regulations. Where a gaming operator takes responsible gaming seriously and communicates fairly and accurately about its product, we want that operator to succeed. Where we find irresponsible or unfair conduct, however, the office of the attorney general will not hesitate to step in to ensure that Massachusetts consumers are protected. With that, I'd like to turn it over to my colleagues, beginning with my Chai Snape. Thank you. First, I just want to make sure you're all able to hear me. Good morning. We can hear you clearly and good morning to all again. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you to the chair and to the commissioners. I am in the consumer protection division. My name is my Chai Snape. And as you probably know, we are responsible for investigating and litigating on behalf of the residents of the Commonwealth under our Consumer Protection Act and related laws and regulations. The Consumer Protection Act exists to ensure that businesses enjoying the benefits of the Massachusetts market also treat our consumers fairly. To achieve this goal, the act prohibits the use of unfair or deceptive practices that can thwart consumers' ability to make informed decisions about how to spend their hard-earned money. For decades, our office has successfully used our enforcement authority to identify and investigate new industries and new business practices. We recently used that authority to anticipate and respond to the challenges raised by e-cigarettes and other new tobacco products. We also used that authority to investigate and respond to the growth of daily fantasy sports. We draw from that substantial experience to inform our work each day, and we relied on this experience in our comments to the Commission. One thing we have learned is this. Absent appropriate oversight in developing markets, a business's drive to launch first and secure market share may overshadow its drive to comply with the law, all of which is to the detriment of the public at large. Our job as law enforcement and as regulators is to make sure this does not happen, especially when the stakes are as high as they are for mobile sports betting. As detailed in our comments, it is imperative that the Commission create a level playing field by setting clear rules on permissible advertising and promotional activities. These rules must acknowledge and build on our existing consumer protections. Next, the Commission must examine operators' marketing practices and educate operators to ensure they understand and comply with their obligations. This work is essential to promote only responsible gaming and to protect Massachusetts consumers and their families from undue harm. This work is also essential to prevent unlawful practices from spreading through the fierce competition to secure customers. By ensuring, of course, that law-abiding businesses are not put at an economic disadvantage. My main point today is this. Fair and accurate marketing practices are necessary and benefit both consumers and businesses. The Commission's gaming-specific regulations can add a helpful layer of protection to our existing laws. We urge the Commission to adopt the recommendations in our written comments and appreciate the opportunity to raise these important issues before you today and we look forward to working with the Commission in the days to come. With that, I will now turn to my colleague, Liza Hirsch. Ms. Hirsch, we can't hear you. Let's see how we can help you. The mute button doesn't look like it's on. Now we can hear you. Excellent. Great. Thank you so much, Chair Judd Stein and thank you for joining us today. My name is Liza Hirsch. I'm the director of the Children's Justice Unit at the AG's office. Our unit is charged with protecting the interests of children and youth in the Commonwealth. As such, my testimony will focus on the potential impact of sports wagering on youth, especially sports betting that can happen anytime from a smartphone. I want to start by emphasizing that we know that youth are especially vulnerable to gambling and risky behaviors. Adolescent and young brains are still developing. Many of us are aware that the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for impulse control functions, is the last region of the brain to develop. And the Commission is also aware of the potential impact of sports betting on youth, especially sports betting on youth, especially sports betting on youth, especially sports betting on youth. And the Commission's draft regulations appropriately reflect this known vulnerability by limiting sports betting to adults who are 21 years of age or older. However, we do have two main concerns about the draft regulations as it relates to youth. First, in the online context, as many of us know, age and identity are notoriously difficult to verify. At a brick and mortar location, an individual must appear in person, physically hand over their ID to verify that they're of age, and an underage youth would be physically turned away. In the mobile context, we need the same level of protection, or as close to it as we can get. We know that accurately identifying age in an online setting is much harder and relies upon still emerging technology. And we know how important it is to get it right to protect our young people. Although the draft regulations provide that operators must verify age when they create an account, the regulations don't seem to require, for example, real-time verification each time a user logs in. So this leaves open the possibility that underage users could simply use the account of an older sibling or friend. We urge the Commission to amend the regulations to guard against this, and the regulation should also clearly state the minimum standard for accuracy and reliability of age verification, consistent with the highest level of accuracy in the digital age verification industry. Second, regarding the advertising regulations. In the current regulations, as drafted, advertising is prohibited on social media platforms that are used primarily by individuals under 21 years of age. However, we know that large numbers of teenagers use social media platforms even though those platforms may be primarily used by adults over age 21. So Instagram is one example of this. We firmly believe that more restrictions are needed to ensure operators and their vendors do not advertise to youth on social media platforms. Specifically, many social media platforms and smart TV providers allow those under 21 to be excluded entirely from an advertiser's target audience. So where that exclusion is technologically feasible, it should be mandated. And we've actually heard from responsible operators that they're quite amenable to this change. Other recommendations to achieve our shared goal of shielding young people from the wave of sports gaming advertisements are set forth in our written comments. Our office appreciates the efforts to protect underage youth from harmful exposure to sports wagering and we very much look forward to partnering with the commission to ensure this goal is realized. Thank you very much and I will turn it over to my colleague, Jared Reinhimer. Can you hear me okay? We can, thank you. Great, thank you, Chair Juddstein and commissioners. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to you. I would like to thank our commissioners for the opportunity to share with us the details of ensuring the privacy of consumers information and protecting that information against unfair or deceptive practices that might be brought about through the use or abuse of consumer information. My division, which is data privacy and security division is also at the forefront of this. The ability for consumers to soon begin sports betting through mobile devices raises unique concerns that aren't present within person gaming. App developers can and often do collect data about how people use their apps and they will use this information to alter how the app behaves to increase what is commonly termed engagement. Small adjustments can often play a big role in how often people use apps. And the app developers know this and they monitor it often. And this all happens without the user's knowledge. Just as one example, recently the Robinhood app used confetti on the screen when people were depositing money or making trades and that was criticized as encouraging investors to make poor financial choices. It's also common for apps to alert users to reopen the app and encourage users to take certain actions. And one example of this is anybody who's used the Duolingo app for language learning is very familiar with this little owl that constantly pesters you to do your lesson for the day. And it will bug you over and over until it's done. So we're concerned that these types of features when incorporated into sports betting apps will lead to substantial problem gambling. Because of that concern, we encourage the commission to closely monitor and understand the ways in which mobile betting operators use their customers data to modify app features or to alert users. And where appropriate, we urge the commission to consider implementing regulations to prevent the app makers from engaging in features that might be unduly coercive. And we're concerned that if users are involved with user acquisition, at some point soon they will turn to user retention and reactivation. And absent close attention by regulators, their apps could be crafted to those goals in ways that might be addictive or problematic. Outside of the app experience itself, we also encourage the commission to seriously consider the potential harms of targeted apps. And we also encourage the commission to consider the ability to be highly targeted to particular people that can be based on factors like your location, your age, or even perceived interests that you might have. The betting apps will have access to a large amount of data that could be shared with advertisers for targeting campaigns. And that data is still useful to those who might be involved. These ads intentionally or not could be pushed to people who might be at a higher risk of developing gambling problems or those who already have them. And the commission should explicitly prevent operators from using personal information that's collected for compliance purposes for targeted advertising. And also closely scrutinize how that the operators collect, they're really in the best position to protect their customers, which we believe they should be required to do. So recently New Jersey has rolled out a program where the operators are required to identify and undertake scaled intervention measures with customers whose actions might indicate that they're gambling problematically. So operators must intervene with customers based on specific criteria like the time that they've been gambling, how often they use cool-off periods, and whether the funds that they've put in their account are exhausted often. So we invite the commission to adopt a similar program as we know it has been considering. Our laws allow mobile license holders access to a mobile license holder to use the data they have to facilitate responsible use of the products. And with that, I greatly appreciate the time you've taken and given us to speak and express our concerns. We appreciate all of the commission's efforts to protect consumers. We stand ready to work alongside you in that effort, and we're happy to address any questions you might have. All right. Does that conclude your remarks today? It does. We are more than happy to address the commission's questions, but that concludes our prepared remarks. First off, thank you. I want to acknowledge that all of you came today out of your busy day shows exactly how important this is to your office. None of us are surprised we've had a wonderful collaboration with the Attorney General's Office and the Enforcement of Gaming Related Matters. And we know that we will continue to have that relationship going forward. So the fact that you all came today and also submitted your nine-page letter means a great deal to us. I'm going to turn to my fellow commissioners. I'm going to see who would like. Commissioner O'Brien Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. I want to thank everyone from the EGIS office. I've had the opportunity lately to have meetings with pretty much everybody who's spoken today and have learned a lot more about what they're doing above and beyond what we historically do with the gaming enforcement unit over at the EGIS office. And I have had some questions answered that I've had, and they've helped me sort of look at things differently. I just wanted to point this out. We discussed that New Jersey regulation on the Colorado regulation that's coming, I think, April 1st. They do the same kind of requirement in terms of using data to really magnify responsible gaming practices on the mobile apps. It's something that we talked about a few weeks ago that I just want to put out there again to my fellow commissioners. The interplay with 93A is an interesting topic in one of the areas that I'd love to talk about sooner rather than later. I'm sorry, EGIS office, you're more listening to me than answering a question that I have right now, but the concept of the referral bonuses and whether or not people could take advantage of that in a way that is a side step to our regulation about third-party marketing affiliates. I think if you think about the used car market, you're allowed to sell, I think, and not need a license. The question that I have, wholly apart from potentially barring the practice altogether, although the fact that it is not allowed in cannabis and alcohol is an intriguing fact for me, but to the extent that it exists even in the short term, the idea that you may have people in a launch period going out and doing referrals in a manner that arguably would make them an affiliate and thus subject to our registration or licensing requirements. So that, I think, is something I would like to talk about sooner rather than later. But I also encouraged by the fact that the EGIS office has also talked to some of these operators and our licensees and very much look forward to working hand-in-hand with the EGIS office on the child protection, the data privacy, the responsible gaming and the advertising because I do think that as this new industry launches, if we are working in partnership even more than we have historically with the EGIS office, it's going to benefit the citizenry of the Commonwealth and then also the operators to, we are everywhere I go, people talk about the Commonwealth being leading edge in terms of responsible gaming and we are trying to continue to be there and I think that this will help us stay at the forefront of making sure this industry minimizes any harm and maximizes the benefit to the Commonwealth. So I thank you for the time you've given me personally and for your comments today. Mrs. Skinner, it looks like you're leaning in next. I am, Madam Chair, thank you. I want to add my thanks to Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and to you, First Assistant Moore for opening up the door for collaboration in this way. I appreciate your presence here, each and every one of your colleagues and I fully appreciate all of the concerns you've raised in your letter every single word. I, you know, much of which you have acknowledged the Commission already has its eye on. I consider your communication very much sort of a playbook for what I would consider phase two of our responsible gaming work in the sports majoring realm. Commissioner O'Brien touched on the consumer behavior data that the operators have available. I'd like to see the commission fully explore its options there and whatever opportunities might exist in the way of what New Jersey has put forward to hone our understanding of problem sports majoring behavior. I don't want to speak for Mark but I think that this is also that particular issue is also something that he has his eye on regularly as we move forward in these discussions. Our advertising regs are a work in progress. I think we all acknowledge that and I am very much looking forward to strengthening them in some of the ways that you suggest in your correspondence but then also beyond you know it's my commitment and I think I'm not far off in speaking for my fellow commissioners but it's certainly my commitment to continue to take these matters seriously and do all that we can as a body to ensure that our investments are protected fully. Thank you. Thanks commissioner Skinner Mr. Hiller, commissioner Maynard Thank you madam chair and I too just want to say thank you to everybody who came today and shared with us your thoughts and of course to the AG for her comments in the letter that was sent I am optimistic as I have always tried when it comes to our partnerships that we have in state government whether it be with the department of public health or now with the attorney general's office I can tell you that this agency always looks forward to the partnerships that we have with our partners in state government and this isn't going to be the last conversation that we have with the attorney general's office and that's something that I'm looking forward to and we have given us a lot of food for thought today and I'm looking forward to meeting you personally so as commissioner O'Brien has said her eyes have been opened by some issues that we didn't think about and today you gave us a lot to think about so I'm looking forward to sitting down with you on a personal level so that we can go over these issues in further detail and then come back to this commission with the agency itself so that we can work on these issues and come up with some ideas and ways to ensure the protection of our children and to protect the consumers here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts so thank you for being here today great information and looking forward to the partnership that we have now created thank you madam chair thank you commissioner commissioner Maynard I want to thank the attorney general first assistant more and all the colleagues that joined today the issues raised here today and in the letter are important and they're falling on very receptive ears and I hope that that's something that you take away oftentimes during this process we've learned more about an issue and the more that we've learned the better that we've become we're nimble we're rigorous but we're willing to make any adjustments needed to protect both the patrons and the citizens of the Commonwealth and we are willing to continue to engage with your office and make sure that we get this right and we understand that time is of the essence and we're willing to get this right as quickly as we possibly can I appreciate it so I'll wrap things up although I do invite for the comments so this doesn't have to be a concluding remark concluding remarks I think Pat and your colleagues to all of you first off I have to just verbally congratulate Attorney General Campbell it's just so exciting that she was elected to her position so I want to extend my congratulations to her and the team that she's got I know personally it's her first class so we congratulate all of you and as everyone's noted we look forward to just a wonderful working relationship I think that you've heard because you've been following us that there's no doubt that we as a commission and every member of our team has focused on ensuring consumer protections, responsible gaming tools, and the integrity and gaming system that will ensure the protection of those who are ineligible to wager that includes everyone under 21 that also includes anyone on our voluntary self-exclusion list and those who we can identify as more vulnerable for gambling problem I know that we all share that I also know that you will have a bunch of expertise that we don't have and that's what you brought forth to us today you just came into your office and you're assessing this and you're thinking how can you help us be the best in class and for that we appreciate that you know for some more that the promulgation process is going to kind of get wrapped up I think it's I'm looking at General Counsel Grossman I think it's March 23rd I'm hearing each one of you indicate to us there are ways that we can make our regs better and that we are all ears as Commissioner Maynard said we've pivoted we are nimble we have a team of legal advisors who have been able to pivot with us and back today we're pivoting on a reg that we put in place and we thought about the implications just yesterday so what I am asking as a favor because I know how busy you are to the extent you can give any specific language to us that will help us on strengthening the regs between now and the 23rd because I think we're hearing you we're going to all be looking over your your written comments we're going to go back to this Tate and we're going to hear you but I'm afraid that between now and the 23rd we may not get it right and we may have missed the mark on something I don't know if that's doable Pat, but that would be a real practical request on my end the one specific issue that's caught my ear is I'm hearing a mandate that the operators would welcome when I looked at our regs and thought about our regs since we received a letter I want to make sure we get that one right on the social media piece I feel like we're covered but if you're thinking we've got some deficiencies I think as can speak for all of us we want to make sure we cover those what do you think Pat does that sound doable if we had some specific language from you it is of course we appreciate the opportunity to be before you today we wanted to get you our thoughts as soon as possible given the regulatory process but we will absolutely welcome the opportunity to share language and we'll attempt to do that as quickly as we reasonably can but certainly before the comment period closes that will be great certainly reduce a bit of my anxiety because again we want to get it right the good news is that we can pivot on the other hand you've all pointed out that we're launching tomorrow and to the extent we can get it right particularly around advertising now we've been working to get it right but we won't strengthen wherever strengthening is possible between now and in that deadline so commissioners one takeaway is is there something that we could actually incorporate between now and tomorrow and I don't know if that's possible under our red promulgation and I turn to First Assistant Moore is there something that you would say you know what Kathy if you could do this today that's going to strengthen you include this language I hear the incorporation of 93A I kind of feel recovered they have to comply with all laws but we can strengthen that is there anything in particular that you would say we could address today tomorrow and I'm sure General Counsel Grossman saying we don't have it marked up on our agenda it's the AG's office they do they do give us advice on the open meeting law too so we appreciate that comment particularly on the timeline and of course we're cognizant of the hard work that you all have done to facilitate the rollout for tomorrow I think there are two things that are of considerable concern to us now one of which we think is potentially fixable in the very short term another of which we implore the commission to do understanding as we are ourselves a government agency that resources and ability to do things in the short term are always questions and so we ask you to do what you can and no more of course the first thing is and Chair Judson you gave reference to this there are a number of social media platforms there are so-called connected TV like YouTube TV Hulu for example that allow you to exclude audiences under 21 where that capability exists the operator should be required to use it I speak I watch the Celtics every night I watch with my 10 year old on connected TV he's getting the message that 10 yes remarkably he's getting the message that to enjoy the Celtics game he's got a bet on that's not the message that we should be leaving 10 year olds in the Commonwealth the second issue is something that takes resources and so to the extent feasible in the short term we would welcome it to the extent not we commend it to the commission and its planning process there are a number of states that require pre airing review of advertisements we don't suggest that that would be an incredible burden for the commission there are very likely constitutional issues at least depending on how it's structured we do think however that the commission should look at promotions each and every one of them before they're rolled out and particularly before they're featured in an advertisement we are seeing a rush hour for promotions very difficult to listen to the radio or tv and certainly to go on social media without hearing one or more promotions from sometimes the same operator sometimes multiple operators how those promotions are designed are each different are they actually aimed at the consumer or are they aimed at behavior that sort of makes the app sticky that has people use the app for longer than they may be wanting to and in the meantime sharing an awful lot of data that can then be used to target them going forward so reviewing each advertisement we do not think is a good idea even though some of our fellow states are out there doing that reviewing these promotions particularly where they get into the hundreds of dollars so are attractive to younger people who legally could use the apps we really suggest that the commission take a close look at how they are structured and have the opportunity before they go live to ask the operators why they've chosen to structure them in that manner it is simple enough of course to give away a hundred dollars in credits it's less simple to give away a hundred dollars in betting insurance and even less simple still to give away a hundred dollars in betting insurance that must be used over a certain time frame why are the operators making those choices are they consumer focused are they responsible gaming focused or is there some other motivation at play and is there a way that the commission can use its review of those promotions to make sure the market is working for consumers and operators and not and not overwhelmingly towards the ladder again we've seen the promotions you've seen the promotions they are out there at great volume we understand that that ask is not one that may be easy to implement in the near term but certainly worthy of consideration going forward really helpful and did you have another one that was on the social media that you said too I think the social media and the promotional activity are the two things that we want to see compliance in the near term with this rollout and I just want to emphasize on that point that our goal in all of this is to have the Commonwealth speak with one voice when the goal is compliance when the goal is responsible conduct by the industry we know very well that it helps to be very clear and we want to speak in one voice with you on these issues and so very much welcome the invitation to continued conversation that each member mentioned and those remarks I want to emphasize from our end our appetite and willingness to do that which we really look forward to excellent thank you and to each member of the attorney general's office I know that your first assistant has closed but my style is to go back to each of you is there anything you wish to add thank you chair just two additional comments based on your desire to hear from us about specific regulation changes as we noted it's helpful to just acknowledge directly in your advertising regulations that operators also need to comply with other laws here in the Commonwealth we did that in our daily fantasy sports regs so there's very clear language that could be used as an exemplar and my second point is just to note we also included a few very specific examples in our written comments of other changes that could be made to the advertising regulations as they are drafted right now of course we welcome the opportunity to share more specific potential edits and we'll do so hopefully within the timeline for the comment period and we as everyone has said look forward to continuing to support the commission and this partnership thank you so much and I do did note those specific ones so we'll be chewing on those while we wait for any other specifics thank you miss hers Mr. Reinhardt how's that the opportunity to continue to partner with the commission and more than happy to work on some amended language of the regulations to the extent that's helpful really appreciate this time thank you nothing further from me but we do really appreciate the time and yeah happy to work on language here in the future and we are following what's happening in New Jersey it's really exciting I think that Commissioner Skinner is sort of phase two so there's a lot of opportunity right in your area there Mr. Reinhardt so thank you so much and now first assistant more close out is there any comments that you wish to make now I'll start okay first assistant more thank you so much thank you to the commission we appreciate the opportunity to be before you today okay we'll look forward to continuing more thank you okay so now we're going to turn to sports wagering and Bruce Van director of our sports wagering division but before you I think second director Wells you're just going to set the stage on a couple of things please Madam Chair just as an update we have a question for item 4d which is the operation certificate you may recall when we did that for the launch of the retail operations that we had a memo for the packet we have that however given that the health rules have not been voted on we need to finalize that so we have that in draft form so that the commissioners and public are aware if we could take a break between item 4d we'll finalize that memo and then that would go in a packet it would be premature to indicate in that memo that these things have been approved prior to the commission actually improving them so that's why that's not in the packet this morning and then we will get that up on the website as soon as possible after the commission's vote on the house rules so I think we're all set it's been a lot of work I want to compliment the whole team and the GLI team getting this together for today so more to come when we do that agenda item but I just wanted the public to be aware the commissioners to be aware that's why it's not up in the packet at the moment but that will be forthcoming thank you Any questions for Karen on that okay thanks good clarifier alright good morning Bruce good morning big day it's a busy day been a busy week can add an s to that if you'd like yeah exactly they start to blend together after a while I'm here today to talk about some advertising issues with the credit cards and PayPal's Heather Hall's here with me that has done some investigation with it as well Heather thanks Bruce thank you chair commissioners and I will say we're just going to do a brief summary today we really haven't done a full investigation on these matters at this point but there are three fandal advertisements that we have looked at I've had some helpful conversations with Bruce and his team including Sterl and Crystal one of the ads referenced eye gaming another one referenced free bets it's my understanding that both of those particular ads have since been taken down there was another ad I believe that referenced credit cards and prepaid cards and it's my understanding as well that with respect to that particular ad fandals in the process of removing it but it may take a day or so to get it out of circulation I would just note preliminarily for the commissioners that we have been in communication with Corey Fox and Josh Metta from Fandall they've been very responsive to our inquiries and essentially I think at this point we're just looking for some guidance from the commission as to how you would like the team to proceed with respect to these types of matters commissioners Brian so if I could a couple of the ads I actually and the person who brought them forward because I saw them oddly enough on Hulu at one point and network TV on the others and I do want to say there was responsiveness from Fandall but I'm still concerned about the fact of them having happened in a different in a series of different types of violations of the rags and so for me I want this brought up in front of us for some sort of action because to me right out of the gates to have free bets and I and I came in and you know that wasn't appropriate implying you could use a credit card and prepaid to me you have a myriad of violations all happening right to launch and so I absolutely appreciate their responsiveness but these were not self-reported they're responding to us flagging them and we are inundated with ads so for my view I'd like you to look into it further and I think that we as a commission should assess what we're going to do in response to make sure it's clear not only Fandall but any other operator doesn't have either the types or the number of violations of the rags okay that sounds appropriate to me I you know my ears perked up when I heard non-compliance I haven't seen the ads or potential non-compliance I haven't seen the ads so I'm hoping IEP can share that with commissioners so that we can have the full context of what what was seen I understand they're no longer or at least two of them are no longer two of the three are no longer in circulation but I would just be looking for more information because I don't I don't have any right now other than this brief update so I do think your correction is important Mr. Skinner I'd recommend and this is without we have we have to think about developing the protocols directed lilios on these matters but that we would where there have been reports or complaints like always the IEP would do an initial review and determine whether in fact there has been non-compliance and in the event that there is non-compliance then I think our rags would trigger yeah I inadvertently excuse me I said your corrective language was perfect what I was going to say is that I incorrectly attributed use of the terminology non-compliance to Commissioner O'Brien but I think she said a potential violation or a violation of the rags so that's you know I'm just kind of trying to reconcile that and understanding whether or not there was a violation so in order to do that I think what I would need is those advertisements I need to see them and really try to understand which regulation it might not have complied with so Commissioner Skinner are you asking that you want to see the advertisements yourself to assess whether there is non-compliance or do you want IEP to make to do that initial assessment and come back to say whether they view non-compliance yeah I think that's open for discussion I don't know that we have a process for these kinds of violations at this point I know where we're talking about operators offering wagers on sports events that have not been approved by the commission we've sort of gotten a process in place for that but I don't know that we have laid out really how we are to respond to these kinds of potential violations so the point is I think it's open for discussion but I think can I just let us down a path that I think makes sense I don't want to cut off Commissioner Skinner but I do want to go next so Commissioner Skinner and I will turn to Karen who really owes to help on this the distinction I see Commissioner Skinner with respect to the three and then we have one that will be reported on in a second is that they were all self-reported so that they were acknowledging non-compliance and so the issue of non-compliance was established by their self-report so in this case I don't think we have necessarily admitted non-compliance so maybe Heather can speak more specifically to this but some of these circumstances are admitted non-compliance well so it's just that I don't think all commissioners are aware of the circumstances so that's I don't know how that information I agree with you Commissioner Skinner and that's why we've asked IEB is giving a status report but it sounds like they've given all that they can right now because it is referencing conversation she's had with IEB the status report from IEB how can there be a status report if there was no initial reporting of any issue that's what I'm going to talk about I think really we're just notifying the commission that this is something that we're aware of maybe status report wasn't the best phrase but we did this with respect to the other matters that come before the commission it is very brief and if you'll recall we did that with respect to the other three matters that are further along in a process this is simply to say we have these matters and we want to hear from the commission about the approach so okay so this is where we're now circular so Commissioner Skinner I understand why you're confusing Executive Director Wells if you could help me out here I'm asking we ask for status report from IEB they're indicating that it's not really they're not really prepared but they're asking for more information from us we can't really give more information because we don't have information from them so I'm in a spot of no return here so here's what I recommend so my understanding of this is that at least in the first instance saw something and reported it to us which things can come to us in many ways and this just happened to come from a commissioner so I know that immediately director Van reached out to the company and they said oh we weren't aware of that I think they were aware of it they acknowledged non-compliance correct let's be clear Commissioner O'Brien is now referencing I happen to also have access to an email because she forwarded to me it's unfair that the other commissioners are hearing this without knowing in fact that that's verifiable I read that email slightly different Commissioner O'Brien I'm not sure if they verified that there was non-compliance or if they verified that the fact that you said is true and that might be different so if we're going to speak about a thread of an email that Commissioner O'Brien sent then we need to speak about it fully but I don't think we should say right now unless we hear from someone that there was an admission of non-compliance non-compliance Bruce is on the call non-compliance means a violation and I don't know which I really don't know what you're talking about quite frankly in terms of which item that you brought for as to what they admitted to so I want to be clear first off to IEB is it right at this time to continue this conversation or could that hurt your investigation and review? We're not prepared to have further discussion on it at the moment we learned a bit very recently and I think all the points that commissioners have raised are valid this was simply a brief note that we are aware of these matters and seeking direction as to how the commission wishes to proceed I'm not saying Commissioner O'Brien is wrong I'm just saying I think we have to be careful I'm making any conclusions without information Commissioner O'Brien that the others don't have so it's hard Let me see where I'm coming from which is and again the licensee was very responsive and so I don't want that lost in this conversation however the fact that it happened that we're now here a week and a half couple weeks after the fact and it's just getting to the point now of addressing it I'm actually more concerned about this than the illegal bets because the illegal bets are caught they're stopped, they're refunded they can be fixed and so then dealing with the consequences of that failure the risk to the consumer and the violation of the statute is stopped immediately and then you can deal with consequences I do want to have a conversation about how are we going to deal with anything that we view as an advertising violation because this concept that if it doesn't get picked up or brought into a process it's going to continue to be you know potentially in violation of our regs put out to the citizens of the Commonwealth and so I'm wondering how we can fast track things like advertising violations because they're a little harder to put back in the bottle as opposed to immediately stopping and refunding an illegal bet Commissioner O'Brien that's exactly that's a very good point I think that's Commissioner Skinner's initial observation that's our process I'm turning to Caitlin she's come in Caitlin can you give some insight as to the regulation in terms of how obviously there is an advertisement that is problematic we want to be able to address it quickly our fellow regulators across the country are doing that that's why we actually have our discipline like the way it is so that we can be nimble and make a decision fast yes sure I mostly came in to listen but what I was thinking is this is something that we had discussed briefly at the meeting at which we talked about the different paths the Commission can choose to take with potential non-compliance issues and there are different paths but it might also be helpful for the Commission to have an internal policy for how these different types of issues are dealt with and now you're identifying the difference between an illegal bet that was allowed and an advertising and how there might be different paths for them so this might be a good time for legal and IEB and the commissioners to start thinking about an internal policy for how we deal with these particular issues. Thanks chair. Thank you Katelyn. And Katelyn I think that's right on point in recognizing that there are different kinds of violations and in terms of discipline matters it's important for the IEB to be reflective and always independently evaluate the nature of the non-compliance even in self-reported matters we independently confirm all of those matters but on what we're talking about here where the swiftness of action is you know separate from discipline on the matter I do think it would be helpful to hear from the commission you know are these and referencing what Karen said about these will come to us in many different forms staff may see it patrons may notify us operators may identify activities of another a competitor operator you know these will come to us through many different means and the ability for us to act quickly to interrupt when it's a matter of advertising and marketing is important so we are prepared to do what it takes to step in and perhaps quick notification to the operator of the complaint and quickly reviewing but the discipline and the more thoughtful analysis of exactly what happened for discipline reasons needs to be separated from that quick action and how does this work with Bruce's team well yeah I mean Bruce's team is at the forefront of this and we've been developing a protocol with him it's not a fine tune protocol at this point commissioners what would you like to see here right now there's still a matter pending that Commissioner O'Brien struggled and was careful to intervene because there were a number of issues that Commissioner O'Brien led with and then some responses from the operator that I think that that's part of IEP's review right now so and how they're assessing but there were a few things not just one thing so one of the questions and it's not I don't think there's necessarily anyone in this call who can answer it but one of the things that would inform how I want us to go forward is how quickly various types of mediums can be pulled so if an ad that comes in that on its face shouldn't be here or the operator themselves admits was erroneously put forward in the Commonwealth I am curious how quickly it being brought down pulled down because that's one of the corrective actions I'd like to see so if it's it can be pulled down and I'm sure the answer is going to be different depending on the medium but I would like to have a sense of that because if the decision to let it run for a couple more days is just while we booked it and we can't put anything else in and we're going to eat the cost so we're going to let it run it's a very different response to me than we can't pull it it is impossible for us to pull the ad in less than 2448 hours whatever it might be and that to me later is a piece of information I'm still not clear on because that to me plays into how responsive was the corrective action on their part and or what if any disciplinary action would follow as IDB looks into all of that so I don't know who on this call whether it's Mark or Bruce's team who might be able to get further clarity for me on that point there might be a crystal question Bruce Yes That's what I was thinking Madam Chair that's a different crystal I will say that Heather and I just had this discussion this morning about how we could do something that would address that in your future so that's in the works and happy to help set that up So we're back to though and we don't need to dwell on this further because I think IEB has got work to do about there is the issue of just finding us and this commission is less than patient and we recognize that we want to get things done fast So Director Lillios I think that's probably at least I don't want to speak for Commissioner Hill Commissioner Maynard, Commissioner Skinner but I think I'm aligned with Commissioner O'Brien that there are certain issues that if they aren't addressed almost immediately they're allowing damage to continue I'm not sure in this case because I don't know the facts so it's a part from the issue in 4A but where there is the advertising issue maybe it's back to the Attorney General's Office's suggestion with respect to promotions should we be reviewing it reviewing in advance my message to the operators is that if we're going to review it for the next few days and come down and it's wrong we're going to take into consideration the fact that you put something up that you knew you couldn't take down for days and that's going to be part of our assessment consideration at least I can speak for myself Commissioner O'Brien you're not in your head if you're putting up something that you know can come down instantly and you make a mistake that's going to take the last two days and send you the results and it's not Walnut who's going to put out any complaints or wreck's a ball it's got to ride its term out because it's impossible to take down my suggestions that work really really hard and even reach out affirmatively even if you're not required to check in with the Percival and Bruce and how we prioritize some of these reviews that have taken consideration that immediate impact, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Mr. Hill, Mr. Skinner. I agree with you, Madam Chair. In regards to the fan dual situation that was brought to us at the beginning of this conversation, I think I should do an initial investigation for sure and come back to us. And if there's any disciplinary action that needs to take place, we will address it at that time. But I think if you're asking for us to give you some guidance, I'm saying that there should be an initial investigation. Absolutely. Yeah. And in terms of the protocol, we'll get that firmed up as we go ahead. Okay, Commissioner Maynard. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that if anything inconsistent on all of the issues that's been brought before us, which is early on, we need to take a very active role into whatever happens. And if there are places where the team is trying to figure out where we stand on an issue, the best way to figure it out is let us draw the lines after the appropriate investigations, after the appropriate protocol. I wouldn't vary here in any other way. I think once we know, and I don't want to speak to this specific instance, because like Commissioner Skinner, I've not been afforded the information. But I would like for it to come up. I would look like for us as a body to make a decision on it. And then that decision informed what the team does going forward. I'm wondering. Just one second, Commissioner Brown and Commissioner Skinner. I agree with everything that's already been said. I think in the short term, however, I would request to be put on a level playing field with my fellow commissioners in terms of what information is already out there and has been circulated. The other thing I need to say is that it pertains to Fanjul, since that is sort of the subject, that's the operator who we're discussing in terms of the potential violation. I would just like to give credit where credit is due. I saw an ad yesterday from Fanjul and it, yes, it was a sports wagering ad, but the focus of this particular ad that I saw, and I saw many from several different operators, but the focus of this particular ad was around wager limits and those account restrictions. And I thought that was very, very notable. It was the only one, not saying that it's the only one out there, but it's the only one that I saw. I didn't analyze the ad in its entirety. But that is something that stood out to me in terms of here's how you can protect yourself while you're wagering. Here's how you can wager responsibly. So I just wanted to make mention of that with the understanding that there's still work to do across the board with all of our operators. So that's what I have to add to this conversation. In addition, just reiterating that I agree with my fellow commissioners and everything that they've said. Thank you. And just for clarification, Commissioner O'Brien properly forwarded to me as part of a request for a matter to go on the agenda. But I didn't quite get it right in framing it out. So working with Executive Director Wells on the status report, it was an attempt to get it right. But that's why she properly forwarded it to me. That's why I can't tell you anything notable because I purposely didn't study the facts. So that circles back to what I was going to add to this, which is at this posture, I almost think the same way we have a placeholder for regs, minutes, whatever, I would like a placeholder on the public meetings for advertising and any potential violations because I feel like the ability for Bruce's team in particular to maybe alert us to things that are going on. And to be blunt, I'm thinking of something in particular that's live right now that I just happened to know because of how it came in, went to that team. And the timeliness is an issue on that. And so if there's a way to mark up in compliance with open meeting law so that this can be brief to all the commissioners so they know what's in the pipeline potentially because we may want to expedite certain ones over others. And trying to figure out a way to do that could also be individual notifications by Bruce's team at this point, but that I don't want to add extra administrative work to a team that's already incredibly text. So, Commissioner O'Brien, I appreciate that recommendation. You would allow, I'd like to have the team assess that, particularly IEB and Director Welleson to make sure that there's not some unforeseen consequences with that recommendation if it involves reviews and non-compliance issues. I hear you. And I just want, I'd like to see before we agree to put that on for the next agenda, just an ongoing reporting to have the team chew on that a little bit. Does that work for you? There is one item in particular Madam Chair that I would want on for a timeliness reason, and I'll let Bruce's team, maybe when we have the next agenda setting, I think we have a next week. But I am anxious to discuss that one because of a timeliness issue. Okay. And again, because of, I just, well, we have the authority to assess. We also have, I think our regs imagine investigations and reviews being conducted by IEB. And- Unless we elect to take it in the first instance, yeah. Yeah. And then we'd elect to take it. Unless, are you saying unless we elect to take it in the first instance or in conjunction with our election? Well, we have the ability, we preserve the ability to take it to a spontane. Right. Oh, yes. Yeah. So, so you're saying- And I guess I envision that happening more frequently to Jordan's point as we go through because we're going to need to act quicker and probably more involved than we'll be in the long term. That's fair. And so I'm just thinking out loud, the issue needs to come to us. And that has happened with the other issues of non-compliance, allegations of non-compliance. Come to us. We then asked IEB to investigate and review. Right. I think by you're going to IEB, that kind of triggered that. Commissioner O'Brien already on this matter. It didn't come to us first. It went to IEB. So they started to look into it. So that's kind of like Executive Director Wells said. Items and complaints and issues go to IEB all the time. Are you saying that we want to hear every complaint or is it, do we want to hear issues of non-compliance? In other words, once it's deemed non-compliant. The latter, which if there's, and this is where it gets into some level of discretion. However, if IEB or the sports wagering teams is something, it's still a work in progress, but there's a timeliness issue and where they need guidance from us. That to me is things that should be brought to our attention way faster. Even if they haven't determined whether or not it's non-compliant. Because the question could be, do we want it to be or not? And if there's a timeliness issue on an ad, I'm thinking particularly about advertising. I feel like we may need to be a little more involved up front in giving guidance. And that's where I'd like to see if IEB and Executive Director Wells and her teams could come up with any concerns that they might have as to how we would structure that. Does that make sense? I know you know what I'm getting at. So that's fine. But what you're saying is clearly issues. Once they determine non-compliance, they come to us to decide whether we handle or not. Even where there isn't a finding to Commissioner Skinner's initial point today, whether it's even a finding of non-compliance that they could alert us. And then what I'm just concerned about is making sure we don't impact any investigation or review unfairly. That's all. Okay. Commissioner Skinner, in terms of the observations that Commissioner O'Brien has raised, how do you want to handle that? Because again, I'm being careful not to in any way impact the review that IEB is conducting. Yeah, she's observed. Is that what you're referring to? The ones that she first said, and you said you'd like to be on a level playing ground. I mean, if I could get the actual ads, I don't think that would be harmful to IEB's investigation unless Director Lilios says otherwise. I mean, they were in the public realm. Yeah. And to be clear, I haven't seen, you know, that wasn't in the thread or anything. I'm interested in seeing them. They were raised as a potential issue for our agenda discussion today. You know, I have no context currently, so I would like to see them. Right. And so that's fair. And I just clarify that I hadn't seen them because I know you had said you want to be on a level playing field with the two of us. And I just want you to know it's completely Commissioner O'Brien's observations at this point. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the clarification. I mean, I think it's reasonable for all of the commissioners to see those ads if we're going to be discussing them going forward. Yeah. Okay, so that seems okay, right? Director Lilios and Council Hall to share those. If you have them, Commissioner Maynard, Commissioner Hill, anything else? No, we have them, but we will, you know, work with Bruce and the operator to get them. Well, anything else? And then we will just work with you, Director Lilios, to try to accelerate this to the extent we can. A little bit of process discussion, guys, as we work this out. Commissioner Hill, Commissioner Maynard, all set? Okay, excellent. All right. Now we'll turn to item B. And Bruce, we've got Council Grossman on this one, right? Yes, thank you. And good morning, Madam Chair and Commissioners. The issue before you here relates to the implementation of Chapter 23 and Section 24, which as you'll recall, relates to the potential intercept of winnings for past due tax and child support related obligations owed by patrons of these sportsways during operations under certain circumstances. There's a memo in your packet kind of giving you a high level overview of where we stand, but just by way of background and supplementation, the Commission's staff has worked very closely over the past couple of weeks with the team from the Department of Revenue as well as all of the Category 3 licensees to coordinate the implementation of this provision of the law. There are a couple of ways, as described in the memo, that this can be achieved. The first and the preferred approach by the Department of Revenue is what is referred to as an API model, which stands for Application Programming Interface, and the non-technical explanation of that is that it essentially integrates the Department of Revenue data directly into the operator's systems. This approach requires a good deal of planning and implementation and then further testing potentially by GLI itself to ensure that the platform remains compliant with all the technical standards. Accordingly, this method won't be ready for tomorrow. It is being looked at and worked at closely by the operators in conjunction with the Department of Revenue and it is expected within the next couple of months that that would be ready to go. All the operators are aware of that and working towards that goal. The interim solution that was identified was to employ the use of what's called e-services, which is essentially a manual lookup to ensure that anyone who owes such outstanding obligations is identified. Again, this is the process that's in place in the three casinos as we speak. In order to implement that on the sportsway during digital side of the house, there are a variety of things that need to happen and I can represent to you that as we sit here right now, things are in good shape, but they have not been completed to the point that any of these six operators are completely ready to go. In order to get this all stood up, each of the operators would be required to execute an MOU with the Department of Revenue and the Commission just identifying all of the expectations, the roles and the functionality of the system. That also requires that a variety of information be provided to the Department of Revenue, including information about the individuals on the operator's side who would be implementing and running the checks as those folks are required to go through background checks performed by the Department of Revenue. As we sit here right now, the information we've been provided with is that five of the six operators have at least one person who has gone through the background check. We're fairly close on that front. One of the other interesting things that has to happen is that ACH credit files have to be generated with all of the licensees so that funds can be transmitted back and forth. In order to do that, in addition to sharing certain information, there has to be testing performed to make sure that the funds can be successfully transmitted. As we sit here at the moment, it's my understanding that at least two or three of the operators are ready for such testing and the others are in the queue. So there is some reason to believe that this may all be achieved before tomorrow, although it may not necessarily be the case for all six operators. If there are any questions, of course, I'm happy to pause and offer further information about what I just said before we move into what the options look like moving forward. Do you have any questions for Todd? I guess I would just want to note that I understand you've been working really closely with the OR and we thank them for their continued collaboration on this effort to get it right. It sounds like they're really trying to move in the best practice area. So thank you to the OR. Todd, options? Thank you, Madam Chair. We have expressed our gratitude to the OR for their efforts on this under such a tight timeframe. So the options are essentially that have been identified. The reasonable options anyway is that I should let me back up a half a step and just say the conventional wisdom, if you will, is that this is not a regular occurrence that such triggering events occur under the Federal Internal Revenue Code. So it does happen, but it's not necessarily a regular occurrence. That being said, the first option would be that when one of these triggering events does occur, that the licensee could just withhold the funds until the e-services program is fully stood up so that they can query the DOR information to ensure that that individual does not owe any child support or tax to the commonwealth. That's one way to do it. The other way to potentially do it, and some of this is discussed in the MOU that the operators are presently looking at. The other way to do it would be to allow the operators to pay out the winnings but be responsible to make the commonwealth whole essentially be liable in the event that once the e-services program is fully stood up, that in the query is run, if an individual happens to owe tax or child support obligations, that the licensee would contribute the requisite funds. So those are the two kind of reasonable options that were put out on the table. The licensees are aware of that. Of course, everyone is diligently working to get this e-services program fully in place by tomorrow, but in the event it's not, those are the options I wanted to place on the table for your consideration. The only other issue I just wanted to raise is the idea, and I know you're interested in seeing the MOUs and of course we'll share those with you. I can share with you the template that has been crafted and it was only finalized last evening. So it's something that has been a work in progress would be the execution of those agreements. Certainly to the extent we want to have them executed by tomorrow, the commission will not be in session to review those documents. So either A, the commission could come back in session to review them or execution authority could be delegated to the executive director. So those are the issues before us as we sit here right now, and I'm happy to try to address any questions or discuss the process moving forward. Questions for Todd and the two options that he's laid out. Could we give the option to the operators? Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean the reason why it seems to me and the reason that was identified by at least one of the operators, why they would have an interest in paying out such winnings and then assume the responsibility themselves is just as you would imagine for patron convenience and ensuring that the particular patron has a positive experience with their company. But I don't believe it's any legal reason or anything along those lines. So can I ask a question on this? Are they going to then go try to get the money back from the customer? And if they're not, does the winnings for tax purposes to that customer include the winnings and the arrearage that was covered by the operator? Because that's taxable to them, right? It's like extra winnings really. Excellent to the person. Yes, no, it's a good question. I don't know, DOR's position on that, whether we would have to inform operators how that's supposed to be reported? Yeah, I think that would probably have to be clarified a bit. Typically, well this happened once before in the past when this was being stood up on the casino side. There was an issue where the systems weren't speaking to one another and a number of patrons were not actually queried who did owe money. In that case, the licensee paid the funds directly over to PPC and it just, they did not charge back. My understanding is the patron themselves, but the obligations were satisfied on the DOR end. As far as tax consequences of that, Commissioner Bryan, it's a great question. I'm not exactly certain how that would work or whether that was considered. It seems like a weird context too. I paid off my child support by sports betting. Right, well it is an interesting area we're talking about to begin with, but the reality is, it seems to me that this e-services component will be stood up for all of the operators within a matter of days, if not by tomorrow morning at some point. It appears to be a really short window and hopefully there won't be too many episodes where the issues you've raised will be live issues, though they are excellent questions and I think we can address those in the MOU. Or like a tax law question for law school. Yeah, exactly. Well, it does seem like it would be considered income to the person to have a debt satisfied. It usually is, yeah, that's why I have a question. It would be paying those who are in arrears on child support just to be clear, right? This only applies to those who haven't been compliant with their child support. And taxes. Or taxes, but she mentioned child support. Yeah, that was the situation that popped into my head. Yeah, I understand. So that's where we are. I think, again, it appears as though we're in good shape. It's not complete as we sit here right now. Clarifying question, Todd. Do operators have discretion as to which option they want to utilize until the e-services is the processes up and running? I don't think that DOR has a preference necessarily. And I'm not sure unless any of the commissioners feel otherwise, I'm not sure that we necessarily would have a preference as long as everyone's obligations are satisfied and it's documented properly. So the answer to your question would be unless the commission directs otherwise. Yes, I think they would have an option as to which approach they take. Okay. And just voicing my own opinion, I don't have a preference as to which option the operator takes as long as they are doing what they're supposed to be doing in accordance with the law. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Ultimately, they will be having to do the DOR preference or are you saying no, not just necessarily? Yes. So that's a commission scanner. So you're just saying. I was asking about the process, which option, the temporary process. I asked the same question. DOR e-services is up and running. Yes. So within two days or so, let's say, and that's hopefully the outer edge of the timing, everyone will be connected to e-services and be able to run the queries very shortly, possibly by tomorrow, within a couple of months. And I don't have the date right in front of me, but the date is identified in the MOU. I think sometime in September, it will be expected that all of the operators have the API model implemented so that that is the course that's used. And everyone seems to be agreeable to that. And again, that implementation process is underway actively. Okay. So I'll go back to what I think. Maybe I asked the same question as commissioner Skinner. So I just wanted to clarify that. You presented two options, but there was really, we could impose one of those one or two, or we could just allow the operators to make their own decision. So that's a third option for us, right? Yes. I think that's right. And there are other options that, you know, out there, you're not necessarily stuck with those two. They're not great options. So one would be that you don't allow anyone to commence operations until this is done. That didn't seem like a good approach. So that's option four. All right. One would be that this was raised and not looked upon favorably by many, that you just don't allow the operators to accept any wagers that might trigger something like this. That would be difficult to navigate and to oversee. So that, I mean, so there are other options out there, but the two I mentioned, or the three, if you want to add the flexible one, are I think the most realistic and logical? Okay. Got to call the question. Mr. Maynard, what are you thinking? I think that we need to do what is the most practical step that allows the law to be complied with, i.e. that we're, you know, we are 100% for capturing tax cheats and those that don't pay their child support. What I'm hearing is, is that the technology is not there to do the interface system. So then I have to think about the basically two major options. I think as long as someone's going through and checking these, as they're being triggered, that's the most important thing to me. And I think I heard Commissioner Skinner say something very similar of those two options. I heard what Commissioner O'Brien said. I'm with or on it. If the operator is paying someone's tax liability or child support, that probably does trigger some sort of taxable event. I'm interested to see how that goes. But I mean, the easiest way to do this is just to make sure that this is taken care of before the waitress paid. Honestly, to me, that's the easiest option here. So option one. Commissioner Hill? Option one. Okay. Commissioner Skinner? Option one, two or choice? So let me just, let me, let me make sure I understand the options again. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. So withholding the funds in operator. So option one, does that mean that waiters are allowed that could implicate DOR, tax or child support obligations? And the withholding of funds, that sort of, I guess, penalizes potentially a patron who does not owe tax or child support to. So what is withholding of funds? Can someone just explain that? So I see our CFAO has his hand up and he's nodding his head rigorously. So we're going to let Derek speak. He probably has the answer to your question, Commissioner Skinner. Thank you, Derek, for timing in. Thank you. And I'm not putting a position forward either way. I just want people to understand what a decision may make. If you choose option one, you have to assume that a small percentage of the population is delinquent on taxes or child support. And that small percentage of the population you are assuming, once again, other people who are winning these jackpots and having their payments withheld for anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. If you are withholding people who do not, that's once again, you're withholding patrons who are not part of that group, which is why we discussed this and came up with the other option of, well, the operators could choose to do that and, you know, hurt some of the patrons that are not part of that small population that are owing or take, roll the dice and take on the liability knowing that they may be benefiting some people that are in that small population and paying on their behalf when we do the post audit of the e-services. So either way is an option. And I think that's why we presented both to you. It's just we want you to have the full benefit of the discussion we had of why we would offer two options versus just the one of withholding the payment. I think, Derek, the answer to my question is yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. There could be potential for people who do not owe taxes to have their funds withheld for anywhere between 24 to 72 hours for anyone who can't get the MOU and the e-services and the training in place in the ACH files in place by tomorrow. Okay. So that then makes a difference for me. You know, so I retract my position earlier, my earlier position that, you know, we can leave it up to the operators to choose. I am less inclined to have an individual not implicated by DOR tax or child support issues to be sort of penalized and have their winnings withheld for any period of time. 24 to 72 hours sounds like a relatively short period of time. But I don't think we can say definitively that each of the operators will be up and running in that timeframe with the API's model. So I would be in favor of requiring, you know, the other one of the other options. And I understand that to be that the operator becomes responsible for any tax liability, tax or child support liability, you know, and I know we have the open question about tax implications there. Or, you know, not launching, unfortunately, until the API services is up and running. And I don't want to, I mean, so Todd, I don't know if I have those other two options, right? Well, I want to, let me, can I just clarify a couple of points you just made? I don't think we're really talking about waiting until the API model is ready to go. That won't be ready until September. We're really just talking about the e-services model. So that's first. And the other point, and this, I apologize if this is well understood, but it might be helpful just based on something I thought I heard you say to just point out that this requirement under state law is only triggered when there is a federal withholding requirement triggered. So the money is held and part of it is withheld anyway. The whole amount isn't withheld, but a part of it is withheld under federal law. So there is an episode that occurs at this junction. There's just on top of it, in Massachusetts, we lay over it the requirement that the operator has to also query the Department of Revenue information to see whether the person owes Massachusetts taxes or child support. So it's not as though there's nothing that would happen when this threshold is met. There's still, the funds would still be withheld, just not the complete amount. Well, but they're able to do the check on the federal funds, right? You don't have to check. Everyone automatically owes, the funds are automatically withheld regardless of who you are or what you owe. So once it hits the 5,000 plus 300 to one odds, they take, they basically treat it as income and they withhold a certain percentage for income purposes and those get triggered directly to the federal government. The remainder is paid out to the patron. If you chose option one, the remainder would not be paid out to the patron until we could do a back taxes and back child support search to see if any additional amount was owed. And there is no state triggering act for withholding of 5% income tax for the state side. It would just be for back taxes or child support. So it's not a uncomplicated issue. It's rather complicated, which is why we have spent so much time discussing this topic. And I think I understand the process. It's just that additional delay that I'm concerned about, you know, while if the tax and child support obligations cannot be verified for any period of time, that's a timeframe where the patron is being sort of denied access to their funds. And the concern for me is that it's everyone in sort of one bucket. So even if you don't have an outstanding tax or child support obligation, you are faced with that delay. And it's not equitable for me. So I would not be in favor of, and I'll use the terminology penalize, I would not be in favor of penalizing someone who has nothing to do with an outstanding tax obligation or child support obligation in that way. So again, I'm back to option two or one of the other options, which is not to launch until this is figured out. Can I ask a question of legal? And I appreciate Commissioner Skinner's comments appreciating Commissioner Hill and Commissioner Maynard have heard them as well. Is option two an option that we can impose on an operator or was that considered? It can be a standalone or was that for you for them a courtesy to allow them if they chose that? Can we impose option two on an operator? And I see I mean it's nodding your head. I believe that's how it was handled during the brick and mortar launch, right? I think not. That is an option. So they propose that option. At least with one of the one of the operators, I do recall that was a suggestion. It seems to me as a condition of the license of the op certificate given the background, I don't see why we couldn't put that on as a condition. I see what Commissioner Skinner's saying. And the only thing I would hate to see is someone, and Derek, I hear it's probably one person get a windfall and have their liability paid off by some other company. I'd love to see them try to get it back after the fact. But to me, if we're not going to withhold launch, the way to make sure that the people that are owed their child support and the coffers and the tax revenue are protected is they're making a decision to launch, then they cover any risk, right? If they find out they gave the payout out and shouldn't have, then they're on the hook for it. That'd be option two to my understanding. Yeah, that's option two. But I'm kind of hearing that option one is not really palatable for folks. No, we've had two commissioners indicate option one was palatable. Commissioner Skinner has spoken third. And I'm fine with one also, but I hear what Commissioner Skinner's saying and I think two gets us there in the operators taking additional risk for being able to pay their money out to their patrons sooner. I don't know what their preference even is, but I'm fine with option one as well. Yeah, and I can say I would just add that I don't know the exact answer to the, I'd have to think about the legal authority to impose option two that wasn't really discussed. It was never really on the table that you would have to do option two. We kind of talked about doing both and people seem fine with that. I don't know what the preference would be per se. But you know, if we do come out and say you must make the payment and then if you're if the person happens to owe money that the operator is liable for it, whether that is something that everyone has his understanding at the moment that that could actually happen. Wasn't there a fourth option? Having the operators not allow wages that would trigger this? Yeah, there's that or not allowing operations at all. Yeah, what would the what would that option look like? Not not allowing those wages? That was raised and disposed of pretty quickly so we didn't really even talk about what it would entail or how that would be implemented. So I can't really say what that would look like. So it doesn't sound like it's really an option at least for this discussion. I don't think anyone thought that was a good option. It would have had a huge impact on the bedding catalog is what they had said so it would have required them to go in and make a lot of entries and manual entries to reduce bets that would have triggered that. And they said the sheer volume of work it would take is not a great option which is why they turned it down quickly. Okay, so I'm going to try to regroup this conversation because of just timing alone. What I'm hearing is that really the options are coupled because we don't I don't think Todd you anticipated that the option two would ever be a standalone otherwise I think you would have known whether or not it's that legal legal grounding. I know that we have an incredible amount of discretion but if we start to peel back you know where this issue came from you know imposing that that requirement on an operator does need to be clarified from a legal point of view. So right now as I understand it we've got a couple commissioners who suggested that you know you got to pay and and it's going to be rare chances and it's going to be a short period of time. Remember it's proceeds of more than five thousand from a wagering transaction if the amount of such proceeds is at least 300 times as large as the amount wagered. If somebody's really lucky to strike it but they happen to also not be one of the folks who triggers the child support attacks taxable event you know commissioners can quite right there's some inequity. They'll still have been a winner which is better than not allowing them to vet at all and closing down the event. I'm just going to say it that way. So you know I know I heard Commissioner Skinner or let's not let them go forward I would argue you know if you're that winning person and they had a really good day on something that was meant to be pure entertainment and fun then maybe waiting a little bit won't make you know undo harm because it sounds as though without further investigation item option two is probably not vetted right now and that's because it was it was an option that they presented that they would take on the loss as opposed to us. So I think I'm going to see where we stand on I'm welcoming a motion at this point to move this board because how many hours are we talking about 72 hours at most? And what assurance I mean where does that come from? What assurance do we have that it's 72 hours max maximum? I don't want to leave you with the impression that it is there is absolutely an outer limit. I was just kind of giving you a sense as to where we stand. It is possible that an operator could come back and say I don't like this MOU I want to negotiate every term and we won't be able to do it in the next 24 hours in which case it could it could take way longer. You could come back to us with that. Yeah, absolutely. That goes over. Absolutely. So you know I'm just saying if things go as they seem to be going it looks like it can be done fairly shortly. But I can't sit here and tell you it's only 72 hours at the outer and there's no way to know. Does somebody have a sense of the timing? The outside timeline we had heard and I wasn't on the call yesterday but the day before was it could take another week to complete all the MOUs and get the e-services and everything up to date. But as Todd and Karen have reported there was a lot of activity to get this up and running because of the real desire to comply with the law and not push back a start date. So that's where the latest update of the 72 hours is coming from. But you know training and background checks and everything else could take longer. Director Wells and I'll turn to Commissioner O'Brien. You've been part of these. Yeah, I think what I can tell you is there is number one, DOR has been incredibly responsive, particularly this week trying to get it done. So I can report that they are doing everything humanly possible and the latest report we got yesterday where they were extremely surprised how much progress they've made this week. So I'm very confident in their efforts to get this done as soon as possible. The operators based on this conversation can see have clearly an incentive to get this done as soon as possible because either of the two options where either they don't make the payout or they potentially have the risk of eating the cost of any back taxes or child support is not in their best interest. They want customers to be paid right away to benefit the customer experience. That's what they've told us repeatedly. So everyone has an incentive to get this done as quickly as possible. So then option two, I'm sorry, Madam Chair, may I? Yes, I don't know. Commissioner O'Brien, do you yield to Commissioner Skinner? Is that okay? Yeah. Thank you. Fine. So option two doesn't sound like it's an issue for operators. I mean, the chair said that option two wasn't fully vetted and I don't quite understand that. I think that what they're saying is mandating it as opposed to choosing it. We may want it wasn't fully vetted. Okay, got it. Keep dive. But the option of saying to the operators, look, you have to comply with the law. The law says the commonwealth, they have to take these back taxes and child support. So the combination option was designed to say, look, you have to do it. You could not, I mean, they could apparently not launch, they could not take the bets. They don't need the commission to do that. But paring it down, the only two options left are you either don't pay it out and you wait to do it, or you own it. If in that small percentage, there's a miss and you pay it out and you can't collect the money. So having those two options and letting the operator select it does seem reasonable, but either of the two options in their individual capacity works as well. The priority is compliance with the law. So there is a way to comply with the law, even if these are not done yet. So that's the issue. Commissioner Skinner on option two, I think it's the mandating it. I don't, even if we imposed it, I think Councilor Grossman is saying it's not sure that it's not saying it's not, but there's not not sure if it's there's any legal issues that arise for that mandate. And I see Derek nodding his head. Yeah. So when we dealt with this in the past, it was always an option, right? The option was, I remember when it happened with the brick and mortar casino, they were given the option of shut down the floor, or you become liable for any payouts you make, or you hold on to the, or you hold on to it until we can get what was done a digital handshake back up and running. Right. And that situation was kind of the that was a result of something that went awry completely on their own. This is more of a collective issue of launching. So it's not like the operator owns this individually. The other one was a, and I don't want to get into too much technicality, but it was what we thought was a good handshake between two systems broke, and need the party could identify why it broke. And I think that's why they don't want to force the, I forget what we, yeah, the API, which is why they don't want to force the API and give it some time to develop, test it and make sure it works appropriately. Just as a supplement, since we're on the subject, I would just add that the MOUs that we have in place with the casinos and now the category one operators and the template that has been circulated all allow for the option. So it's not something we kind of just crafted here. This is the way it's been for however many years we've been doing this, that if the system goes down, which to my knowledge hasn't really happened much if, if ever, but if the system ever goes down, there is, there are measures in place that allow operations to keep, to keep going, which is that the licensee can decide whether they want to withhold the money or pay it out and assume the responsibility. So it's described in the agreement itself. And as far as comfortable with that they've already signed off on that. Commissioner, as I'm comfortable with the approach that's being discussed here, that it's reflected in the MOU. Commissioner Skinner, I don't know if it's this conversation, additional conversation has helped you get more comfortable. But at this point, unless there's a precise questions, I'd like to call the questions and see if we can get some more. Yeah, go ahead. I mean, it's clear our hands are tied here, which is not the way I like to make decisions. But, but I mean, it is what it is. I mean, particularly if that's the language that's already in the choice anyway, it's already the language in the MOU. I would, I would then, if that's the case, I would then give the, give the operators the choice today to make either option one or two. I wouldn't, I wouldn't go with option one necessarily over option two. It's just my decision reflects what is already captured in the MOU. That's already been drafted and really being circulated for execution. I understand that between the parties. I think that we, we could inform the MOU if we wanted to, but I'm hearing that then probably as a consensus that the proposed, you know, I think the difference was commissioner Skinner, one and two were never really separate options, you know, it might have been presented a little bit differently. So do I have a motion on this? I don't know if we've prepared anything. But thanks. Somebody could do it out of there. Absolutely. Anybody want to take a stab at it? Do, well, maybe do we need to take a temperature in terms of our understanding of choice? Could it be as, could it be as simple as saying that well, I don't, you'd have to give me the verbiage on the tool you're talking about at the API? Is it something as simply saying that? The eService. So in the absence of the eService to comply with the withholding requirements, any operator is responsible for any monies that would be due. I mean, that's really what we're getting at. And are we specifying and can be done either by withholding for a manual review and or agreeing that they would be responsible for any subsequently determined liability? Is that what we're saying? We're basically saying if the operators are going to go in the absence of the electronic check, they understay agree they are responsible for any back tax or child support that is owed and they can address that responsibility by either delaying payment for a manual check or making the payment the event that it is subsequently determined that it was owed. I mean, is that the gist of what we're saying? Or assume that, yeah, and make payment. I'm looking at you, Todd. I'm hoping you'd like to hype it up. I'm a little brain dead this morning. I think you got it exactly right. That's exactly it. You know, if we want to commemorate it in the motion, that would be essentially I think that would work. I think we certainly will capture that in the MOU and ensure that that directive is implemented. I think it's clear what the direction is assuming this motion is successful. Todd, you need to vote on whether they're delegating it or allowing the executive director to sign it or whether they want to see it. We can do that in a second one. Okay, so we've got the substance. Very good reminder, Karen. Thank you so much. So she just made it into a motion. I think we've got it characterized. I think we've heard it. Everybody, do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Are there any clarifications you wish to add to Commissioner O'Brien's motion? Commissioner Skinner or Commissioner Maynard? I'll set. Okay. I'll set. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. So 5-0. Now let's go to the execution of the MOU because we've just given direction as to this part. There are going to be other elements of the MOU. Before we authorize Executive Director Wells to sign off, Commissioner Skinner, would you like to hear from General Counsel Grossman the highlights of the MOU? I think that would be helpful. I don't know if Counsel Grossman is prepared to do that today. He did mention that there's a template available, so maybe you could circulate that instead. I understand that the MOU won't be ready to execute for at least 72 hours, right? Well, hopefully they'll be executed today is what we'd like to do unless we're told to stand down. I can pull it up here so we can talk about it. I can represent to you that it's essentially the same as the MOUs that are in place, not only with the casinos for the gaming intercepts under Chapter 23K, but also for those in place for the Category 1. So you'll recall we amended the casino MOUs to incorporate sports wagering for the three operators there. The Category 3 ones were pared down quite a bit and I'm not really prepared to talk about the differences between those, but just by way of highlights, and I don't have it right in front of me here and I can pull it up if that would be helpful, but essentially it identifies what the intercept threshold is, so what the triggering event is that requires the check in the first place and it's tied to Section 3402 of the Internal Revenue Code that's paragraph Q that sets out the limited Derek just mentioned, the $5,000 proceeds reflective of value of essentially 300 to 1 of the wager. It then talks about the three parties, so it would be the Gaming Commission, the Department of Revenue, and the particular licensee. It goes into the actual process for querying e-services and how that works. Essentially it talks about the fact that the employees who do the queries have to go through background checks. It talks about some of the information security requirements that are placed upon the licensee and notably to this conversation it talks about what happens if the system goes down, whether it's intentional on the part of DOR if they're bringing the system down to upgrade it or improve it or maintain it, or if it just goes down unintentionally and how that all works. It also includes some attachments including the background check form that have to be filed and things along those lines. So that's a very high level overview of the MOU and again I will circulate it to you all so you can see what it looks like. The other provision I think I referenced earlier is that it says that everyone understands that we will be moving from e-services to the API model I think in September and the licensees agree to cooperate with whatever the process is to get that up and running. So that's essentially what it says and it will just make sure I mean to your vote net just now to ensure that it incorporates both options if in fact e-services is not up and running by tomorrow morning. Thanks Tom. I'm satisfied. Any other questions on the MOU? So in order to be timely you know we could of course convene a meeting tomorrow in the event that this MOU comes together there's a question as to whether we want to rise the executive director. Now also know that the executive director knows that she has any concerns about the MOU but we can convene next week early and she could hold on her decisions. In other words if there were some real change in negotiations that weren't expected. Do I know? I think as long as there's no material change in the current draft and consistent with our conversation today other than that you know the delegation to have her execute it makes sense. Agreed Madam Chair. Thank you. Do we have a motion? We could come out of our heads. Authorize. Madam Chair I moved that the Commission authorize Executive Director Karen Wells to sign and execute the memorandums of understanding that are currently being finalized between the Department of Revenue and the various licensees absent any material change in the current drafts or anything that is inconsistent with today's conversation amongst the commissioners. Second. Second. Thank you Commissioner Skinner. Okay any discussion. Thank you for this everyone. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Meard. Hi. I vote yes. Five zero. Here we go. It'd be time for a break maybe. Well let me just look at the next item. Yeah we're going to need a break before we return to that and then we're going to have a break in between for C and 4D. I think if we could have our lunch break between C and D that would be great. How about a quick break now? Commissioners does that sound good? Okay so it's 12.16. Why don't we return at 12.30. Does that make sense? And then we'll hear from Sterl and T and then we'll have that break that Karen explained as necessary procedure. Thanks everyone. Thanks for the screen saving Dave. I'll set Dave. Excellent thank you. So we are streaming. Dave I'll set then let's do a roll call. It's the convening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. We're holding the meeting virtually. Thanks for everyone's patience and we took a quick break. Commissioner O'Brien. I am here. Commissioner Hill. I'm here. Commissioner Skinner. I'm here. Commissioner I'm here. Excellent. Now we are turning to item 4C. We're back to House Rules and we're back to Sterl Carpenter. Thank you so much for yesterday. Excellent session but we had some outstanding work and I know we've got legal helping us. We've got Bruce. So would I turn to first Sterl? Yes thank you Madam Chair and commissioners. Good afternoon. So the licensees were asked to make several changes to their House Rules or I should say a certain change and a couple of them had a couple. And as of this time all our licensees except for Encore Boston Harbor retail have submitted the changes requested by the commission from yesterday's meeting. I provided a summary of changes to the commission. If you would like I can go through all the details but in short BetMGM made the corrected change for the obvious errors in placing the language presented to them from legal department. Caesars has made the change to their change in which they will always round up and pay either to five cents or 10 cents and also made the obvious error pricing change. The draft Kings placed their the language on not voiding until commission approval in there their House Rules. Fandle has also done the same. MGM Springfield put the obvious error rule in the in effect in their submission. They also had to make a reference change as pointed out by the legal department and they changed the proper one to when authorized and ordered by the commission pursuant to 205 CMR 238.35. Penn Interactive as well as Penn PPC Penn National Gaming both changed the language to for obvious errors will not be changed until commission approval. WinBet is the final one and they as well made the correct of change for obvious errors. Is there any questions at this time for any of the House Rules to be approved? In terms of process. I'm sorry. Go right ahead, Commissioner Hill. I will never get in the way of a good compliment. No, I was just going to say great job to Bruce Sturrell and Crystal and the entire legal team for getting this done for us. There was a lot of conversation yesterday that took place and obviously the operators were listening and understood where we were coming from and to get it all done in the 24 hours it was miraculous. So great job to everyone. Thank you, Commissioner. But learning to needle before we can move on this, do we have to take care of the waiver? Is that kind of thing? I think it would be helpful to take care of the waiver first before you vote on the House Rules. That said, I don't think it's completely required because they have now amended their House Rules to recognize that the form certain types of waivers can be canceled. They need to receive prior approval of the commission. So happy to do it in whatever order you think makes sense. Just one quick when the commission approves the House Rules can just for legal, just a little help from legal is can we approve the changes for Encore Boston Harbor with the one caveat that they haven't made the change to the voiding of waivers? If I may, Chair, I would say that that my suggestion would be that the House Rules could be approved with a condition related to that provision. Thank you. I'm feeling a little bit I'm feeling a little bit discombobulated in terms of the packet. I have one that was supposed to be House Rules, but for some reason I'm only seeing that MGM and that's probably because I have to open up each one separately. So if you could just I just wanted to see what went back. So I've got changes to the House Rules packet that came in separate Karen. It's everybody, it's not in our packets in a separate packet. When I opened that I only had one document. Madam Chair are you looking for the changes that are to the House Rules, the document because it had to be sent separately because it was so late? So and so big. So no. So the only document that we have is the changes to the obvious errors in resettlement and that's compiled in one document and it has not yet been inserted into the House Rules themselves or have they done that? They have done that. I am in receipt of both the red line copy with the changes that I just highlighted the changes for all the commissioners, but we are in receipt of both the clean copies and the red line copies on the on the share drive. Okay. So you're satisfied that they've incorporated it into the ultimate document that we'll approve and so can you just remind me what WinBet hasn't done? It's not WinBet. It's just Encore Boston Harbor has not put their language in. Oh, it's Encore. That's okay. I'm sorry. That was my that was a tired brain mistake. I was thinking so it's Encore Boston Harbor. Correct. All right. So it'd be a condition to their House Rules or their license came in. I believe it would be excuse me. I'm sorry. A condition to their House Rules accepted. The House Rules were already approved because they are already brick and mortar. That's what I'm wondering. Can we just do a motion that we're ordering them to amend their House Rules consistent with that point? I think that's right. I apologize. I was you're talking about the brick and mortar that are already in place. I think that's right. We both do the same thing. So the other two brick and mortars have complied with yesterday's new language. Encore Boston Harbor has not yet applied. So they've changed a section in theirs for grammatical errors and they've made a slight change but they have not completed what was directed by the Commission yesterday to add. So they have rules that are accepted and posted online. They've made changes but they're still missing just one change. That's why I was asking for guidance on how we'd like to either not approve them, leave them out, and direct them to resubmit at a later time for the Commission to approve or just accept partial and then require them to also update. Do you have what have they? Have we done anything with respect to so have they done anything with respect to obvious errors yesterday's discussion? I'm going to just I don't want to speak incorrectly. Okay, thank you. I don't know if legal is taking a look at what they've submitted. So they updated on how to contact the Commission for Unresolved Patron Disputes. So that was the language that was provided by the Sports Division and they cleaned up grammatical errors but they have not placed in their obvious errors that they will not void unless approved by the Commission. I might just excuse me, sorry. Is it forthcoming? They're aware they said they would get it to us as soon as possible. Okay. You might have reached as soon as possible. I'm going to go to Caitlin, Commissioner O'Brien, because Caitlin might have an idea for us. I might suggest that if the Commission reviews and votes on the waiver now, it could hold the vote on Encore's amended house rules and send a note saying this is the waiver, this is the issue, please send us back amended house rules within X amount of time, but just not act on them today because it sounds like, I mean, they're already up and running. It's not the CAT 3 launch issue for tomorrow. It's just an amendment to the house rules that are already in existence. Caitlin didn't all of the brick and mortar casinos make changes to their house rules in response to a prior directive by this Commission. And so just reminding folks of that, I wasn't present at that meeting, but reminding folks of that, there's those outstanding changes that need to be addressed and accepted as well. I would have to defer to Sterl on that for the brick and mortars. They are in and they've been presented in both PPC and MGM are clear and approved with all their proper changes needed. It's just Encore that has not submitted that final note from yesterday. Okay. The memo that you circulated yesterday, it spoke to the changes that the brick and mortars made. And they're complete. And they are complete. But my point is I don't think the Commission has acted on those changes yet. Right? I could be wrong, but they were just presented to us yesterday. No, I know. And that's why I said when you vote on whether to approve all of the changes, including the retail, it's just Encore is not, either it has to be taken out or given like a waiver or like whatever Caitlin was saying as the condition. This seems like a really quick fix. I guess I'm a little flummoxed that EVH can't just by the, you know, by the time we come back from lunch, have that taken care of. Why don't I do this? Well, Sturrell's working with you on the house. I can call over there and see. Yeah, it seems like they could fix this. Yeah, I think we can get that fixed pretty quickly. Yeah. And to be clear, I think what Commissioner Skerr is also saying is, as I did grant, but look with his draft motions, draft motions look like they only, I might be missing it, only address the online house rules. Do we need to act on the amended house rules for the retail today? How did it get marked out? So we wouldn't be looking at them in any case. It was part of the memo at the very end that I discussed all of the changes that we've done. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you, Sturrell. Okay. I just, for category three operators. So Madam Chair, I have a process question then. Yeah. When category one is sending amendments back, do we vote on amendments as well? Okay. That's fine. By regulation, right? King? Yeah. By statute actually. By statute. Okay. So thank you. I'm realizing a little bit of a gender issue. I just received a message from EVH that they will get them to us right away. So maybe we could walk through the potential changes to the regulations. And maybe by that time you'd have Encore. Okay. And before we do that, I still have, let's, we've got Encore, we've got the retail, and we want to make sure we have the packet again in front of us. That would be yesterday's packet then with entire house rules. And so that we can, when we, when we actually vote on this, I would like, I think I've got, we're all looking at the same thing. And then in terms of, it was, I thought for one online, forgive me, I should have written it down. Maybe I did. For one online, they were looking for a release from one matter. That's Caesar's looking for a waiver. Yeah. Bruce is going to address that during his operation certificate presentation. That's going to be there in the house rules. Okay. So in terms of house rules, everything we have is in front of us except for the waiver from yesterday. And we have to go through the reg structure to do that, give it Encore Boston Harbor time. And then if somebody could figure out whether we can actually act on the retail today. That would be helpful. Okay. So, because maybe it's in the category of then anticipate or something. Okay. Let's, let's go to the reg then. And I'm looking at we've got two packets going. So maybe you can direct us to the right packet. Sure. And I will give a little bit, I'll be brief, but I'll give a little bit of an intro as to where we stand from yesterday. I'm looking at page 32 of 57 of the packet that's online. Okay. And that is where the first changes are. So I'll give a little intro first, if everyone's comfortable with that. And then we can talk about the particular changes. I just need to go to that page. I'm sorry. I don't, I have to, I think that truly circulated this morning, the revised packet. So I don't have that. I just have the one that's online. Okay, apologies. I get online. Is it 238 Gateline? Yes, it's in 238. Yeah. I have it as 26, page 26 of the 105. Yeah. Thank you. It's right up front. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all. Actually, 27. I stand corrected. Okay. Thanks, Caitlin. So at yesterday's meeting, the commission discussed the parameters for when a sports wagering operator may cancel wagers without prior commission approval. After a discussion, the commission determined that at least for the time being, sports wagering operators may only cancel wagers without prior commission approval in limited circumstances. Such instances would include situations in which unlawful or unauthorized bets are allowed, impossible bets are made, or where there is limited to no discretion in determining whether the wager should be canceled. In all other instances, the operator would need to seek the commission's approval prior to the cancellation of a wager. So with these parameters in mind, we reviewed the regulations for potential waivers or sections that would need to be waived. And after that review, we identified three provisions of 205CMR 238 and 247 that the commission may want to waive. So the first provision, excuse me, is 205CMR 238.351H. And this is actually not a provision we talked about yesterday, but I wanted to flag for the commission. It currently allows an operator to cancel a wager without prior approval of the commission where, quote, a material change in circumstances for a given sporting event or wager category occurs. So as written, this provision requires the operator to determine what a material change in circumstances is. And this would provide the operator with some discretion in that decision. The second, oh, yes. I'm so sorry. Where are you? Absolutely. So that is 238.351H. And again, apologies in my packet. That's page 32. It's page 58, Caitlin and ours. Sorry. Apologies. It's highlighted. It starts a material change in circumstances for a given sporting event or wager category occurs. Thank you so much. Okay, great. Thank you. The next provision is right after that. So it should be on the same page. And that's 238.351H. And this was discussed at length yesterday. It allows for the cancellation of a wager where the operator has, quote, a reasonable basis to believe that there was an obvious error in the placement or acceptance of the wager. I won't rehash the conversation yesterday, but obviously that gives the operator some discretion in deciding when to cancel a wager. And then finally we identified 205CMR 247.0710. I can give folks a minute to get to that in a packet. It's highlighted. So if you scroll down to the next highlight, I won't even try to give you a page number, but it's 247. 247 what was the 247.0710. It's highlighted. Could you give me a page number because I'm in yours. You're in mine 54. I thought I must have passed it because I'm so close to the end. Yeah. And so that, sorry. That provision similarly allows an operator to, quote, in its discretion cancel an accepted sports wager for an obvious error. So these provisions in some provide the operator with the discretion to cancel wagers and do not require the prior approval of the commission. And so should the commission decide to waive these provisions, we propose both waiving those sections identified and directing that while the waiver is in effect, all operators shall not cancel or avoid a wager due to a material change in circumstances or an obvious error without prior approval from the commission as outlined in 205CMR 238.35. Happy to answer any questions. AJD, if anybody needed to know the page. Thank you. So what has to happen? So I would suggest that you would move in accordance with 205CMR 202.03 to issue a waiver to all licensed sports wagering operators for those three provisions identified until such time as the waiver is lifted by the commission or the regulations are amended. And then you would further move that while the waiver is in effect, all licensed sports wagering operators shall not cancel or avoid a wager due to a material change in circumstances for an obvious error without prior approval from the commission. Can we have a specific date in mind yesterday? So it was only, I think it was only connected to, sorry, Kelly, I cut you off. I think it was connected to the cycling of the regs but we had a discussion whether we wanted to do it until we changed course actively or whether we wanted to link it to the cycling of the regs. I think we were linking it to the cycling of the reg. I always worry about having something temporary because then you have to remember. I wanted to have it until we actively went back because I was concerned about an accidental reversion myself but I know that not everyone felt that way. I've got that one out there, Commissioner O'Brien, that I keep on worrying about. I'm looking for another one. Yeah, she's looking for another one and I'm a little bit this would be suspending, this would making this the status quo unless we actively change it. The other option tying into the regs would be more like the sunset that you don't like, which is automatically thrown out. I think I gave you that one that day. You did. Everybody gave me that sunset. You did indeed. But I have it on my mind and I want to forget it, that sunset. We need a tickler legal team. So, commissioners, I don't know how we feel about the timing but right now it is not tied. I think it was an April date if I remember correctly. That's correct. These regs can come back in, I want to say mid-April for amendment. I was just concerned with everything we have on our plate having it do that and then having some sort of gap where these provisions then go into effect and would purportedly conflict with what we've had them change in their house rules and what we want right now. I just want to assure I love having a waiver, like just be eternal, but because I think the waiver is giving us more authority and control. Yeah, but I'm thinking we just would change the right. Right. That's really what I'm thinking, but we'd have enough time. I thought we thought maybe that would give us enough time to get some data, that it was a long enough period to get some data, but I just am just noting it. Anybody have any thoughts on that? I think, Mr. O'Brien and I were saying we wished it would have been changed yesterday. Right. We were told that it was going to be really hard to get it to file by today, which is why the waiver was the better option. I share your concern, Madam Chair, but the perfect thing would have been to change it, but say for perfect, we're going to have to figure out when this closes down. So it's not going to close down. My point is, if we want this reg to be corrected, I mean, I think we're all aligned to do it by that end of April, otherwise the waiver lifts gets us to, I don't know. You could leave the language like this just because date certain or difficult if something happened to the date or you needed an extra day to consider, but you could order us or direct us to come back to you mid to late April with amendments. We'd be happy to do that and put it on our chart. I'm happy to ask you to do that. Thanks. That's good. I'm fine with that. I just don't want to lose track of a waiver out there. Okay. Excellent. All right. So any further questions for Caitlyn? She walked us through the language once again and there were, you know, a couple of other provisions. So excellent work, Caitlyn. Anything else? Okay, I'll take a motion. This is on the waiver, correct? Yep. Yeah. Madam Chair, I would move that in accordance with 205CMR 202.023, the commission issue a waiver to all licensed sports wagering operators from the provisions of 205CMR 247.0710 and 205CMR 238.351HNI until such time as the waiver is lifted by the commission or the regulations are amended as granting the waiver meets the requirements specified in 205CMR 102.034 and is consistent with the purpose of GL chapter 23N. And I further move that while the waiver is in effect, all licensed sports wagering operators shall not cancel or avoid a wager due to a material change in circumstances or an obvious error without prior approval from the commission as outlined in 205CMR 238.35. Second. Any questions on that? All righty. Michelle Bryan? Aye. Michelle Hill? Aye. Michelle Skinner? Aye. Michelle Mainer? Aye. All right. Yes. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. And thanks, Sterl. That was good work. Good, good work. We've got to now turn to the operation certificate. And this is where Director Wells, you still would like us to take break. It's about one o'clock. How are we doing? And yes, we can take a quick break. We also did get the, I think, afforded to you by email. I'm not sure if everyone got it, but we did get the house rules from Uncle Boston Harper. And I just quickly ran through it and I gave you the page numbers in the email. It seems as if they had complied. I have also updated your document with their specific areas. All right. So we need to go back into our email box and Sterl, the other two retail worksbooks, I mean, house rules are in which document? So they're on yesterday's and I can bring it up for you if you would like? I think we can find yesterday's. Okay. Well, the only change would be Uncle Boston Harvest would now be in there. So to be clear, all of the licensee retails were included in yesterday's packet. The language that has just been changed in all three has included in this document that I just sent to you. Okay. That's what I was looking for. So, okay, thank you very much. Yeah, quite well. I didn't see it in the other one. All right. And legal, are we okay if we act on the retail house rules today? Todd, why don't you go? I thought I was taking a breath. I think Madam Chair, you've identified the issue squarely, which is that it's not on the agenda for review. But this does seem to me to be something that was not anticipated by the chair given the way this emerged. So if the commissioners are comfortable and you Madam Chair are comfortable, this feels like something you could address under that provision. Your last phrase was music to my ears. I'm comfortable then. I bet commissioners will proceed on that. I think, you know, the, yeah, we, that way we can make sure everyone's operating under the same conditions. Okay. Excellent. Commissioner Skinner, did you want to add? Yeah, it's just a request so that we are all clear and that the record is clear. Could we have a brief summary of the changes that the retail operators made to their house rules in response to the commission's request from prior meeting? We didn't do that yesterday. We didn't, I don't know if that was intended, but, and I don't know if this further complicates the issue of the agenda. But could I ask one favor, Commissioner Skinner? You know, this is a little bit out of, out of, but we have to take a break anyway, I think for E. Could we all take a look at what's in our email boxes and then have him do that summary so we could get, I'd like to take a look at the submissions of the three because he just said that they're just sent them to us. So I wanted during our lunch break if we could look at it and then have him do what you just asked. Yeah, so right. So just to be clear, I understand that all three of the category one operators made the change in response to yesterday's discussion on obvious errors. But in addition to that, I understand that there were other amendments made in response to the last meeting on house rules where category one, category one house rules was discussed. So I wasn't present for that meeting and because we didn't address those specific changes in yesterday's meeting, I was hoping to get it clear for the record exactly what it is we're going to be voting on today relative to the category one house rules. All the changes, all the changes from what we adopted when you were here. Yes, all the changes. Does that work for you, Sterl? If we take a look, we're going to see the red line from before and yesterday's, correct? So in yesterday's packet, the red lines are in all of the details from the changes. If I'm hearing Commissioner Skinner correctly, it's just the changes that were from the approved ones that are online to here currently, correct? Yeah, that was the document yesterday at the very end of the meeting, right? Okay. Those were all the changes that were made by the licensees. Each one had a little bit different things to do. Okay, so if we look at yesterday's packet for the earlier changes, we're not going to see those reflected in what you just sent out. What you're going to see is just the obvious errors. Though the one I just sent out will be just the obvious errors. So we've got to look at two sets of documents at the site. I can send both of them if it will be easy for everyone in one email to everyone if you would like. I understand where to look for the documents. I'm just asking that there be a public statement or summary of the amendments that were made just because they're amendments. I think we're going to do that. If you don't mind if we could just put it in our heads and review them and then he'll come and summarize right at the top of our meeting after lunch. I hope it's okay for you. If you're not prepared to do that, that's fine. But I'm hoping you are. No, I am. I can do it an hour after lunch. I think lunch will help us if you don't mind. Half an hour and then will that help you, Karen, if we just use this time to take a look at that? How are we doing on item D? You're on mute, Karen. I'm sorry. I was just speaking with Director Vand doing a final review. The document is ready to go. So we'll add that to the packet, send the final version to the commissioners and we'll be ready to go when you are. So for the category three house rules, we're dealing with that after lunch, right? We're voting on them after lunch as well as the operations certificate. Oh, I'm sorry. Category three. Okay. I made this understood. The memo is ready to go with the assumption that the commissioners approved the house. Okay. That's where we are. Yes. So that's right. So my mistake, Karen, and you need that for just the online. Just the online. Exactly. So we can come back and do the retail after lunch, but we do need to move on the online now. Correct. That was my understanding of the plan. Okay. And it's best if we take them one house rules at a time, correct? Let's do it. Do I have any emotions with respect to, emotions with respect to the health rules for the online sports wager? Category three. Okay. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approved the house rules submitted by the category three sports lead during operator Penn Sports Interactive has included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. Any discussion? Commissioner Bye? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. Five, zero. Another commissioner or commissioner Skinner? Either one. I'd be more than happy to move that the commission approved the house rules submitted by the category three sports way during operator bet MGM as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Excellent. Second. Thank you so much. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. And I vote, oh, sorry, commissioner Maynard. Aye. I need lunch apparently. And I vote yes. Five, zero. Thank you for bet MGM. Moving on to Caesars. I have a motion. Mr. Skinner? I move that the commission approved the house rules submitted by the category three sports majoring operator, American majoring Inc. DBA Caesars sports book as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. Second. Okay. Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Thank you. And she had the second as well. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. How about for Draft King? Madam Chair, I move that the commission approved the house rules submitted by the category three sports majoring operator Crown in May gaming LLC doing business as Draft King as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. Any discussion? Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. Five, zero. All right. Now bet there. I move that the commission approved the house rules submitted by the category three sports majoring operator bet fair interactive DBA fan dual sports book as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. Mr. O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? You say aye. Aye. Thank you. And I vote yes. Five, zero. Madam Chair, I moved that the commission approved the house rules submitted by the category three sports majoring operator wind bet as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. Thank you. Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. Five, zero. I want to make sure I did vote affirmatively on Vandal, correct? Yes. Thank you so much, everyone. I'm making check marks and I'll make sure I recorded my own vote. All right. We've dealt with the waiver, the operation certificate will deal with after lunch, the first before we turn to operation certificates after lunch we will turn to the retail house rules that have been amended and we'll just ask Gerald to walk us through those amendments. Those that were prior to yesterday and the ones that we dealt with today. Okay. And thank you to Uncle Bosch's Margaret for getting that done. One 16. We'll return a quarter of two, one 45. All right. Thank you so everyone else after that. Thank you so much. All good to go. Thank you. Okay. We're reconvening the meeting of master's gaming commission holding this meeting virtually. So we'll do a roll call. Good afternoon, Commissioner Ryan. Good afternoon. I'm here. Good afternoon, Commissioner Hill. Hello. I'm here. Good afternoon, Commissioner Skinner. Good afternoon. And good afternoon, Commissioner Maynard. Good afternoon. So we're going to get started again. We're reconvening public meeting number 442 and we left off having just approved the house rules for the category three operators. There are six of them at this time. We have one that will be returning for their house rule approval at a future date as they look to launch in the near future. But we did need to return before we go to item 14 on the agenda. We want to turn to the category one house rules and their request for amendments as well as their response to our decision yesterday with respect to obvious, but we decided they're not necessarily so obvious errors. So I think we're going to have Sturrell go through and Sturrell, if you want to remind us of the fact, I think they're alphabetical order, am I wrong? But there's so many pages. If people want to turn to it, you could start with the number page. I don't know if you have that. It's a 1089 page document from yesterday. Small document, yes. It's a small document, but I love saying that we have a 1089 page document in front of us. Sturrell, we'll turn to you for the three retails. And today, we appreciate the fact that Armour Corp Boston Harbor got back to us on yesterday's issue. So we should be all set now. Correct. So I have two options for the commission. I can either go through my document that just lists out all of the changes from them, or I can go and direct you to each page in each of the operators house rules in the packet. Which would you prefer? Madam Chair, so I asked for the summary. I don't need you to go through each of the pages. I'm just really looking for kind of quick and dirty summary. It's just helpful for me to have you confirm my understanding of what the changes are, because again, I would be present for that meeting. So this doesn't have to be in depth. So the answer to the question about going line by line, page by page, I don't need that. But I defer to my fellow commissioners. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner, are you all set with respect to this? Just an overview is all we need, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Then in that case, I will share my screen and I will increase the font size when I get it to it. Is that a good size for everyone? Okay. Yes. So Encore Boston Harbor updated how they contact the commissioner for unresolved patron complaints. And we provided all of our licensees with this language. And Encore has updated it to state exactly what we wanted to. As you can see the change we were being contacted directly by the division. There's the exact email, mail, and phone number options are now straightforward to the consumer. They cleaned all their grammatical errors. They're very like commerce. It's very minor on there. And then of course, from today's or from yesterday's meeting, they have addressed their obvious errors section. MGMS, MGM Springfield, they added specific maximum and minimum wagers that are to be accepted. They now list that it was from 50 cents to $10 million. They deleted a line about payout ratio limits and they deleted any reference towards penalties. So listed here they had one in their football section and then they had yellow cards in their soccer. PPC, they added specific minimum and maximum wagers that were to be accepted. They list out that it is $10 million as well and $5 as a minimum. They cleaned their grammatical errors. There were small references in their prohibited players from inserting it from the pen interactive. They changed Parley language in section five just to be a little clear. The bet is made as part of a Parley. Shall we remain valid notwithstanding a matron event which is part of the Parley bet being made void. Of course, again, we have specific voids but we also have voids in which are by regulation that would fall under the Parley. And then they removed penalty language in event areas. So there was one here in their bet types referring to it with the first card. They had one referring to it. It's just in head to head as team will receive a yellow card and then settlement of penalty offers will be based on the penalties being accepted. They removed that section in port two. And those were just the changes that they had to their regulations from the one that was on our website. Of course, they all have now addressed the obvious errors in the document sent today. Is there any other further questions? Questions commissioners? All set. So we are looking to approve those amendments today as well. I have a motion. I'd be more than happy to make the first motion, Madam Chair. Thank you. I move that the commission approve the amended House rule submitted by the category one sports wagering operator, Penn National doing business as Plain Ridge Park Casino as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Any other questions? Mr. O'Brien? Hi. Mr. Hill? Hi. Mr. Skinner? Hi. Mr. Maynard? Hi. I vote yes. Five zero. Thank you. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the amended House rule submitted by the category one sports wagering operator on for Boston Harbor as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. Thank you. Any questions or edits? Mr. O'Brien? Hi. Mr. Hill? Hi. Mr. Skinner? Hi. Mr. Maynard? Hi. And I vote yes. Five zero. All right. Next. Mr. Hill? Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the amended House rule submitted by the category one sports wagering operator, MGM Springfield as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. Thank you. Any questions or edits? Okay. Mr. O'Brien? Hi. Mr. Hill? Hi. Mr. Skinner? Hi. Mr. Maynard? Hi. And I vote yes. Five zero. All right. Well done, Starle. Thank you so much. Thank you all. That was a very big, big project and an important piece of work as we move on to 4D. So thank you. I'm going to turn to Karen and Bruce. Thank you. Morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. We're moving on to the sports wagering operations certificate for the mobile operators. The sports wagering operations certificate falls under 205-251. And today, before you, we have a request from American Wagering, which is also known as Caesar Sportsbook, Bet MGM, Crown MA Gaming, also known as DraftKings, Betfair Interactive, that are known as FanDuel, Penn Sports Interactive, and WinBet. In accordance with 251, Class Category 3 operator certificate shall not issue unless sports wagering operator is demonstrated to the commission that is complied with all the requirements of 23N205-CMR and the applicable laws. Such compliance includes but is not limited to approval of the system of internal controls, including implementation of approved policies and procedures required. Provision of the current list of sports wagering employees, sports wagering vendors, and non-sports wagering vendors. Compliance with any other conditions imposed by the commission to secure objectives of 23N and 205. There are a number of other requirements in this section that only apply to Category 1 and 2 operators. A note of internal control process includes approval of the house rules and responsible gaming plan, including voluntary self-exclusion protocols in 205-233.066. Prior to the issuance of the operations certificates, sports wagering operators shall successfully complete an evaluation of the test period in accordance with such terms and conditions as reasonably calculated by the commission to allow the commission to assess whether the licensee is in compliance with 23N205-CMR-251-205-CMR-2502. This process will be conducted by GLI and include a review of the geofencing capabilities upon successful completion of the test period in accordance with 205-2502. The commission shall establish the effective date of operations certificate and the scope of the sports wagering operators authority to conduct sports wagering. 205-CMR-2501-031, each certificate once issued shall remain in effect throughout the term of the sports wagering operators license under such terms and conditions as the commission may impose, but may be revoked, suspended, limited, or otherwise altered by the commission. 205-CMR-251-32, each sports wagering license to which the operations certificate is issued shall conduct sports wagering strictly in accordance with the terms of the original operations certificate and shall not change any of the items to which the operations certificate applies except as otherwise approved by the commission 205-CMR-2501-033. Listed below are the results of each applicant. American Wagering Caesar Sports Book. I might add this is the only one that is requesting a waiver in their application. The wager was attached in it. As far as the internal controls go, that passed through JLI with no major findings in their submission. Staffing and vendors and non-sports wagering vendors, there's no issues to report. Compliance with any other conditions imposed by the commission to secure their conditional upon Caesar Sports Book completing operational audits of the wagering procedures and practices and technical security controls as required by the commission, the standards gathering, sports wagering, within 90 days of commencement as a sports wagering. Geofencing capabilities passed. Player management. This is where the requested wager comes up. They did not pass when it came to the requirement of 205-248-16 when you put a limit on and they could change the requested limit, but they couldn't change it again in a second dairy thing. They have this change request in with JLI right now. JLI had asked that there is another change to it and they're hoping by the end of the day, I believe tomorrow or today that they will have this debt out of the lab again. So this would be the waiver that they're requesting right now that they be allowed to proceed with this in effect. Is that that they've done the fix, but they're waiting for JLI to confirm? They're waiting for the approval on the fix through JLI, yes. Good afternoon, Joe. Thank you. I'll let Floyd introduce himself and speak to the commission here. That's okay. Fair. Go ahead, Floyd. You might want to introduce yourself. Thank you, Joe. This is Floyd Baroga, Vice President and Product Compliance for Caesars. So to add up, as far as what Director Ban mentioned, Caesars has finalized the update for JLI and this morning they've confirmed the closure of that issue and we do meet Caesars Sports Waging Platform does meet the 205-CMR-248-16 section 2. So that would close off all of the items that JLI flagged in their evaluation and I believe that report will be issued later today. So depending on the recommendation of the commission, our platform is compliant with all of the current adopted regulations associated with the product. So depending on, you know, there's the administrative process of JLI providing that report and then the MGC approving. So we can see this can either rescind that conditional approval request or, you know, maybe suggest a conditional approval for a week. We will go live with the update but if there's any administrative process needed, then that would give us time to give the commission time to approve that and and do with the due diligence. So to clarify, have we heard that there is now compliance that JLI is signing off on verbally right now? Good afternoon, Commissioner. I just kind of want to jump in just to reiterate and just verify what Floyd had mentioned. It was submitted, it was fixed, the system is verified, the letter will be issued by end of day today. That sounds good. So it doesn't sound like provisional is even necessary, right? It sounds like they're good to go according to JLI, right? Well the official letter, I mean this just came out of the lab, I just got this over the wire like honestly minutes ago. So the actual official letter has yet to be issued. So the current letter they have has the stipulation which would require a waiver. But that's the actual status right now. So here we are. But it's a ministerial execution in terms of updating your letter, right? That is correct. Correct. Let's just slow it down for a second. We've got, Kristen has joined us. Joe, I just want to make sure that the letter that is issued, that has the mentions the a need for a waiver or a condition was issued by JLI. Correct. And the letter that Gabe says it's going to be ready by the end of today will be issued by JLI. Correct. And you are saying that you know you can tell us that what will be content of tonight's letter? Is there any comment? It will be the exact same letter that was currently issued except the exception will be removed. That one stipulation has now been qualified by Floyd's group and verified by JLI. Okay. And I'm just going to ask one more question. I'll turn Kristen, my fellow commissioners. I know that there's a little bit of time between now and whatever time you're going. Is there any chance that there'll be a different decision by JLI? No. Thank you. Kristen? Yes. Once we receive the letter today, I'll review it and I'll also verify against the hash signatures that exist now on Cesar's platform. So I'll do one more check. So there is an additional check by us. There's the process commissioners. Excellent work, everyone. Ruth's really nice. Nicely done. All right. I'm trying to think if we can, you're going to continue, right, Ruth? Just one clarification for Christian. The signatures as far as what JLI will be issuing will be the same. So that validation that the lab has conducted will still be valid. It's, we configured the environment so that JLI can verify that we're compliant with the regulation that was requested. Kristen? I understand. I agree. Great. Ruth? Yeah, I kind of agree with what they're saying with this. I don't see why this should hold it up that they're going to get the approval. I hope you have a follow-up for Christian. Yes. Thank you. I'm just looking to see what's in our packet. And we have Cesar's, DraftKings, Vandal, and Barstool. Yes. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Skinner. Christian, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but do you have any reason to believe that your check, your internal check of the letter issued by JLI will not meet the requirements? No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just processing, guys. I feel like I'm short on JLI documents. I've got Cesar's, DraftKings, Vandal, Barstool. You have in that they're the internal controlled documents, not the geofencing documents? No, no, no. But in terms of, this is for the certificate of operation, draft 4 out of the 6 with pending items. Am I looking at the wrong document? The other thing you have in there is the waiver request from Cesar's. Yeah, I have that. What about BetMGM? BetMGM should be in there. Pack it or the email? This is the timing I have is... There's an email from 126 this afternoon. Yeah, that's what I need. Let me just see. That's in front of your mailbox now, Chair. Yeah, thank you. I'm working hard on documentation, guys. So thank you. And it came from whom, Patricia Skinner? It came from Bruce. I just sent it to the... That was Karen. I'm sorry. I just sent it so you should get any seconds. And there are all six PDFs for each of the... Yeah, thank you. And the conditional request and the memo? Yeah, I read the memo and I only had four and it didn't make sense for the memo. So thank you very much. Okay, that's going to be much more helpful to me. This is just because I was scrolling for the wrong names during my lunch breaks. Thank you. So questions for Bruce on the process of just determining that the certificates can issue. And Director Wells, please chime in. And whoever else should be chiming in. Anything that you want to add? Karen? No. Actually, we'd like to, you know, Gabe and Joe have been tremendous. They've been with us every step of the way on this process. They've put in a tremendous amount of work along with their team. They've got all these done by this date is incredible. So thank you to them on the testing process and all that. Very grateful. Yeah. So in terms of walking through any desire commissioners in terms of needing to go through one of these just to kind of point it with a certificate? Are you comfortable having gone through? It was all real time today. I know we're pressed for time, but is there a way to just go through really quickly? High view for the record? One of them? I feel like we should probably do that because we did just get them and we're painting ourselves. Yeah. I had the others. I don't know. In terms of being pressed for time, do we have a hard stop today? I know that we have excused Mark from the item. So I think this is our key decision today. So I want to make sure everybody, this will allow online sports wagering to occur tomorrow. So I do want everyone to be very comfortable. This is the process that had to occur kind of with this kind of timing. So Bruce, does that make sense? And with Joe's help and Gabe's help to just go through this process a little bit more? Yes. Thank you. I appreciate it. Which one do you want to go through? Just use one and then who are you pulling up? So where do you want to go to next? Which one do you want to start with Barstool? Just use that one as the first alphabetical order. Sure. With Barstool, you mean as far as looking at their attachment? Yeah, looking at the certificate, the GLI. I could just walk through that. Maybe it's with Joe and Gabe, but it's the report on the assessment. You want me to share my screen? I see Commissioner Hill saying yes. Okay. See, and I will make it bigger. Everybody see that? Looks good. Everybody see that okay? You want bigger? A little bigger? Yeah, Commissioner Skinner, I can see her leaving in. Yeah. For the future, anytime you want to put a font of 150, feel free. I know. But my computer is kind of acting on its own. That's okay. Looks like he froze. Bruce is frozen on my screen. I don't know if... Yeah, he looks it on mine too. I may stop sharing his screen and it may jolt him back real quick. I'll see if that helps. It looks good. There you it. It has any questions? Bruce, you did freeze. You looked really nice when you froze, but you did freeze for a bit. So we'll have to start at the beginning again. I don't know if there's any way to just have the document, but we do see a little bit of the... That's fine. Okay. Can you see the executive summary? The rest is really who did the evaluation. Basically says that, you know, sports waging is approved in Massachusetts. This is the scope of their evaluation, how they approach this. I have to scroll down. Yeah. My scrolling thing isn't working the best on this, but... Sorry. The conclusion is the most important thing. So they identified none all together, even the most. Okay. And I asked the question, and Commissioner is chiming too. If we were to look at all six, that's the conclusion the same. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. Pretty much so, yes. I say this is, I think, out of the report, the most important thing that you guys would be interested in. Okay, everybody. Commissioner, is there any questions on those? Bruce, when you said pretty much, can I just ask Gabe and Joe, were there any of the other that had different findings, or were they all the same with the no, no, no? All risks, categories. I'm entirely sure of the question. I mean, it's a... I could say this. It's a pretty massive audit that we went through and process here. I believe there's almost 1200 line items on the template. And there was multiple teams assigned to the different operators. So that, to answer that question with full confidence would be, take me some time. Yeah, I was going to say, if you want to go on the document page to 124. There we go. There is a summary, I think. Yeah, go Gabe. I was going to say, if you go to 124, that's another, I know you wanted other examples from the other licensees. If you go to 124 in your document page, it's going to be Caesar's. Of Caesar's? Yeah, it's 124 on that document. And then if you go into the findings, you'll see, right, none of them are going to have any major non-conformities. And anything that was brought up during the audit would have been addressed with the licensee at that point before anything would move forward. And we, if you keep scrolling, it should be page 124 on the revised packet. Okay, this only goes up page 16. Yeah, it's a commission packet, Bruce. So if you look at page 124, if you pull that down, Bruce, I can bring it up. Okay. Or I could share it. And I didn't mean to disrupt, but I think probably, as you knew where it was going, I just, we saw that finding, and I just wanted it to cross the board. It was similar, but I. No, again, adoring it, if there was any kind of issue, there would have been addressed with the licensee. But okay, for example, if you see down here, there's some points of emphasis and observation would have been made, which are considered low risk. And if you look at a standard audit, you would have actual non-compliance, non-conformance. And then you would have these observations as something that would go in a management letter, which is basically saying you're compliant, but we think you can do better. And this is what these areas of observations would be that GLI has worked with the, with the licensee zone. So these two areas, the major non-conformities and minor non-conformities would be places that you're not compliant with the internal controls and the regulations that we've put forward. And these observations are things that you would say, hey, you're there, but we think you can get better based on, based on your peers in the industry. And if you scroll down just a little more, you can actually see the, okay, yeah, stop right there. You can actually, you can see it in the actual environment itself. And then it's easy. Yeah, so you're finding right there. So that's really helpful. I would refrain from using finding, I would say observation. Observation. Yeah, in all of the world, it's two different things. Yeah, I don't want them to. So if you could just go back up to the summary, because I think that's for us the highest level we saw for, who was our first? It was a bar stool, right? There were no observations, no. They were just in no major and no minor non-conformities. So you come to Caesars, commissioners, I'm curious to know if there's any other of the six today for observations. And then I'm also curious to know about these observations, but I, this is just me. If we want to go through without disruption, I apologize, because I know I said, let's go through the document and now I'm disrupting it. Do you want to do a comparison across the board on the subsection four? Do you want me to go back up to bar stool so you can see, then go to bed MGM and then go? That's what I'm wondering. I don't want to disrupt completely, but it does show, I see now the comparison. So maybe we should go back up to bar stools and commissioners. So we were at section four. Whoever's sharing, if you could just call up the page numbers as we go through, that would be helpful. I will. Got the very, very top there, little and tiny, tiny. So I think this is our first one for bar stool, and we are at page 92. And there were some observations. There were. Thank you. Oh yeah, temporary proposition. So commissioners, do you want to go through this, these summary of findings with more carefully with Bruce and Gabe and Joe? I need a little bit of input from you, I guess. I think it makes sense if that's, if that's what you need to feel comfortable, Madam Chair. At least there's two of us. Thank you so much. So Chair Judd Stein, I would recommend that these two areas, major nonconformities and minor nonconformities, you see nothing there. And then under the observations, I don't think that should hold up opening or discussion. But I think you, if you take a look at these areas here and see these first two areas, nothing, no major or minor nonconformities move on to the next one. And then if you have an issue with an observation, you could follow up with the staff after the fact. Otherwise, you're going to get into management level discussions that do not impact compliance with our internal controls or our regulations as written. And just to add what Derek was saying, you know, an observation is really to ensure good practice that gets, that's kind of below the internal control procedures that gets into what Derek alluded to, your operating procedures and management decisions. So this is Commissioner O'Brien though, on that particular reg reference for that observation, because of what it is, I'm just looking for a little more clarity. I'm assuming that because the specific 72, 1 week, 2 week, 3 week was removed. That's why they're nonconforming with that at this point. Because that's the section that we initially had prescribed set time periods and we realized it was better to not do that. So if that's the only reason that that observation is in there, I'm comfortable. If it's something beyond that, that's different. In other words, I do think we might want you to give a little higher level of the observations. Yeah, just I mean that particular one because of what it is. Yeah, just if you can confirm for me what I'm thinking it is, that would be great. Or if it's something different, obviously tell me it's different, but I can speak on behalf of the audit group that did this. I'd have to dive into their notes, their work papers to see. I wouldn't feel comfortable answering on their behalf. And that's going to be true as we go through this, all of these documents. Yeah, again, I mean, it's okay that there are findings and I will note that every single regulation you see here has a subset of lists and every single one was checked to which the report shows there's findings. I mean, we're going to be here a week if we drill into every one. Yeah, I don't want to do that, but I also don't want to gloss over something that for all of the commission was deemed pretty important. So I'm not asking for that, but if there's, you know. And again, Commissioner O'Brien, these are observations. They're not major or minor. I know. You know, that deal with the regs and the internal controls, these get into the practice of the, you know, the licensees. Right. Although that observation says that they're not consistent with our updated requirement. Right. I'm going to ask for a five minute break, please, if you don't mind and regroup, because I think Commissioner O'Brien is asking fair questions. Thanks so much. Someone is unmuted. Okay, Dave. Sorry, a little bit longer than five minutes, but some good assessment and planning. Remember, you have to reconvene, so we're holding this virtually. I'll do a real call. Commissioner O'Brien. I am here. Commissioner Hill. I'm here. Commissioner Skinner. I'm here. Commissioner Maynard. I'm here. Right. And I thank everyone for being patient. Remember, these documents did have to come to us kind of at the last minute when we were really issuing, issued pursuant to our last vote. So we knew that there would be a little bit of a collision. So we just talked a little bit about process. And I think Karen will be coming on. I do believe that perhaps it was a little bit of a miscommunication. And I want to clarify that. I want to thank Gabe and Joe from GLI for being on board. We've got Bruce back. And then Derek also weighed in. I'm going to turn to Karen where we left it. Karen, if you could, I see Joe's got his hand up. But I'm going to start with the executive director. If you want my job. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. Just to clarify, I think we just need to get all on the same page here is that my understanding that commission is not looking to go through every single thing that the GLI team tested. They're just looking for some high level. And I spoke again with GLI regarding what is a major nonconformity, what is a minor nonconformity and what is an observation. And that the major and minor nonconformities were things there may be a violation in the reg. However, the observations are more at that high level. Look that there didn't seem to be any kind of violation or no reason to not launch the operators going forward. But as we go forward in the process, there may be something we want to look at going forward and work with them. They're not the way that the GLI team went through all these. You know, they'd have to pull work papers and on the observations, they did look up the answer to the question that Commissioner O'Brien asked. So they may not be able to do that for all of these. We could certainly come back for another commission meeting to go through observations if we've wanted anything, any specific question answered, but we may not be able to answer the observations today. But what from what they're indicating to me that should not impact the launch, but they would do their best to get the information to the commission because they're entitled to any information that they want. It just may take a little bit of time. Does that make sense? So my recommendation again would be this and thank you, Karen. That does make sense. There is in each GLI report a section for with the findings. And there's a notation about major nonconformities and minor nonconformities. Commissioners, we have our decision making is this. We have to decide whether or not we can authorize the issuance of the certificate of operations. Those findings are going to be telling for us. We are going to rely on the expertise of GLI and the testing in the S. Ports-Wadring Division in IEP. The observations are noted. The GLI won't have necessarily answers for all of them. But what I think we could ask of GLI, any observation, something that we have to consider as risk high enough to consider for operations? My thinking, Karen, given your assessment is that both the observations, if they were impactful, they would have moved up on a noncompliant. That is 100% correct. Okay. So what I think when we're looking at the observations, what you're saying is if it's something of note, we could take it up later or GLI and Bruce's team will be taking up later. Correct. So I had, when we first got to that thought, it might be helpful to look at section four across the board because for all six of them, because it would indicate to us, do we have any concerns? I do think there's also the exercise of going through the document, just what the document is on a high level, not going through each element at all, but just going through the high level of what the document is, and then maybe returning to section four, do we have any issues? Now, Turner-Jo, do you have another recommendation or am I clear? I do. I just wanted to note that I have brought on Torsten Toms, who works directly at GLI, who you have met on previous calls and maybe at GLI university events. He has extensive experience as a regulator and he was part of the audit team. Again, like I said, there was close to 17, we'll call it 20, 20 individual people who worked as teams to get these audit reports completed. So it was a monstrous task and Torsten was part of one of those teams and worked on one of these reports. So if there's very specific questions to the process or the verbiage on the report, Torsten is I brought them on so you can answer those questions. Thank you so much and thank you, Torsten. And good to see you again. So commissioners, do we want to go through one of the documents for format, high level to understand the process, and then how do we feel about just going across the board with section four, I started to look at them, but I didn't know if everybody else had the chance to do that exercise. Commissioners, I'm all ears if you have ideas for process. That makes sense to me, Madam Chair, to do the walkthrough on one and then across the board on four. And we'll turn to your specific question in a second when we get to that one. Okay. And other input, Commissioner Hill, how are you feeling about that approach? This is what the majority of the board would like to do, then I will move forward with it. I was able to go through during the break and look at section four in all the applications and I'm fine with moving forward after looking at that and from hearing from GLI that there doesn't seem to be any major issues that we should be concerned of. However, if there are other members of the commission who want to go through the exercise that you have outlined, I'm okay with that. Commissioner Scanniel? So I have an understanding of the differences between a finding and an observation and I absolutely agree that there are items that are more urgent for the commission's attention and it's my understanding that we don't have any of those urgent items today. There's no reason to call into question GLI's judgment there. I was comfortable moving forward with that representation and going through the votes for the operations certificates but I do understand that there are questions remaining of my fellow, among my fellow commissioners so I'm happy to just to walk through the process because I want us all to be comfortable. I do think that the point of reviewing the observations at a later date makes total sense because while the observations don't suggest that any of the operators are out of compliance with our regulations, we can always take a recommendation to improve the process, our regulations and perhaps amend them at a later time. So it's good to know what those observations entail but again, I'm comfortable moving forward as is with the representations made by GLI. Okay, I don't know if we've had full representations yet from GLI but we can get those certificate. I don't think anybody was calling into question GLI's judgment. Certainly I'm going to speak for me, Commissioner O'Brien. I think I want to make sure that because that's not we would just think understanding process in terms of has everybody had the chance then to go through the document because there's no need to if we, Commissioner O'Brien, are you comfortable? Would you like to walk through? Hi, for transparency to be blunt in the open meeting, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to just walk through on a high level what this is on one of them. I really don't. I agree entirely. This is a very significant decision. He's just came to us. We've got Bruce Banner expert. That's only two of us. Commissioner Maynard, how do you feel? I will never stop any commissioner from wanting a more detailed review than what I'm satisfied with. And so that's where I'll leave this. Okay, I'm sure let's go through the document. Jared, can I just clarify? I'm in support of walking through the document and I think I made that clear. So that's now four of us. I think five actually because Commissioner Hill is also on the same page. I wasn't sure if you were or not. Okay, thank you. My apologies. All right. I just want to confirm with GLI these documents. There's no issue because there is a red confidential on there. But my understanding is all this is available to be shared publicly. It would just be more but more detail about some of the information may trigger some confidential information. I just want to be sure because. If it's marked confidential, it shouldn't be shared. I can speak strongly at that. I mean, again, this is a pretty massive undertaking. So there's a lot of line items and what was marked confidential will be clear on the letter. It should be. I mean, just so you fully understand a little bit of the process and also the internal controls themselves. Some of these control controls aren't actually active because the sportsbooks aren't active. So that's also needs to be considered going over this review. While they do have policies that should fit those things, there is more process to be taken place in the audit to make sure that while they're actually live, things can be verified. But I will make one more note that some of the things that got checked off actually happened over share, like screen share because of confidentiality. So it's just how the audit process works. Derek, did you have a thought on that? Yeah, so I have a question for you, Joe, on that matter. So these are the summary reports. We don't have the work papers behind it. Are the summary reports public documents or are they because every page is marked confidential in your summary report? I'm not a lawyer and really can't speak. That's not a question. I think a Todd way in case. Thank you. We have these have already been put in the public domain. I mean, the real question is whether there's any sensitive information in there. There's been no request. So we don't have to share this information publicly at this point. And so that is really the question. And I mean, a quick look, I didn't see anything myself, but there are certainly things in there that I might not have detected. So General Counsel Grossman, I believe that Karen explained that these documents would go into the public sphere earlier, and I believe they were posted. We need to take those down, Todd. Well, again, it depends whether there's sensitive information in there. Well, why don't I do this? Why don't we take a five minute break? Let me talk to them and be good. Thank you. Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you. I'll start again, Dave. Yeah, great. Thanks, Dave. All right, missionaries, Michelle, Brian, is there a problem right now? Can you hear me? Yes. But I can't hear you guys. You can unmute yourselves now. Somebody must have been shoddy at the break because we were all forced to do this. I am here. Okay. So are we doing a roll call? Oh, right. That was funny. Yes, Commissioner Brian. I'm here. Good. That was really good communication, Commissioner Brian. I just want you to know I was... I do it across the room with my children all the time. Like, you need to stop. Sometimes we see that look. We know that look. Okay, Commissioner Hill. I'm here and I was not the one that was shoddy. Yeah. Was I shoddy? No. Now, somebody must have written because somebody must have put that protective measure in place. Got it. Commissioner Skinner? I'm here. Commissioner Meanard. I'm here. And I'm still here. Okay, let's get going. So again, patience for the public. This is real-time work at hand. We do have to work in the public sphere and we just want to get this right. And so, Karen, you were right to pause. Let's get a little update. Yes. So many thanks for the pause. Just wanted to confirm that we were doing everything appropriately. We are. So both through legal and we've checked with GLI that that document was designed for the public purpose. So as far as running through the process, the GLI suggested that Thorsten go through what one of the documents that he was involved in. And we recognize the Commission just wants a really high level. This is what we're doing. Not no need to go too far into detail, but just so they have a sense of what the process is. And then, Madam Chair, my understanding is we can look at section four if there's any, you know, my understanding is all of them in the major and minor are all set. So those should be consistent across the board. But, Gors, if you just want to start reviewing the document you had worked on, that would be helpful for the Commission. Thank you, Thorsten. Oh, he's trying to get unmuted. Let's see. Okay, star six. That's all I know. Oh, there you are. I'm here now. I kept hitting unmute and it kept saying the host is not allowing you to unmute. I must have been the chatty one. They turned me off. Would you like me to share the document or do you have the document there to share? If you have it available to share, that's probably easier. All right, let me give it a try here. Thank you. The next step will be to have them, we're just going to fly through each section four and then have the Commission move if they are satisfied to move per section four. Okay. Are you seeing the document and it is that if it's sufficient size for people to understand it? Yes. And yes. Okay. So this is actually 148 of the packet, page 148, which is the beginning of the FanDuel section. And I'm the primary auditor for FanDuel. So I thought I'd walk you through this one as an example of how it's done. Just as a general overview for the way that I've done audits, and typically they're done, as has already been said, if there's a major nonconformity, to me that means a regulation has been violated and it's a serious violation, a minor nonconformity, a regulation has been violated, but it's not that significant. The risk is low. And an observation is just something where the auditor has seen something that does not quite seem right, but it's not a regulation violation. So with that in mind, let me just scroll through here. This first part, as you can see, is for FanDuel, for mobile. We have some reference information and they're all going to be the same. So the beginning of all these reports is going to have this information. As you can see, I am the report author of this. The quality was assured by another person on our team. And the confidential classification is, it's confidential for us at GLI. And if we send it to you and you decided to make it confidential, then you could, of course, keep it confidential. We're not going to share it with anybody, but you are a customer. And then we have the table of contents. Again, the table of contents is going to be identical for all of these. So this is kind of boilerplate. You'll see that for all of them. Of course, you are our customer. And the purpose of this is to go through and look at the internal controls and make sure that as far as we can tell before go live, because remember, we're doing all this before bed has been placed, are these internal controls provided to you and then on to GLI sufficient to meet the regulations? And that's, you know, there's a lot of words here, but that's what they say. That's what we're going to go through and make sure of. So what mechanism did we use to do that? The operators, and here we have more scope and methodology and things like that. But what the operators did is they submitted a set of policies and then kernel controls and other documents. We internally have a spreadsheet that has about a thousand checks, thousand steps to check. And here's the summary of findings. So for FanDuel, I found no major nonconformities were identified during my review. No minor nonconformities were identified during my review. At the end of the process, when I first went through them, I did find things and I reached out to FanDuel and they addressed those and sent updated internal controls, updated policies, updated terms and conditions, until in my opinion, they met the requirements of the regulations pre-launch. So it's not like we had a perfect set of internal controls, policies and documentation up front. It took a couple of back and forths to get that to the point where I was willing to sign off on it, to allow I was willing to put my name on this and say that they were good. Now let's get to the observation. In their documents submitted for review, they said that they were not a class one or class two licensee. Therefore, some of the things on the checklist did not apply. I took them at their word. So if they, you know, they said that that did not apply, I would look at that. No, yep, this is definitely class one specific. This is definitely class two specific. They're not doing that. So I'm not even going to check it. And in my document review, that would be, it does not apply. DNA I would put on that one. As we mentioned in the conclusion section above, this is all being done before anyone goes live. There are certain things we can't check yet, right? I mean, there's requirements in the regulations that you're going to be doing this thing. And I don't know that they're going to be doing this thing until they're up and running and live. So baked into this process is the requirement that within, I believe it's 90 days of go live, there's going to be a verification process to make sure all the things that they said they're going to do are being done, especially when it comes to the technical standards. So remember that before any of this has happened, the hardware and software identified as gaming has already been certified by the test lab has been verified by the test lab. So we've said, yep, this piece of software that they're using is capable of doing this thing. So for example, in Massachusetts, there's a requirement that you cannot place a bet on collegiate sports for teams in the state unless they're as part of a tournament. So the test lab verifies that the functionality to do that exists. In the document review, we verify that they say the right words, that they are going to stop those things that aren't allowed in Massachusetts. But we can't test that they actually are stopping those things until they're actually up and running live. So that would be an example of some things here in this number two, with the inclusion sections above, that we're not going to be able to verify that until we can go in and check after they've gone live. The last observation I made is some of the items I can't test now because they don't have a history of doing this. So if the requirement is something along the lines that a patron who wants to rescind a bet or something like that has a method for redress if they want to do that, I really can't check that now. Sure, they can have something that says they're going to do it, but until we have a history of these things happening, it can't be done. And those are things that I marked as auditable. In other words, this is something that should be checked at an annual or audit by someone, whether that's your investigative department, your audit department, but someone in the future should look at these specific regulations as part of a regular audit, which I'm guessing you're doing annually and doing a follow-up. That's where you would check those things. Are there any questions about this? And then I'll get into the details of what I found. Okay, so then this next section is really, really boring because what I did is here is the regulation and one of three things happened. They either passed, did not apply, or it's something that needs to be checked in a follow-up audit. These codes here, remember I mentioned a spreadsheet that had 1,100 rows in it? So in that spreadsheet, 205CMR243, questions in rows five and six referred to that regulation. And I found that they were in compliance. In other words, they passed. Those rows 7, 14, 17, and 531, they don't apply right now. They didn't apply. Could be header, could be something like that. And rows 544 through 552 need to be checked in an audit. And this document here, I just go through everything that was checked. And as you can see, there's no failures. Everything either passed, does not apply, requires verification. So here's one that needs to be verified within 90 days or should be checked at an audit in the future. And I'm sorry, Mr. Thorpe, this is Commissioner Bryant. Yes. How do we know the difference between what needs to be verified in 90 days and what it can be audited over the course of a recurring audit cycle? So within this document, the difference is the word verify and the word audit. Okay, because you said either needs just now when you did verify, you said either verified or audited. Sorry. I was unclear in my language, but I am clear in this document that audit means at some point in the future and verify within 90 days. Yeah, perfect. Thank you. And so as you can see, we went through, I went through all of these things and did that. Now, you'll notice that a lot of these things are verified. Well, remember, this is GLI-33 appendices. We knew all along that those appendices were going to have to be checked post launch, which is what this says. And then I went into great detail and all those things. And then if you look here, these are all the documents. So this is what FanDuel submitted and what I used to check their internal controls. And I give a brief description of what it is and the actual file name. You'll notice there's some repeats in here. That's because they would submit something, we would have communications, they'd submit something updated that addressed any issues. So that's why you might see the same, for example, I think they have two job compendiums. So I found that they did not properly meet some of the regulation requirements talking about who is responsible for things. A good example is these, there's a requirement, the chief financial officer certified that the internal controls meet the requirements. They didn't have that. I requested it, they provided it. So this is a list of everything that they sent that I used to make this determination. And then this is more boilerplate just talks about all the rules and regulations that are there. Thank you, Thurston. Thank you, Thurston. Thurston, can I ask you one general question? Absolutely. You've been a regulator. And so we have to make a decision as to the certification process. We've now been walked through just to understand the process and appreciate that. The concept was to now go to the section four. That seems to be a reasonable reliance. Is that correct for us to be able to confirm no major, no minor issues on compliance? And then the observations we can turn to down the road, should we so choose? Is that reasonable? I think that is an accurate reflection of a reasonable way to go about this. If there were non-conformities, it certainly would be something that you as the commissioners would be most interested in. And then I would say a lot of these other things can be pushed to staff for future investigation. And if there is a problem, then they bring it to your attention. Excellent. That's really good marching orders for the future too. Okay. So can we scroll up to, this is Vanduul. We'll start with Vanduul. Commissions, let me pause. Are there questions for Dorsen? That's a good sign. All right. I'm going to suggest here that Dorsen not be the one driving. If you're going to do this process, maybe one of you should drive. We're going to drive it now, but we're turning to this process now, but I just wanted to ask that high level question, make sure we are taking a reasonable approach as we move forward. Very, very helpful. Thank you to GLI. So now, Karen, we'll just start with Vanduul because we happen to be in this document. Okay. But commissioners, looking at Section 4-1, Karen, do you want to, or DeBruce, do you want to walk us through it? Or Derek, I don't care, but we have no major non-conformities, no minor non-conformities. Who wants to help me, Karen? Sure. I'll go through that with you. So I think it's helpful if you just know that, so for Vanduul, the critical components are no major or no minor non-conformities. Dorsen already sort of highlighted a few of what the observation was. Observations weren't part of me, but they indicated that none of those would be rise to the level of not issuing the operation certificate. Commissioners, questions for Karen or GLI generally? Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the commission find that the requirements outlined in 205CMR 251 have been satisfied and that an operation certificate be awarded to Betfair Interactive DBA Fanduul Sportsbook for the purposes of operating a category 3 sports wagering operation, commencing March 10th, 2023 conditional upon Betfair Interactive DBA Fanduul Sportsbook completing operational audits of wagering procedures and practices and technical security controls as required by the commission's technical standards, governing sports wagering 205CMR 243.011S 205CMR 243.011X within 90 days of the commencement of sports wagering operations. Second. I got it. No, go ahead. Okay. I got it. Okay. Thank you, commissioners. Commissioner Bryan. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. Congratulations to Fanduul. All right. Now let's go back. If we can scroll somehow. I don't know who's got the document. Of course, if you want to take that down, I can share my screen. And we just go through them individually. Okay, let me just make sure. Right. So, we'd be starting with... Let's start Bar Stools. Bar Stools, yep. Bar Stools Sports. I keep saying Bar Stools in the floor. That's incorrect, but... All right. Can you see my screen here? Let me make it bigger. So, again... Okay. There we are. Yep, section. Got it. So, again, for Bar Stools Sports, no non-conformities were identified during the review, no major non-conformities, no minor non-conformities, and that they had some low-risk observations, some references to notes on the... We've made it... We're found in documentation other than the references indicated by Bar Stools and then for requirement 205-CMR-254-2031, although control activities referenced meet requirements as stated in the current review matrix, their recommending Bar Stools should update its documentation as per the updated requirement on the MGC website. So, that's something that Bruce and his team can follow up with the operator and make sure that happens. So, this was the one that I had the question on. Just to determine that this was in fact in reference to... We changed this not too long ago so that there's more discretion in terms of the time periods that are available. So, if someone can circle back to me in the very distant future, confirming that I'm correct on that, because if it's something else, I'd want to get a more specific follow-up on that observation. I'll just speak. I'll reach out to the other team that was on this and get that to you. Thank you. Any questions on these findings? Do I have a motion? I think we're going to have to... Maybe... Can we just... Can we just clarify the official name of Bar Stools because we don't... Actually, I don't think we have a draft. Sports Interactive, right? Yeah. Yeah. Transports Interactive. It actually might be at the top of this report. But it's different. I said, might. If you're waiting for a motion, Madam Chair, I'm more than happy to do that. Okay. I move that the Commission find that the requirements outlined in 205 CMR 251 have been satisfied and that an operation certificate be awarded to Penn Sports Interactive for the purpose of operating a Category 3 sports wagering operation, commencing March 10, 2023, conditional upon Penn Sports Interactive. Completing operational audits of wagering procedures and practices and technical security controls as required by the Commission's technical standards governing sports wagering at 205 CMR 243.01, 1S, and 205 CMR 243.01, 1X, within 90 days of the Commencement of Sports Wagering operation. Second from Commissioner Skinner. Any questions? Thank you, Commissioner Hill. I have a friendly amendment, which is to follow up on Madam Chair's point, that following Penn Sports Interactive that we insert doing business as bar stool sports. I would accept that as a friendly amendment. All the others are listed with DBAs, so. Right. And the GMI refers to bar stools. Have a correlation. Thank you. Friendly amendment accepted. The second was made. Commissioner Skinner. Yes. Thank you. We got a friendly amendment. Thank you. Commissioner Bryan. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. I vote yes. For 5-0, congratulations to PSI Bar Stool. All right. Next up is DraftKings. What happened to BetMGM? Oh, I just pulled it off of my, I mean, I'm just doing it okay. I just wondered. Okay. Don't worry. Again, summary of findings, no non-conformities identified during the review, no major non-conformities, no minor non-conformities. They did make some observations with respect to 205CMR-254 and 205CMR-138. DraftKings indicated that MGC had waived the relevant two requirements until March 17th. And then on that 138, which is the internal controls, it just had a comment that they hadn't spoken to us. How will it be discussed prior to launch, but notably through the major non-conformities and the minor non-conformities analysis, they are in compliance with all the regulations under 138. Any questions on this? For GLI, Karen or Bruce? Okay. Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the commission find that the requirements outlined in 205CMR-251 have been satisfied and that an operation certificate be awarded to Crown MA Gaming LLC doing business as draft Kings for the purposes of operating a category three sports wagering operation, convincing March 10th, 2023 conditional upon Crown MA Gaming LLC DBA draft Kings, completing operational audits of wagering procedures and practices and technological security controls as required by the commission's technical standards, governing sports wagering at 205CMR-0101S and 205CMR-243.011X within 90 days of the commencement of sports wagering operations. Second. I have a friend of amendment. I think one of the reference to 205CMR-243.011S was not clear. I do speak with an accent, Commissioner Skinner. I did say yes. No, that's fine. I heard 205CMR-0101S. So I just wanted to make that clarification. Accepted. Thank you. It's a friendliest kind of amendment when it's just about numbers. So there we go. Okay. We have a second then. Second. Thank you so much. All right. Commissioner Ryan. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. And I vote yes. Five-zero. Congratulations to draft Kings. All right. Who do you have up next, Karen? Next we have Winn Bet. So we'll just share my screen here. This one's pretty straightforward in that there were no non-conformities, no major, no minor, and there were no observations indicated in the report. Pretty clean. Let's just say clean report. That phrase can be used once again. Where's Gail? Exactly. Okay. Any questions for GLI on that? You're wondering how good of a job they did. It was so clean. All right. Perfect. Section 4. No questions. Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the Commission find the requirements outlined in 205-CMR 251 have been satisfied and that an operation certificate be awarded to Winn Bet for the purposes of operating category 3 sports wagering operation commencing March 10, 2023, conditional upon Winn Bet completing operational audits of wagering procedures and practices, and technical security controls as required by the Commission's technical standards governing sports wagering at 205-CMR 243.01 1S and 205-CMR 243.01 1X within 90 days of the commencement of sports wagering operations. Second. Thank you. Any questions on that? Okay. Commission Varian? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Commissioner Skinner? Aye. Commissioner Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. 5-0. Congratulations to Caesars. All right. All right. Madam Chair, next up is that MGM. There's summary of findings. No non-conformities were found, no major non-conformities, no minor non-conformities, and they had no observations to report. Well, similar. Yes. Any questions for Karen or Geo and this one? Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the Commission find the requirements outlined in 205-CMR 251 have been satisfied and that an operation certificate be awarded to Bet MGM for the purposes of operating a category 3 sports wagering operation. Commencing March 10th, 2023 conditional upon Bet MGM completing operational audits of wagering procedures and practices. Security controls as required by the Commission's technical standards governing sports wagering at 205-CMR 243.01 1S and 205-CMR 243.01 1X within 90 days of the commencement of sports wagering operations. Thank you. I couldn't tell who second I may do is Commissioner Hill. Second. Okay. Thank you. Any questions on that? All right. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. My vote yes. Congratulations to Bet MGM. The last one we have here is Caesars Entertainment. Any good Caesars? No. No, I let that one to last. That was a win bet. I congratulate Caesars. I did not want to interrupt you Madam Chair, but you said Caesars when we had done win bet, but we were moving. I gave Caesars that A plus that was win bet that had the A class. Okay. My apologies. Caesars, you are holding for the very, very best for the lot. Thank you. I got my check marks off. Congratulations to Win Bet. That's good Caesars. Okay. So with respect to the GLI letter, some are finding no non-conformities identified during the review, no major, no minor non-conformities. They did have two observations. One, some to security data, security plan documentation will need to be provided to the NGC. The IT team and Bruce can follow up on that. And then they had a note that for one of the regulations, the reference evidence is in section 238.49, not 48 as indicated in the spreadsheet. So there was just a notation there. So I do want to flag that this, Caesars was the one that the issue with the pop-up of ensuring that. So we'll make sure that General Counsel Grossman is in the mix of how to word the motion to incorporate the commission's desires on that point as well. Thank you for the reminder. So Caesars, if you recall earlier, at the very beginning of this conversation, we learned that they are going to be in compliance with the limit setting. It's just that the GLI letter won't quite issue, but we have, and then also I guess Kristen has to do a final verification or final check off. I can quickly say that I checked during a break in the letter should be done by end of day today. Okay, end of day commissioners. Let's just chat about how we want to approach that. Commissioner O'Brien. I actually, before we get to that, just if I could put a follow-up request in terms of the data security detail plan, I'd like that followed up and a briefing back to us ASAP. That makes good sense, Commissioner. I'll go back to that section four because we haven't voted on it, but that would be. That would be my request on that. Thank you. And commissioners, I imagine you all think that that's something we should get. Okay. I do note that it says detailed, so I'm assuming there was some kind of a plan, but let's get that addressed. Okay, good. Thumbs up. Thanks, Commissioner Hill. Alrighty. So how are we feeling about this other issue? Should we, I should, in legal, you can chime in, but Commissioner O'Brien will turn to you if you have some thoughts. I just have an administrative issue that I think we should address is, I know Mr. Baroga indicated that seizures would withdraw their request for waiver. And I just think that that should be formally done in this meeting so that we can get to the matter at hand, namely Commissioner O'Brien's request for language in the motion. I have a live update. The letter is actually posted to GLI access, which Christian can actually log in and probably get it right now. And the report has been provided to the lab as well. So that the report is in the hands, and I believe just so you know, we can hear you speaking whoever's talking. Debbie Floyd, I think. Yeah, he's, I think he's attending. I'm waiting for the, it's a Floyd second time. I haven't seen your, your like off. My apologies. Madam Chair, just to confirm, GLI has issued the report and that's also been provided to the lab and Christian has verified the signatures. We can rescind the conditional approval request and Caesars will implement that fix tomorrow if the commission proves. Well, before you rescind that, let's just make sure everything's in order, right? So we've got the letter posted and now Kristen is going to do his check on the. Has Christian completed that or? I don't see his name. Considering I got the update exactly one minute ago and he might be actually doing that right now. Great. Thank you. That's what I was looking for when I missed your comment. So I understand that you would withdraw it, but I don't want you to withdraw it until we know you're offset. And that's where the assistance from legal comes in with the language. Is that the idea? I mean, hopefully we can just be done. Yeah, we can just deal with it on this before we leave. I don't know if we have a sense of how long it's going to take to we move on to another item to give them time to do it and circle back on this vote. Jen did confirm the signatures, but I'll let him speak. Maybe if you can hop on the meeting and just confirm that for us on the record. Karen, I'll give down. Yeah, if you want to let's just see if you have a sense. Yeah, I want to write why don't you move on to another item? I'll go downstairs and check with Christian and then we'll come back to this if you'll excuse me to go see him. You want to do that? Oh, it's calling him. Thank you. I think Bruce might be calling him. Right. And we are just so that IEB is ready, we would be turning to a new item. So this is all happening in real time, which is fantastic. Hi, Sterl. Hi, I just talked to Christian. He says he's joining now. Oh, there he is. There he is. Thank you. Christian, this is all in real time. Are you comfortable with this? Welcome to Mobile Internet Quadring. Yes, I'm comfortable now. Okay, so what's happened? Do we have all the documents signed and posted? Yes, I can confirm that GLI has certified Caesar's platform and I also verify the signature is on Caesar's platform via screen share. Excellent. So now General Counsel Grossman, am I right that Mr. Borova can withdraw his request for a waiver? Yes, it sounds like they're in conformance, so they don't need a waiver. Does that work for you, Lloyd? If you want to withdraw that request now, it sounds like Caesar's is all set. For the record, we will withdraw the conditional preload request. Thank you. Excellent there. We're taking care of that. So now we go back to, and actually everybody congratulates Caesar some step ahead. If we can go back to section four as a reminder, because of course Commissioner Bryan has noted that observation around the detail plan, but I think with this matter, thank you so much, GLI. Thank you for the efforts, Kristen. Really nice to get that all wrapped up neatly. And to Karen, thank you. I know that kind of pressed a little bit for this, so thank you very, very much. Turning back to section four, I don't know, Karen, if you can pull that up, or is that everybody has it in their memory bank? They're just having in front of us. Sorry, Karen. Is that what you were looking for, the summary of findings for? Yeah, that same. You've already brought it up and it had the observation around the detail plan, but if we put it up, everybody can have that in front of them. Are you seeing this now? See, Lisa, Rain, can you have your hand up? How can I help you? Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. I did want to mention on one of the breaks. We too went back to see what the status was of that data security plan. And it looks like the actual plan in our 131 submission was missing. So we do have that and can easily provide today to Bruce and his team. Excellent. Thank you. And so then we can just get an update in the future meeting. Commissioner Bryan on that, is that right? Yeah, if there's a way for you to shoot that off to Bruce and his team right now, that would be great before closing business. Excellent. Little Duke, Commissioner Bryan. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Rain Kim. Okay, so here we have the findings in front of us again. I think the second observation is pretty straightforward. Commissioners, do you have any questions for Karen or for um, Caesars who are well represented right now or um, GLI? If not, I'll take a motion. Madam Chair, I move the commission find that the requirements outlined in 205 CMR 251 have been satisfied and then operation certificate be awarded to American Wagering Inc. doing business as Caesar Sportsbook for the purpose of purposes of operating a category three sports wagering operation convincing March 10 2023 conditional upon American Wagering Inc. doing business as Caesar Sportsbook completing operational audits of wagering procedures and practices and technical security controls as required by the commission's technical standards governing sports wagering at 205 CMR 243.01 subsection one subsection S and 205 CMR 243.01 subsection one subsection X within 90 days of the commencement of sports wagering operations. Second. Second from Commissioner Hill. Any questions or any? Okay, Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. Congratulations to Caesars. Okay. Thank you and thank you for the for you being here today, Mr. Moraga and Ms. Rankin. Thank you very much. All right, commissioners. Launch time tomorrow 10 a.m. I think that each of the folks who are operating best of luck and again we reiterate our commitment to the safety and consumer protections and health and the integrity of the gaming tomorrow. We know that we have confidence in each operator putting all of those concerns so good luck. Let's move on then to IEB's report where we turn to an issue of non-compliance. Hi, Chair. Hi, commissioners. Again, I guess the IEB has its summary report on this non-compliance subsequent matter at Encore. I'm going to turn it right over to Chief Enforcement Council Hall and then you're going to get to hear from a new face and a new voice before you, Attorney Zach Mercer. So I'm going to just turn it right over to Heather. Thank you, Loretta. And for those of you who haven't met him yet, I would like to introduce IEB Enforcement Council, Zachary Mercer. Zach's been with us for about two months now and I think all of us who have worked with him would agree he hit the ground running from the start and we are really happy to have him on board. So with that, I will turn it over to Zach. Thank you, Heather, for that introduction. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. This is a summary of a review conducted by the IEB regarding two incidents of non-compliance that occurred at Encore Boston Harbor, EVH, the Category 1 sports wagering operator in February 2023. It's worth noting that this is the second incident instance of non-compliance involving similar facts with EVH, the first occurring on February 2nd, 2023. For that incident, the IEB presented its summary review of the matter to the commission on February 14th. That matter is currently scheduled for the Judicatory hearing before the commission on March 14th, 2023. Turning to the new matters, on February 21st, 2023, EVH Senior Vice President General Counsel Jackie Crum notified sports wagering director Bruce Band that EVH had inadvertently offered wagering on two unauthorized events through their sports wagering vendor WinBet. EVH reported to the IEB that on February 15th, 2023, they became aware that unauthorized events had been added to their offerings but had not yet been activated for wagering. WinBet disabled these events and contacted its vendor, Gann Nevada. Gann is a technology platform that provides event management and other services to EVH and WinBet. Despite the actions taken to disable these events, they did not in fact remain disabled and wagers were placed on an NCAA event featuring a team from the Commonwealth. The unauthorized wagers were initially identified by a WinBet trader on February 19th, a trader being an individual responsible for setting odds on an event. That trader discovered that four wagers totaling $50 were placed on the February 19th Boston College Women's Basketball versus University of Louisville game. Following the discovery of those unauthorized offerings, WinBet discovered an earlier unauthorized event that had been offered for wagering, specifically another Boston College Women's Basketball game. This one being the February 12th game versus the University of North Carolina. For that event, there were three wagers placed totaling $163. In the course of this investigation so far, the IED has learned the following key facts. As to the time frame, the wagering was allowed for each of these events. Boston College versus University of North Carolina was available for approximately four hours on February 12th. Boston College versus University of Louisville was available on February 19th for two hours and 13 minutes. As stated before, there were three wagers for $163 on BC versus UNC on the 12th and four wagers for BC versus University Louisville totaling $50 on the 19th. As far as the winning wagers, there was one for each event, one partial winning wager on the Boston College versus University of North Carolina game as part of a parlay. That ticket paid $53 in total winnings. $12.37 of that were specific to that game. That ticket was redeemed on February 13th at 6.48 p.m. There was one winning wager on Boston College versus Louisville totaling $9.09 in winnings. That ticket was redeemed on February 19th at 1.59 p.m. All in all, there were seven total bets placed, all seven of which were placed at kiosks. The IEV was able to review reports from both EVH and GAN in generating this presentation. From the GAN report, GAN explained that the issue at hand was due to the submitted titles for events that had been provided from feed providers and how they were processed against their exclusion list. Essentially, GAN maintains a list of excluded teams or events. The feed provider, in this case, Genius Sports Media, uploads all markets and wager types. Those are then filtered by GAN to comply with the regulations that we have in place. GAN reported that, quote, unquote, Boston College as a term was on their exclusion list. However, Boston College Eagles Women was not. Genius uploaded the events in question under the title Boston College Eagles Women and the lack of a match to the specific exclusion list title name allowed the erroneous availability for wagering. This issue was further complicated by an upload of those games uncharacteristically close to the start time, whereas they're generally updated, uploaded two days prior to the event. These incidents were, this incident, they were uploaded roughly 30 minutes prior. As to the delay and discovery of those February 12 wagers, EVH explained that due to the initial deactivation of games for wagering, it did not appear on their first daily audit of offerings. Likewise, the second daily audit was then conducted under the auspices that that BC versus North Carolina game had been disabled or had remained disabled and was thus not discovered to have been activated. There has been information provided in regard to remedial measures or mitigation from EVH and GAN. GAN has placed Boston College Eagles Women, BC and BC Eagles on their excluded team list. EVH has also reported that GAN is in the process of implementing additional access for WinBet traders to have additional control over the posted offerings within the WinBet database. My understanding is that upon WinBet's mobile launch, this access will allow for added ability to suspend markets or wagers earlier on in the process. GAN reported that the measures and audits that have been placed since the February second incident have successfully identified and excluded two Boston College women's basketball games on February 5th and February 9th. EVH has also indicated that twice daily audits conducted by its trading team are still in place following this incident and noted that these audits are overseen by Max Berlin, the manager of sportsbook operations of WinBet. Finally, EVH has disabled all wagering on NCAA women's basketball until this issue has been remedied. Those events remain disabled at this time. Questions and welcome again. Thank you Madam Chair. Good evening Mr. Nice to see you. Commissioner's questions. You also have the chance to read the report. I did welcome Zachary I guess and you probably can't answer this question and I don't know if anybody can but it would seem to me they could code the various teams. I'm a little confused as to why GAN has done this several times and how do we know this isn't going to keep happening? I can't specifically answer. I'm sorry Zach. If I can jump in and excuse me for jumping in but I want to caution everybody that I think this matter is scheduled today for this. Yeah so you know the party is not here. Thank you so much. I invited questions but the cautionary tale is that we are about to make a decision as to what we want to do with this this this matter. We had very similar matters of non-compliance and we have decided to opt into the option of hearing this on our own in an adjudicatory hearing. And I don't have that reg at my fingertips. I hope maybe legal does but you are familiar with it commissioners. We have some options. Do you all wish to take the same approach with this one? We've taken with the other three. I've seen nodding of heads. Absolutely madam chair. Commissioner Skinner. Yes I don't see how I don't see how there's another option. Okay excellent so um so we will uh we'll show him Brian I think it's best um to take the best advice. So uh we turn to legal and IEB to work to have this probably addressed uh in the adjudicatory hearing. I know we have at least one date set up for maybe it's two dates now and perhaps we'll be able to merge them together um director Lillio's you know we talked about scheduling a little bit the other day. I do and just really quickly we do have um March 14th for the first EVH matter that is scheduled currently. Yeah I think do we and do we have one in the morning one in the afternoon? Yes that's correct there's the EVH in the morning and TPC. So um we would need to have the third one marked up uh uh council Grossman and then um excuse me and then not today's. Zach Zachary you did an excellent job. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you commissioners. Any other questions about process? Chair may I just say just to be clear the first on core potential non-compliant issue is the 14th the second non-compliant issue will be another date. I just want I don't want anyone to think they're both coming next Tuesday. They're both on the 14th there's on core in the morning and PPC in the afternoon. Right and then we're looking for another date for yep this one and then we have one from the other licensing as well. Okay I think we can move on do we even have thank you everyone on that thank you excellent preparation thank you so much Director Lillio's uh Councilor Hall and Councilor Mercer. Nice to see you. Now patiently waiting Chief Delaney thank you so much we are really covering a large um um segment of showing that highlights the diversity of our work. I'm happy to hear from you I'm sorry it's so late Joe. No worries thank you Madam Chair and commissioners um so today we have before you a request from the City of Medford to transfer some monies between a couple of different grants that they have and I thought I would just quickly share my screen with you just with a map of the area to put this all in a little bit of context of what we're talking about. So on core Boston Harbor is down here in the lower right hand corner of the screen the uh one of the projects is this route is everybody seeing this okay? Yes we can yes okay so one project is this route 28 Wellington underpass what's actually going to happen here is you can see these green paths here this is going to bring a essentially a boardwalk out over the river and underneath this route 28 bridge which will connect up all of these paths so that you can get across 28 without having to cross through a bunch of traffic and then the other project that we're talking about is a little bit further down which is known as the South Medford connector so that would this connector path again another bike path multi-use trail would run from where you see route 16 right here along the Mystic River and then terminating right here at Main Street in Medford so just as a quick history on this South Medford connector this project started in 2017 where we gave the community a grant to to study the feasibility of this path to connect up all this whole other path network and it the results of that were promising so we uh they applied for a second grant to try to get this project up to the 25 design level now one of the things that's interesting about this this whole mystic valley parkway route 16 i 93 all this land was taken by the state as part of the i 93 project back in the 60s I guess initially and so mastod actually owns all this property along the river one of the things that the the feasibility study did demonstrate that there were some pretty good constraints in here some steep slope to other things utilities that they would have had to get around so the suggestion came up saying hey why don't we see if we can't put this path right up along the mystic valley parkway itself because that road's pretty wide right now and maybe we could even just use that narrow that roadway down and if you've ever driven on it it is quite a wide segment of road now of course getting mastod to agree to give up a piece of their highway as you imagine might imagine takes a bit of doing so essentially only a small amount of the money out of that second grant was used to do this evaluation of whether or not they could move this piece roads only 20 a little over $20,000 was spent off of that grant so through that mastod finally ended up saying hey you know what we'll build this thing and we'll do this we're doing a project down here on this the interchange with main street and all of these ramps and so on we'll just add this onto our project and do it as part of our project so essentially we don't have to pay for that anymore so now that left a surplus of about $174,000 in that application now going back over to our other project the route 28 underpass project we gave them a grant to get this project up to about 25 design which they have done now in order to get this project built they have to get it to 100 design what they'd like to do is take the surplus funds from the other project that mastod is taking on and put it towards this project to advance the design of this towards the 100 design now with this mastod this is on the state's transportation improvement program so this is going to be built by the state but the city has the responsibility of getting the design plans up to a level where this can be taken over by the state so what is being proposed here is that transfer of funds will get this project the route 28 project to the 75 design level at which point mastod will take it over so we're recommending making that transfer of $175,604 from the south medford connector grant and moving it over to the route 28 grant we just think it's you know we're going to get both projects built both of them are going to be done by mastod so this is just a great way to leverage our money into this much larger expenditure that the state is going to do to get these paths together which will help improve you know access to encore for patrons and for um for employees and you know it seems like a win win all the way around questions for job I have one clarifying and I think in your memo it says this the amount will bring them up to 75 percent and no balance right they'll use the total amount yep it's we're not capping it at 75 percent it just no we're just we're just saying that the the dollar they can expend the dollar the full dollar value of 175,604 that's left and you know they're saying that should get them to 75 percent design if for some reason they got to 75 and there was a surplus there they would presumably turn that back or they could uh you know it still has to get to 100 design but mastod has said they would take it over at 75 so okay so they would presumably turn it back or whatever would need to happen so we don't have to worry about that delta no okay good any other questions mr hill you making a motion I read your mind yes I am um madam chair I move that the commission authorize a transfer of 175,604 dollars from the city of medford's 2018 transportation planning grant to the city of medford's 2019 wellington route 28 underpass project transportation planning grant for further design of the route 28 wellington underpass second any comments questions I think it's great that's my only comment I think it's great yeah I agree I love the bike rail development in this area I know commissioner ryan and if I'll see them it's excellent and I just want to thank Joe and his team for excellent work very clear memorandum any other comments okay commissioner brian hi mr hill hi uh commissioner skinner hi mr maynard hi i vote yes five zero Mary thank you very much very nice to see you thank you so much okay um mark vandalin has helped us by agreeing to roll his mat thank you again to the community affairs division excellent work moving on to item number seven mark vandalin has a generously said that he would move his um item to a future public meeting we want to make sure to give the research agenda is due so given the late hour that made sense but that said we still have another matter that anticipate voting on but before I turn to that precious do you have any updates that you want to share and teams is there any matter that you we need to get an update on director wells you're on me and jaren general grossman and I had been discussing me notify the commission about a disclosure time is the appropriate time to mention that yes this is perfect this is under kind of other business or matters not okay so it would be under number nine so i'll defer if there are any commissioner updates but it would be under um so if I could just the only commissioner updated have it it's more a request of the sports wagering team there was another um promo online promo that was brought to my attention which I forwarded over to the sports wagering team but to make sure that the other commissioners are you know aware of it um while they're looking at it if maybe they could just forward that link so that people um have the same access to what was sort of brought to my attention it's the one where I feel like we may want to talk about it sooner rather than later so um I would just ask if you guys could forward that to the other commissioners for a review so that you know we can speed that along that would be great that's excellent thank you that was it for me anything else before we move on to the other matter okay Karen counseling yes so this is just notification I'm waiting for a licensed number but uh upon advice of counsel I'm going to be filing a disclosure uh under 268a section 23b3 uh disclosure of appearance of a conflict appearance of a conflict of interest in that geo comply uh which is a vendor uh is is providing us with video and tech equipment so that we can have uh one of those screens and maps which will show where all the uh live and in real time bets are being placed on mobiles sports wagering uh phones and other devices so that would be something we're planning on putting it in the main area downstairs near where the entrance is so that staff commissioners and the public who will be coming into public meetings so at some point in the near future can see the operation so there's a public value to that you know in this instance the decision to accept that will not have any effect on our dealings with geo comply whatsoever or have an impact on any decision making related to them so I indicated in the uh disclosure form that I feel I can perform my official duties objectively and fairly despite receiving that from geo comply I don't know if there's anything else I need to mention Todd but that's the general overview and we have confirmed with the legal department that we have the illegal authority to accept this appropriately I make this also mention Karen I'm sorry I don't have a great friend I mean what the exact equipment is and what the value of it yeah so it is um uh television uh at value of $596.99 a wall mount at $99 $1.99 and an Apple Mac mini two base model at $599 total value of the equipment is $1,295.98 it's for office use though yes for everyone it's not the office for commissioners and and if we put it out in the main area of public if they're coming in as well they can use it or see it and and we always understood that the way that geo comply works is that they do work closely with the regulator as well yeah the information yeah thank you any questions on that okay all right so moving on uh commission commission I know it's 422 but we'll see how you vote right now the commission anticipates that I'll meet in executive session in accordance with GL chapter 30a section 21a3 to discuss strategy relative to potential litigation related to the employment status and associated circumstances pertaining to a former racing official um in the event that we do choose to go into executive session we will not convene in back in the public session so I would um want to note that commissioners do I have a motion Madam Chair I'm hoping we can entertain a postponement of the discussion set for executive session just at this late hour and and you know full disclosure I lost track of council Grossman's email and I have not had a chance to catch up and so have not read the material that being said if there's a quorum to move into executive session um that that that's quite all right do we have an outside council that will that's joining us yeah they're both here it's Andrea and Mario I don't know if you can see them on the screen yeah um I wonder if it's helpful just to get procedural posture if nothing else um and even if we have to do substantive later on um to follow up probably probably worth it just since outside council's here but we can probably do it fast you know I think we're all ready to wrap it up I agree with that that proposal I certainly want to be respectful of our outside council's time thank you commissioner okay so if um if someone does wish to move I will accept a motion uh madam chair I move that the commission go into executive session in accordance with general law chapter 30a section 21a3 to discuss strategy relative to potential litigation relating to the employment status associated circumstances pertaining to a former racing official second thank you commissioner scanner all right any questions um we're not coming back here after right right so we'll take the vote and then I'll then I'll um say say goodbye and thank you commissioner bryan hi mr hill hi mr speaker hi mr maynard all right and I vote yes now to the so we'll go into executive session we you know I'm not sure who is managing uh moving into the virtual session um dave susan looks like he might be on board but before we go anywhere to the next um chamber uh I just want to thank everybody the team for today um it's an extraordinarily long meeting but also an extraordinarily important meeting and um no one ever surprises me you are prepared your nimble you're able to adjust matters it's to move things forward but always with the right amount of diligence and excellence and for that I am grateful so thank you I'm so proud of of um what has been accomplished today goosepan you should be very proud of the good work of your team uh Karen you should be very very proud of the entire team and thank you to the public we thank everyone for their patience as we had to navigate a few new matters this afternoon and uh now we'll move into our executive session with again our best wishes for our new operators measures do you wish to say anything before me we all sat just to thank you to everybody um end of legal team probably got more than their fair share of me so special shout out to the legal team uh everybody did a great job GLI's assistance was uh immeasurable so thank you to everybody thank you okay all right we're getting moved thank you