 When I get us started, I think we're ready to go. Well, for those of us joining us on the phone, despite the fact that we are two years into the pandemic, there are still technical difficulties to be had. Good morning. The time is now 9.40 AM. Today is Thursday, September 29, 2022. This is a public hearing before the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. I am Commissioner Jordan Maynard of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. We are convening this hearing pursuant to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 30A, Section 2. The Commission will convene this hearing using remote collaboration technology. I will ask that attendees please mute themselves until they speak to help keep background noise to a minimum. Also, please note that the Commission is recording this hearing. The purpose of this hearing is to offer any interested person or group an opportunity to comment on the Commission's proposed regulations. Once we begin, anyone who wishes to comment on the proposal may state their name and be recognized. They may then proceed to offer their comment. The agenda today pertains to the following items. 205-CMR-138-02. Licensee system of internal controls. The proposed amendment will establish a timed requirement for licensee's implementation of a protocol or system of control when deemed necessary by the executive director. 205-CMR-138.05. Systems for ensuring employee licensing. The proposed amendment will restore language that was initially missing from the regulation. 205-CMR-138.07. Floor plans. The proposed amendment will establish that the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau is provided with up-to-date floor plans on a quarterly basis. Join the meeting. 205-CMR-138.62. Payment of table game progressive payout. Wagers. The proposed amendment will establish that the commission be notified of the protocols governing the equal division of progressive jackpots and reset amounts by licensee. After we hear comments, we will close this public hearing. The commission will then review the proposals, including consideration of any comments for final approval at a scheduled public meeting, which will follow this hearing on Thursday, October 13, 2022. We will now hear comments on the proposals. I ask that any speaker please identify themselves before commenting to help facilitate everyone's opportunity to comment on the use of technology to conduct this meeting. If you're accessing this meeting virtually, you may signify your interest in making comments by sending a note or raising your hand. That will not be the case today. Those features are available at the bottom of the screen. If you're dialing into this meeting, which we know we do have folks joining by phone. Join the meeting. I will invite comments and make sure that everyone wishing to comment has that opportunity. With that, we will now open this hearing for comments. To come off you press star six. I do ask that you also identify which CMR you are commenting on. The floor is now open. Are there any comments? Hearing none. For anyone who's on the line, you can just enter star six or unmute on your phone if you're trying to unmute. I will give everyone just a second. Since we've had some technical difficulties, it's only fair that we give everyone a second. Judith, what's the proper way to conclude this hearing given that there are participants, but no comments? So this happens occasionally. Folks do wish to kind of attend the hearing. However, maybe they're not quite prepared to offer comments. So what we can do is I'm more than happy to show the four regulations and the red line changes if you like. And we can just kind of have a public discussion for our attendees to listen to. I'm also happy to, I mean, technically speaking, we should keep this line open until the close of the hearing. So roughly 10 a.m. or subsequently there after seeing as we got started a bit late. I'm happy to screen share those regs or even just the hearing notice up here. And then if more people join before we close at 10 or folks do ultimately wish to unmute at a certain point before the close of the meeting, that's fine too. But I think just kind of holding this time is fine. I think sharing the regs is fine. Great, okay. All right, just stand by. The proposed regulation. Yes, yes, certainly. We should be all set. I'm just gonna let me know how that, how the size quality is. I can always unzoom or resume. Here we are. I think that's perfect. Okay. So our first reg is obviously our cover sheet we're going through. We have our notice of public hearing in the short description of the regs that you already read into the record commissioner. Our first reg is 138.02 and deals with our licensee system of internal controls. The purpose of this regulations amendment was to provide a more consistent time basis for when a gaming licensee will submit their internal controls for approval or amendments to the executive director. So the legal division has gone down as a part of the reg review process and added in a time-based requirement into section seven that deals with after an amendment is approved pursuant to sections two and three of the same section of the regulation that a licensee submit the internal controls to the commission and actually implement them within their establishment no more than 30 days from the date of the approval. So an internal control can cover anything from security to accounting procedures to auditing compliance matters. And so that the commission felt strongly that anything that they ultimately received approval on should be implemented in a timely basis. And so we've gone ahead and just added that in there. As you can see, there's no strikeout. There's no deletions. It's just simply adding in language to signify that a period of no more than 30 days should lapse from the date of the approval to the date of implementation. Next, we have, and forget this is just a page break here. We have 138.05 that deals with pursuant to employee licensing within the commission. So as a bit of background, gaming licensee or gaming employees have to be licensed pursuant to commission standards. And so in looking over this reg as a part of the regular review process, we realized that some of the requirements listed under section two, one of them had been cut off. We're unsure exactly how this happened or why, but in reviewing the regulations during the regular review process, one of the members of the IEB caught this and kind of flagged it as a Scribner's error. So we've gone ahead and added it into section J so that it fully states the date on which the information submitted in the port was compiled. Again, it's likely that it just got cut off in a publication or a republication of a regulation, but gone back in and kind of added this language. So again, nothing deleted, but just read it in. Next we have 138.07 that deals with a licensee's submission of floor plans within 138 as licensee system of internal controls. So as you can see, the floor plans have to be very, very specific and deal with a great number of things that are documented in detail to scale on a licensee's gaming floor, including within their establishment. And so we've gone in and again, similar to 138.02, requested that the licensee give the commission updates to their amendments to the floor plan and their original floor plan on a much more frequent basis than had already been happening. So down here, and I've included the whole, the whole right just so folks can get a chance to read it. It's also available on our website and just pause and say that down here in section four, we've asked that an approved copy of the floor plans and any amendments there too will be filed with the bureau. That means the IUB in the gaming establishment every three months or upon the request of the bureau. So you can see similar to the other two amendments I've already walked you through. Again, we have no deletions, nothing is necessarily changing. The commission is just simply implementing a tighter timeline to these changes and asking that the licensee update the IUB on a more frequent basis. So at this case, every three months or approximately 90 days, they update the internal IUB that's located within the gaming establishment of their floor plan so that the IUB can communicate that information to its agents and the GEU. Last but not least, we have 138.62 which pertains to the payment of progressive wages at an establishment. So within the gaming industry, a progressive payout deals with payment of a large sum of money also known as a jackpot across multiple tables in a gaming establishment and in some cases across multiple gaming establishments. So here in the Commonwealth, they're just within one gaming establishment. So that could be the Encore Boston Harbor or the MGM Springfield. So in this case, the commission had asked licensees to prepare and submit as a matter of their internal controls, some kind of a protocol that would govern what would happen if two people sitting at the same or another table within the gaming establishment, won a progressive jackpot at the same time during the same hand. So the current protocol is that whoever ultimately hits first and it could be a nanosecond first would receive the larger share of a jackpot. The commission has since, and at the advisement of the legal division has since requested that the licensee instead implement a more equitable policy that would call for when two people won a jackpot at nearly the same time almost instantaneously to split a progressive jackpot. Now I've been told by members of the IAB this has never happened before that a person, two people or even three have won a jackpot or a progressive jackpot at the same time. So this procedure is actually more preventative than palliative at this point, but ultimately the commission feels that it's important to have some kind of procedure like this ready that will govern when two people or more ultimately win a progressive jackpot at the same time. So that's what that is. And that's our regs today. Again, you can see that there are no deletions or subsequent changes. We are instead adding more language into the regulation to call for clarification. So pretty standard as a part of the reg review procedure and process and yeah, we will bring these regs forward on October 13th for a final vote with the commission. Thank you, Judith. Oh, my pleasure. With that said, I want to again, invite anyone who's joining us on the line to comment. You can hit star six as Crystal said to get off mute and we are happy to take comments. Again, we'll keep the line open until 10 o'clock to ensure that we are meeting our obligations. Okay, we are going to get ready to wrap this up. Again, I invite anyone who has any comments to please hit star six and make those now. With that, this concludes the hearing pursuant to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 30A section two. Again, these draft regulations will come forward for a final vote of approval on October 13th, 2022. Thank you. Thanks, Commissioner. All right, thank you, Dave. I think that about does it. All right, sounds good. I don't know if we needed to adjourn or anything or if we're just good to end. I think we're good to end. Okay, thanks so much. I'll get once this recording downloads, I'll send it to you guys and figure out a way to either post it on the website or direct a link where people can get it. Awesome. I think if you want to put it directly under like where the hearing notices, where it's currently living, I think that would be adequate. And then at a certain time, we could probably move it to the archive section of the website, but I leave that to you. Okay, sounds good. All right, well, thanks very much and have a great day. No problem. Thanks, Commissioner. Thank you.