Keller @ Large: After a year of sports betting in Massachusetts, the controversy surrounding underage betting is heating up
BOSTON – It’s been almost a year since sports betting was legalized in Massachusetts. But even though it’s supposed to be a pastime for adults only, do many underage children still do it?
Betting by anyone under the age of 21 is illegal. According to statements from the sports betting providers operating here at the state gaming commission meeting on Monday, this is not happening in significant numbers.
This claim stunned gaming commissioner Jordan Maynard. “I just don’t think it’s zero. Nobody will convince me that it is zero or even a single digit,” he said.
He’s right to be skeptical, according to an NCAA survey last spring that found 58 percent of 18- to 22-year-olds have bet on sports. More than six in 10 have seen this pervasive sports betting advertisement, and 58 percent of them say it makes them more willing to bet.
“It is the segment of the gaming industry that is experiencing by far the greatest growth,” noted Professor Richard McGowan of Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, a well-known gaming industry expert. He says the college-age player is a lucrative market for them and also one of the most vulnerable markets.
“I know students who got in trouble trying to win money for spring break, and they thought they could do it by winning at sports gambling,” McGowan said. “Needless to say, they didn’t.”
But while the vendors who testified before the commission appeared somewhat calm about the matter, Commissioner Brad Hill did not. Asked whether it was fair to frame his message to the industry as, “Get your act together on this front or we might have to do it for you,” Hill replied, “The answer is yes.”
Hill says he wants to educate parents about the potential risks of sports betting to their children, setting up a familiar cultural showdown between the concerns of parents and regulators and the powerful lure of online betting, its marketing effects and its flashy technological packaging.
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