Massachusetts Sports Betting Booms in Just Five Days

Massachusetts was the fifth busiest state for online sports betting at the weekend – despite only launching on Friday.

The state recorded 8.1 million transactions at MA Online Sports. It also attracted around 400,000 new players, according to geolocation specialist GeoComply. This was far higher than numbers attracted by other states of a similar population when they launched online sports betting. In fact, GeoComply said their figures for Massachusetts were almost twice that of similarly-sized Virginia and Arizona over the weekend.

Only four other states recorded more transactions than Massachusetts when it launched on Friday, March 10. Those were New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, prompting betting analysts to believe Massachusetts will prove to be one of the most popular regions in the US for betting. Certainly, it’s the 15th most populous state and, with 7.1 million residents, the third most densely populated after New Jersey and Rhode Island.

At present there are six operators in the Massachusetts online gambling community – FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, WynnBET and Barstool Sportsbook. There is capacity for a further online operators, with more expected to sign up over the next few months.

Officials at the Massachusetts Gambling Commission (MGC) are predicting to take in online sports betting tax revenue of $60 million a year. They are due to reveal the total amount of revenue gained from the weekend betting on April 17.

They promise a clamp down on gambling fraud and a focus on protection for players. A planned advertising and promotional campaign will stress ‘safe gambling’ advice, providing tips and highlighting local initiatives. Geocomply reported that they stepped in to prevent around 5,000 online gambling transactions taking place at the weekend. This was due to the action coming from either suspect devices or accounts.

Lindsay Slader is GeoComply’s senior vice president of compliance. She vowed that her company would help create a safe and regulated system, with “responsible gambling hard-boiled into its regulations.” She said there was no place in the Massachusetts legal online gambling community for fraud.

GeoComply, she said, feel “privileged” at being in at the start of the online sports betting market in Massachusetts, and were determined to keep fraudsters out. She then went on to emphasise how players can feel safer and more protected when they play with legal sportbooks.

As well as cracking down on online gambling fraud, another of her company’s missions, she said, was solving what she termed the “geolocation conundrum.”