(Feature image from masslive.com)
It has been an exciting few years of change across the US as the vote by senate to allow states to make individual decisions on sports betting and gambling laws have led to the rapid emergence of different online platforms and the huge growth for online services offering this – the same has rung true around the world as more information about bet365 in Australia and other countries with a continued push for bigger and better services from a wide range of different operators. Despite the big push across the US, there are some sites that have fallen behind the curve, as there are many that have yet to introduce options in the online sporting or the online casino space.
Massachusetts is one such state that has fallen into the space of falling behind – in 2019 there were multiple bills submitted in hopes of getting the ball rolling at a time where other states like Colorado had first started to experience widespread success, but all fell flat, and none gained the traction that was needed. Similar had been true in 2020 too, many states were able to use a recovery from the pandemic and the economic push as a way to push their own bill and this had been the hope in MA too as it was snuck into an economic development bill, but once again was not able to gain the attention it needed, and the sports betting bill once again would see no movement.
Hopes then grew that perhaps 2021 could be the year, neighboring states were posting incredible numbers for efforts they had put forward in sports betting and there were a large number of bills submitted in the hopes at least one would pass – and with public support from Gov. Charlie Baker too, it seemed this would be the best opportunity. Despite this, an unexpected budget surplus disrupted a number of different bills and sports betting was one of them as it was put on the back burner and declared a non-priority, pushing any hopes for legalized sports betting back down the rungs once more.
Attention was once again brought to this at the Super Bowl as Charlie Baker has continued to promote why MA should get legalized online sports betting sooner rather than later by pointing out how it’s losing out to states close by, players cross the state lines in large numbers to be able to place bets and this is money that could be instead reinvested back into the state – stating that whilst a difficult issue with lots of elements, other states are increasing options whilst MA continues to remain still.