Did you ever place a bet and lose your ticket? Two people in Massachusetts who did will still get their winnings.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) Thursday morning approved a request from MGM Springfield to pay out $3,445.65 in winnings on $1,705 wagered to two patrons who lost their physical tickets. The specifics of each wager were not disclosed nor were the names of the patrons.
MGM Springfield verified that the tickets were issued by MGM Springfield, the payments requested were for the amount in MGM’s system, the bets were winners not already cashed, and that there was no indication of fraud. All of the wagers were placed March 9.
The commission unanimously voted to approve the payouts.
“We just made some patrons happy,” MGC Chair Jordan Maynard said. “They’re going to get paid out despite losing those tickets.”
Gamification trumps predictions for now
In setting the 2026 research agenda, the commission opted to focus on the conversion from gaming to gambling, including “social casinos, video gaming, loot boxes, tournaments, free-play games, and tactics used by gaming companies, with a particular focus on the impacts on youth and the impacts on problem gambling.”
“Gaming as a gateway to gambling is a very interesting topic and plays into preventing youth gambling harm,” which has long been an MGC priority, Commissioner Paul Brodeur said. Ultimately, his co-commissioners agreed.
MGC staff offered up five options, and of note was the the commission’s decision not to select prediction markets as the priority. In discussion, Commissioner Nakisha Skinner said it’s her hope “this will be a thing of the past as quickly as it came in front of us,” pointing to the potential for a legal decision or congressional action on the status of sports event contracts. Skinner also said she thinks that getting meaningful feedback would be difficult given how new the offerings are.
The ultimate decision was to make gaming vs. gambling the priority but to “widen the net” to include research about how those from 18-20 are beginning to gamble and getting access to gambling.
State already fighting predictions
The state has been active in trying to keep sports event contracts out of Massachusetts — the attorney general in September became the first to sue Kalshi in state court. The case continues to play out, and while one judge ordered the platform be banned, the prohibition has not yet gone into effect.
“We’ve already taken a position, a pretty strong one, we don’t believe that bets on war and death are a good thing, and we don’t think that 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds being able to access sports wagering, let’s just call it what it is, through these prediction markets is a good thing, and there aren’t RG player tools that we require our operators to put on,” Maynard said.
Citing concerns around Super Bowl revenue in relation to the rise of prediction markets, Commissioner Brad Hill said he noted a decrease in handle for the Super Bowl.
“I daresay that one of the reasons for that is the prediction market access that people had,” he said. “The ads that I am seeing during the NCAA tournament and even before that shows me that these companies are going for broke right now.”
