The first crack — albeit a teensy, tiny, barely perceptable crack — in the ability of America’s legal sportsbooks to wantonly limit bettors has appeared, courtesy of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.
Probably.
Maybe.
In short: The commission voted by a 5-0 margin to advance a regulation requiring sportsbooks to tell bettors why they’re being limited and which markets are restricted.
Revolutionary? In the world of U.S. sports betting, it sort of is, as it makes Massachusetts the first state in the nation to attempt to formally regulate the practice of limiting bettors. The vote doesn’t make it law; now the proposed rule goes out for public comment before it comes back to the commission for final approval.
Speaking as someone who’s been limited at numerous sportsbooks in New Jersey, I don’t think I even care anymore.
Which is quite a 180 for a guy who has written extensively on the subject, for a guy who actually appeared before the very same Massachusetts Gaming Commission arguing against limiting, for a guy who can’t get more than a few bucks down on the Academy Awards at DraftKings or can’t get really anything down at bet365 and a handful of others.
Yeah. I don’t even care.
Why? Well, it’s the distracted boyfriend meme, sports betting edition.
Whatever, bruh
Truth of the matter is, I’m not a huge sports bettor. I’m a moderately huge DFS player, but sports betting is more of when I feel like it, when I think I really know something, when I’m bored or when I want to take a $5 12-leg SGP flyer.
If I were a huge sports bettor, I’m pretty confident I’d be doing what the other huge sports bettors are doing in New Jersey: betting with Prime Sports, betting with Sporttrade, betting offshore, and betting in prediction markets.
For me, personally, Prime doesn’t work that well because — as a real sportsbook — its menu is comparatively limited. Same with exchanges. Offshore, I couldn’t be bothered with.
But prediction markets? Spoiler alert: big and getting bigger, with plenty of alt lines and props and whatnot. (I can even bet on whether President Trump will delete his Rob Reiner post! That’s not sports betting obviously; that’s for price discovery and financial hedging for soybean farmers, I think. Not sure. Still trying to grasp it all.)
Fact is, I don’t need sportsbooks anymore. I want to bet on the Oscars, I can bet until my eyes bleed Timothee Chalamet over at Kalshi. I want to bet on the Daryl Gurney-Beau Greaves PDC World Championship darts match? I can do so until I get three darts in the “20” part of the board.
Point being, America’s legal sportsbooks, which either hate prediction markets (BetMGM, Caesars, BetRivers) or maybe kinda sorta like prediction markets (DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics) are, for better or worse, chasing me to the prediction markets.
So when it comes to being limited? Yeah, whatever.
Arb’ing and hedging
To be clear, I don’t need the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to tell me why I’m limited where I’m limited. I’m limited where I’m limited because I engaged in clear and obvious arbitrage. (Except at DraftKings, where I hammered them in the Oscars for two years.)
How do I know? Because I am 100% confident — I have no proof, mind you — the Euro-style books purposefully leave bad (for them) lines out there to see who bets them. And if you bet them, they assume (in my case, correctly) that I’m a no-good arb’er.
Again, no proof, but that’s what I did — picked off lousy lines — and got pinched everywhere, even places where I was down thousands of dollars.
So that’s me. That’s my story. Just to be clear.
Truth is, the legal sportsbooks have every right to limit me to pennies. They’re running a business, and you don’t get to run a business if you lose money.
It would be swell if these Euro-style books didn’t do this, if they did what Prime and Circa do and give everyone the same maximum bets for all markets, but … they don’t.
It’s a business, and the numbers back it up. Just look at Prime in New Jersey: In 2023, their hold percentage was 1.78%. In 2024, their hold percentage was more like an anti-hold percentage at -1.16%. This year, as of last month, they were at 1.16%.
Why is their hold so crappy? Because they take all comers, pro or Joe, and New Jersey is home to plenty of pros.
So while I applaud the Massachusetts Gaming Commission for the work they are doing on the subject, the fact is since they started talking about this in May 2024, the world of sports betting has changed. At this point, it’s like they’re making sure horse and buggy drivers aren’t allowed to discriminate based on the bonnet you’re wearing.
Of course, should prediction markets get regulated out of existence, then it’s a different story. I should probably hedge this. You know. For price discovery. And soybeans.
