Massachusetts sportsbooks already under fire for illegal activity

There always tends to be some bugs to fix when something new is launched, and it didn’t take long for land-based sports betting in Massachusetts to fall victim to an unfortunate blunder.

Launched on 31 January, sports wagering in the Bay State does not permit the involvement of college teams in Massachusetts. However, all three casinos in the state broke this rule within the first three weeks of legal sports betting.

A Harvard men’s basketball game was available at MGM Springfield, a Boston College women’s basketball game was offered at Encore Boston Harbor, and a Merrimack men’s basketball game was on the menu at Plainridge Park Casino. The operators themselves did report the issues to the MGC once they were aware of them.

Wagers for games involving colleges within Massachusetts are only allowed for major tournaments like the upcoming March Madness next month, but obviously these regular season college basketball games do not fall into that category.

In yesterday’s Massachusetts Gaming Commission meeting, it was reported that just north of $6,800 was wagered on that Merrimack College vs. Long Island University hoops game in early February, just days after Plainridge began accepting wagers.

Why was a Massachusetts team even on the games list? Well, in the meeting, it was stated that Merrimack College was marked as being in Florida instead of Massachusetts, which allowed it to be on the slate and available for bettors to dive into.

After being looked into it, it was determined by Plainridge that no suspicious betting activity involving the Merrimack game occurred.

With less than a month to the proposed launch date for mobile sports betting in Massachusetts, this can serve as a positive reminder to avoid such errors for online operators already approved to accept wagers in the Bay State next month.