Good morning. Thank you. Already my day is off to a better start. We are calling to order commission meeting number 281 of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission on Thursday, November 7th at 10 a.m. here in the beautiful Plainville Town Hall at 190 South Street here in Plainville. Before we get started, I do wanna let those who are viewing today that we will not be able to provide closed caption, mainly just because of a technical capacity issue. Once we're back in Boston, we'll be able to renew that service. So we will begin with item number two. Commissioner Stevens, please. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair. In your package, you have the meeting minutes from the October 24th, 2019 Gaming Commission meeting. I'd move approval of the minutes. Again, as always subject to correction for any typographical errors or any other non-material matters. Second. Any discussion, suggested edits? Marrying nine. Do I have those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Five-zero. Thank you, Catherine. Moving on to our administrative update, Executive Director Projose. Good morning, members of the commission. Good morning. I wanna update you on a few items, personnel matters, some of the items personnel are working on, and then an outline of today's meeting. So on personnel matters, we have had some additions to our IT operations. Tamara and O'Connor has joined us as the IT operations coordinator. Ben Bishop has come on permanently as our senior service test specialist. And Amadeep Agnohorty, and I hope I pronounce Am and he goes by Am and I hope it's pronounced his last name correctly, has joined us as a senior systems engineer. Also in HR, Natasha Martin is back from leave and she will be based in Springfield and focused on some of the HR issues with our remote employees. We sort of have, you know, we have Boston employees and we have remote employees all valued the same, but she'll be helping with those issues. On some of the issues that the folks are working on, just highlight, everyone's doing great work. Our HR staff is working on an annual review of our employee handbook. So that is something that we will bring to the commission. Finance is actually, as Lance could probably tell us, is spending some time at PPC working on our annual statutory audit. Mr. Ziemba, who I have excused for today, and I will play the role of Mr. Ziemba a little later in the agenda, is working on, in addition to always working on community mitigation, he's preparing for the gaming policy advisory committee meeting, which is scheduled Tuesday at 2 p.m. So he's working on helping to staff that. So in terms of today's meeting first, I would like to thank people from our staff, Marianne Dually, Austin Bumpus, and Jamie Ennis. We, coming traveling as a commission down to a remote location with all our materials, making sure streaming is prepared in all the logistics that go along with it may seem easy, but it's not. Those people deserve a lot of thanks and credit from us. So then about today's meeting, you'll see it is broken up maybe into two sections along with the core of the report from our licensee at PPC. We have a number of racing items in the morning and regulations and research responsible gaming in the afternoon. We intentionally put racing in the morning so they could actually go and conduct racing in the afternoon, which they have, and I think it's a, is it a one o'clock start? It's a one o'clock start. So we're gonna just be cautious of that. I anticipate potentially for those watching that the commission may take a break for lunch after item five. So that would then put us on items six, seven, eight, and nine for the afternoon. So that is my administrative update. Any questions for Ed? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now playing the role is John Zimba. It is our quarterly responsibility to get a report from our licensees today. Lance George, general manager at Plains Park Casino will introduce his team for his quarterly report. Lance. Thank you. Great to be here. With me today I have Dana Fortney, our vice president of finance and Mike Mueller, vice president of operations. We will jump right in. Oh, perfect. Start with revenue and taxes paid. Several comparisons here and in sum, a look at the preceding seven quarters. For Q3 of 2019, revenues eclipsing 36 million and total taxes paid approaching 18 million. Year-to-year comparison for the third quarter shows a decline of approximately 8.7 million in revenue driven primarily by the opening of Encore Boston Harbor. To date, the impact of Encore has been more significant than anticipated. However, even with that solid performance with a win per unit of $314. And we also recognized that Q3 represents only the first three months for our new competition. As we've discussed in previous presentations, the property has always anticipated this opening and the greater than expected impact to revenues does not materially change our operation. Next slide is lottery sales. Again, a lot of numbers here. However, I'll draw your attention to just a few. Consistent with property revenues, lottery sales saw a decline. Sales down approximately 80,000 or 8.65%. Q3 2019 total sales of over 850,000. And not surprisingly, we anticipate going for that these numbers will roughly flow with gaming revenues, solid numbers, encouraging results, nothing material and no material changes to the lottery operation for us. With that, I'll turn it over to Dana. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair, commissioners. Good morning. I'll start with our Q3 spend by state. For the third quarter, in-state spend was 873,000 or 56% of qualified spend, which is a 3% improvement from second quarters, 53%. The remaining spend is split amongst the states on the right. The overall qualified spend from the second quarter of 132,000 is applicable to the timing of payment of our larger capital-related projects. Moving on to local spend. In-state versus host and surrounding community qualified spend shows a slight increase in community spend, quarter over quarter. The second quarter came in at 77,000 versus the third quarter of 103,000. The increase in local spend came from Mansfield from a vendor named Matt Graphix. They completed the banners and indoor signage around the property when we transitioned our loyalty program to my choice over the summer. In-state spend has maintained levels similar to previous quarters in the year. I just want to thank you. I know after getting your second quarter report, I'd raise some concerns about differences with your track record in terms of Massachusetts spend. But I do want to thank you. We had a meeting down with Lance and his team. We talked about kind of what one of the key drivers to that differential was, certainly understand. But certainly remain convinced that you are constantly on the lookout for vendor opportunities and shareings. And we talked about what some of those additional opportunities were in trying to find a mass source for those. So just to follow up on kind of the post-second quarter report that we had talked about. Thank you. We do continue to focus on that. The procurement team has taken some of the recommendations that Joe had. And we'll continue to look for more. Thank you. For vendor diversity, we continue to be pleased, like I said, with efforts made by our procurement team on the diversity goals. Year-over-year diverse spend for the quarter came in at 30% overall on a goal of 21% and a prior year of 27%. Taking a look at the breakdown, you'll note a large jump in maybe spend for the quarter, driven primarily by an increase in our spend with an IT equipment supplier, Millennium Information Technology. We continue with the success story looking at diverse spend from second quarter to third quarter. The decline in webe spend is $63,000 due to the properties transition from Liberty Creative Solutions, their marketing direct mail company, to a company called Maple Direct. Although it's impacting our third quarter numbers, we're optimistic in recovering the spend as Maple Direct is both a maybe and a webe. We're just awaiting their certification before we include them in our report. On to employment. At the end of September, we had 454 employees with 301 or 66% of them being full-time, 143 or 32% being part-time and 10 being seasonal. Our seasonal employment's related to our racing operation. On our diversity goals, we see continued success in our diversity in veteran employment figures while we keep focused on our in-state and local hiring. Just a note about employment, because I always like to, when I see your employment report, then go to your website for your job postings. You have about 20 to 25 job postings available, at least as of last night. That might have changed. But I'm going to have a conversation with Director Griff and I think your team, because I think where a new opportunity might exist is now that community rail service is extended down to Foxboro. You might have the ability to actually attract potential job candidates from up the community line. Down to Foxboro, so I think it'd be a good conversation to have to see how we could work with some of our sister agencies to get the word out about job opportunities that folks close to Boston may not have been thinking about prior to that community rail service. Definitely. Onto compliance. In Q3, our security team checked just shy of 17,000 IDs. They turned away a total of 446 individuals, of which 45 were minors, 96 were underage, and 305 had expired invalid or no ID. We did have two incidents regarding underage for the quarter. Both gained access to the gaming floor, one of which did game. However, he only inserted a total of $10 into slot machines before he was identified by security and promptly removed from the gaming floor. The other was identified by player services before gaming and was escorted from the floor. Neither individual consumed alcohol. Lastly, for compliance, the MAS DOT's traffic monitoring program was released on September 26, 2019. The study's conclusion is that the measured impact on traffic volumes, trip patterns, motor vehicle crash trends, and traffic operations has been relatively minor with operating conditions that the monitored intersections found to be similar to the conditions that were documented in the 2015 baseline study. Take a moment to jump in here for public transportation and a GATRA update that we committed to providing each quarter. Continue to meet. The last meeting we had was on 1028, so we can a half ago or so. As far as current steps or current status, next steps, they will be revising and providing a new route for review and consideration. For a myriad of reasons, the route that was provided previously didn't work necessarily for us or for them. And so we look forward to receiving a revised or their ideas on what a new route could potentially look like. No major hurdles or stumbling blocks just agreeing on what the route will be. We should have that revision this week or next week. It shouldn't be that long. And remind me, Lance, that it's the route to extend the bus service that goes to Patriot Place. So I think there are a variety of different ideas that could be implemented. I don't know that that's where they are right now. It's kind of in their court to come back to us. But the last one we saw was more of a route between Attleboro all the way up to us. It did not involve Patriot Place at that time. Oh, okay. Now was that the only to do, if you will, relative to the study that you just mentioned? It is, yes. Yeah, as we think about relicensing too quickly from now, what, eight months from now, certainly we're moving furiously. We want to get this accomplished. We'd love to have it implemented or agreed to by the end of this year. But as I think about June of next year, that's something we want implemented prior to that. Thank you. Moving to an update on our women leading at Penn Program. Over the summer, we read the book You Are a Bad Ass by Jens and Sarah. The book had a great focus on developing your confidence by identifying common problems that people encounter and giving you a way to face that problem head on. I really enjoy the excerpt from the book that's on the slide, especially the part about the more you push yourself to do the things that you're scared to do the stronger your confidence will be in the future. In our next meeting in the fourth quarter, we'll be recapping the book with our group. And our additional topic is navigating the workforce, which is a module that'll focus on gender bias in the workplace and how to work through those hurdles. Quick question about this program. So you had success last year, the first year of the program, and I saw the numbers eight of the 16. So half of those women were promoted, which is tremendous. Is that word getting out that, hey, this is a great program. It could help you. I mean, are women interested in this program? They are. We try to keep it at a relatively manageable size. And then as women get promoted and move to other properties, we're replacing them. And there is questions that I get usually every month or so about, is there another opening, are we able to join? Great, thanks. With that though, another success story of the group from 2018, we had another promotion in the third quarter. Chelsea Marinucci, the properties revenue audit manager, accepted a position at a larger property with a broader set of responsibilities. She was one of my direct reports. So I'm very proud of her and her development. She started as a revenue auditor at opening and then received multiple promotions through her time there. So I'm really genuinely excited to see what she does, what her future looks like and how she grows her career. The only downside I've heard from her is that it's already been snowing in Colorado. That wasn't exactly exciting for it, but we are very, very happy for it. And are the women, they understand this is a real opportunity, even though they may have to move. That's not any kind of a barrier? I would say for some, they prefer to stay, and that's okay. For others, we have the conversation where if this is what you'd like to do with your future and your career, moving may be a real reality for them in the future. And we just talk about it, a handful of us have moved multiple times and so can lend some guidance on that. So you're being a good mentor, it sounds like. Doing our best. Okay, great, thank you. Moving on to Mike. Good morning, Madam Chair and Commissioners. Good morning. In looking at the marketing section, Plain Ridge Park continues to be a valued partner with our local host communities as we supported many local events this year. We were a top donator for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life where we had many employees participate. Two employee events we conducted this year to raise money were a $5 jeans day where you could donate $5 and wear jeans all day on Friday. And we also had several cookoff contests throughout the year where everybody would bring in their food and then you would pay a small fee to get a ticket to eat some of the food there and then judge and we'd have winners. So that raised a lot of money for us. We also had great guest participation through our donation boxes located on the floor. This allowed our guests to donate their low value Tito tickets to the cause as they exited the casino. Year to day 2019, we raised a total of $24,900. That included 6,300 from our employee events and another 5,300 from the drop boxes from the guests. Another great event we did supported the Friends of North Attleboro Animal Shelter. This event used guests and employee donations to help stock the shelves at local animal shelters. And we also made financial donations to fund entertainment and to the Plainville Permanent Firefighters, IAFF Local 3415 here. Finally, as you can see on this page, we do continue to support local community initiatives by donating to and participating in the taste of Tritown. This is a local food festival through the Tritown Chamber of Commerce that benefits local food pantries in Foxboro, Mansfield and Norton. Mike, I just, I wanna point out that this is an important slide. When we think about the contributions that our licensees make as corporate citizens, we recognize that in so many ways in terms of the broad impacts that PPC provides for Plainville here. But the fact that your employees are also giving back on an individual basis is significant. It shows that they understand in so many ways the opportunities that PPC is providing and that they are invested in helping. So really a credit to each of the employees who participated in this effort. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to the next page. Looking at some of our larger sponsorships for the year, we continue our relationship with Rentham Outlet Malls as well as the TPC Boston PGA event and the Fenway Concert Series. Something new for us this year, we've also worked with Beasley Media Group to successfully implement an outdoor concert series that utilizes our racetrack to hold concerts in the summer. It's been a good success and we're looking forward to more of that next year. On the next tab, looking at some of our recent marketing highlights, it includes a MyCash to free slot play conversion, MyChoice, MySummer, and this was our August Mercedes-Benz giveaway. This was our first major promotion we did under the new MyChoice program where we gave away their choice of a new Mercedes-Benz SLC 300 or $30,000 in cash. Also, we had Responsible Gaming Education Week where we offered numerous on-property events that included contests and quizzes for our employees that not only educated them, but offered them prizes as well for being well-versed in responsible gaming. Finally, during the week, we partnered with GameSense to have a watch giveaway where we first 100 guests for all five days of the event that visited the GameSense booth, each received a watch that's pictured here on the right. Mike, can you expand a little bit more on the MyCash and the MyChoice programs? Sure, what we did is we had a, when we paired with Pinnacle, there was two card programs, two marketing loyalty programs, and we combined them into one, which is the MyCash, or the MyChoice card. So the MyCash to free slot play conversion essentially allows them to take all of their points that they've earned and give them yet another option as to how they want to spend it. And this allows them to take their comp points and turn it into free slot play. So now it's just another option. They could go comp at a restaurant, they can comp at the gift shop, or they can turn into free slot play. So did you find, to the extent, you can answer this question that people had points in the two different loyalty programs and decide to combine them? Yeah, absolutely. And they do enjoy the ability to have the one card now at all of our properties across the country. It allows you to play here and earn your points. You can go to Colorado, earn your points, you can go up to Maine, earn your points, and it all stays in the one bucket. Great. In conclusion, we wanted to spotlight one of our local community business partners, Camelot Enterprises. Camelot is a veteran business enterprise located in Stoughton, Matt's, that opened in 1987. We've been working with them for almost two years as our local provider for many items like you see pictured here. Our team especially loves the work they do with their specialty embroidered items that we often use for employee gifts and incentive giveaways. They do amazing work for us and we continue to look forward to a long future with them. And here actually today is a couple of representatives from Camelot that are going to speak. We have Pam Glatter, our sales rep, and Elliot Kaplan, the owner. And I'd like to introduce them now. Excellent. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having us. And thank you for coming. Good morning. I'm Elliot Kaplan, obviously. Camelot was started by me as a veteran-owned business in 1987. I served the military in during the 60s, both in this in-country and in Germany. I don't have a lot more to say about that. We started the business in 87. It was a single screen printing machine expanded it by moving to Stoughton in 1993 to a large facility with automatic equipment, both screen printing, embroidery, engraving. We also offer thousands, literally, of promotional products. We've been working with Eli at Plain Ridge Park. And I think Pam can describe the impact of having PPC as a client for your business. It's been excellent. Pam can speak more to what she's worked with Eli and has expanded the whole situation with GameSense. And then please use the microphone. Sure. Thank you. Yes, hi. I met Eli at a South Shore Chamber of Commerce event and she suggested I apply for the mass gaming. So we sent the application in and we got approved and it's been a great relationship. We started off doing some small things like water bottles and marketing promos and we worked with the Human Resource Department to do employee incentives as well. And then we worked with dining with chef codes and we worked with the loft. And that's expanded now to Encore and to other casinos as well as GameSense. And I really enjoyed the GameSense portion and really understand now the importance of promoting that. So that's been a nice relationship. And I recently met with someone on the mass gaming who does the marketing as well. So it's been a great relationship. I just want to say one other thing. Go to the microphone, sir. Monday is Veterans Day and I think it would be nice if we can recognize the day here today for both veterans and those currently serving. Well, sir, first we thank you for your service. And I think that that is an important point, particularly while we are in this facility to acknowledge that how much we, as a commission and agency, appreciate all those who have served. And we will be remembering that service on Monday. My fellow commissioners, did you want to add? Just a quick question about, sir, did you realize that as a veteran-owned business, there were these kinds of opportunities or was that new to you? It's new to me. Okay, yep. We've looked into what we got, the license for mass gaming. And since then, we've been looking into other avenues as far as veteran-owned situations are concerned. Yeah, okay. Can I ask about that licensing process? I have, we have heard anecdotally that it could be a bit of a barrier for some businesses to go through the licensing process. What's your perspective? Obviously, you went through it and now described the... We had no problems. We thought it was straightforward, provided the information as a veteran and provided my separation papers and all of that. I found no problem with the process. I thought the process was very smooth, actually. Happy to hear that. Yeah, I would just add, thank you for your service as well. And again, I think you're a great example of what the statute envisioned that even though a lot of the gaming employment opportunities were going to be closer to where a casino was located, I think you're a great example of where spending dollars are having an economic impact beyond the region of where a casino might be located. So congratulations on your good work. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Yes. Let me get your name. Yeah. Well, being brought up in the 50s and 60s, JFK obviously was a meaningful representative coming from this area, the whole thing. So we picked that name. Great, thank you. Thanks. Can I ask another question, please? Susan, when you did go through the registration process to become a DBE, did you go through the state office or did you go through a veteran's? State office. The state, OSD, that's excellent. I know that they've been working hard to streamline that process. So anything that we can do to debunk the idea that it's difficult is, no, that's an important message for us to send. And I suspect that they could use the advocacy of veterans like yourself who have had that. If anybody's interested, any veteran wants information, they're more than free to call me. I'd be happy to talk to them about it. Excellent. Thank you so much. Any further questions? And that was a good question to ask. No, I just, the golf shirts look very sharp on here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Lance, does this conclude your presentation? It does, I apologize. Yes, ma'am. We're good. Thank you. Any questions for? Yes, I had a quick question. Yes, yes. Have a serf. Me. Got it. You mentioned at the beginning the impact that competition was having. Certainly. Is your experience, then you mentioned, but it's only been the first quarter. Do you anticipate or do you have experience from other properties where competition came close to your resort? Do you have a strategy? Are you doing a few things differently? Do you expect some of those customers who may have gone off the first quarter and tried their hand elsewhere that you may be able to bring some of those folks back? What, what? Sure. So I think parse out two questions there. One is, do I think that some of our customers will return? Certainly. I think at least, I can only speak for our openings as a company, we have great 41 properties. Certainly in your first year, your goal and your job is to drive trial, drive awareness, build the database. And at that point revenues become more important and they supersede your bottom line number, your EBITDA number. And so at some point, and we did the same thing, you begin to pull back on some of your marketing efforts to try to streamline and make your operation more efficient. And so yes, I do think at some point Encore, when MGM, Penn, everybody tries the same thing and that is the focus out of the gates is to ensure that people are visiting your facility. And then at some point gradually you will pull back. And so I do expect at some point, the level of marketing that is occurring now for Encore probably is dialed back a bit. And as far as people rejoining us or coming back to the property, yeah, normally you see a spike if you're the opening property, if you're the existing property, you see a decline. But as time goes on, we will see some of our customers return. I would point out, however, what is likely to occur is that maybe they're not just our customers going forward, however, it's likely that we'll see a split. So sometimes they'll visit Encore, sometimes they'll visit us, sort of depends on the day of the week. And so while it's not necessarily a loss of customers, it becomes more a loss of trips. Thank you. So you focused primarily on the competition being within the Commonwealth as opposed to from neighboring states. That's your data is revealing that. As far as who our primary competition is? Right now, in terms of that loss, you focused on within the Commonwealth versus from other jurisdictions. Tough to tell. So I would argue that our biggest competition is Rhode Island, given the proximity and geography, about 25 minutes to Twin River from our facility. The challenge there is to try to quantify it. They were already opening, or they were already open when we opened, so we didn't see a loss of revenue per se when they opened. But I would argue that our primary competitor is Twin River. However, we wouldn't have seen a loss in revenue because they were already there, they were an existing facility. So we're only experiencing that with Encore. But if the question is who is our competition, it's the closest competitor. And I think our early research revealed that PPC repatriated $100 million from other jurisdictions, which of course was a goal of the Expanded Gaming Act. So I wondered if you had felt that in any way the other jurisdictions were taking any of those repatriated dollars back. It's interesting for us. What we have seen is that, as we just mentioned, Encore has been very aggressive out of the gates. And Twin River has reacted a little bit. I think the second question you had was, are we going to do things different? We're not. We're not going to get into an arms race or a spending war. That's not who we are based on our size. We're a $260 million facility compared to a $2.6 billion facility. Very different facility, very different operation, very different marketing spend. And so our approach is to let that work itself out. It will come back in line. We're not going to change dramatically the way we do things. And so on those lines, a lot of what could happen in terms of this competition, which was predicted, perhaps falls into two categories, competing for an existing customer and then growing the market. So how would you, can you comment relative to the growing the market piece, which would be something that we for one would be interested in learning? Yeah, so these are all public numbers. And so we're studying feverishly in preparation for our budget meeting in a couple of weeks. And so one of the things that we have found public numbers, if you include Connecticut, Rhode Island, and all of Massachusetts, even with the addition of Encore, I believe the market growth was 3.8%, which speaks to me at least, that it's a redistribution of the existing pie, more so than it is growing the market. Now those are slot numbers only because table games numbers are not released for the state of Connecticut, so I can only speak to those slot revenues. But I guess I'm a little surprised at how small that number is. I think it's certainly easier for everybody when the market is growing. This appears at 3.8% to be more of a redistribution. That's a quick question relative to a lottery. And I know some of the numbers year over year down, I'm assuming some of that is just based on a corresponding dip in visitation. But have you needed to have or thought about having any conversations with our colleagues at the lottery in terms of new product mix or more machines or whatever a solution might be to drive some of those numbers up? Happy to do so. I think our revenues, public numbers are down about 18 to 19%. Lottery revenues were only down about 8.65%. So they are outperforming, if you will, but certainly happy to reconnect with the lottery it has been a while. That's one question on that. And I think I saw the slide and it dressed the ticket sales in the player activated terminals. Do you have Kino as well? We do. And did I miss that in terms of the numbers? That's all included though. It is included. Yes, yes, we have Kino. Certainly at flu use we offer Kino. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to item number five on our agenda, Dr. Lightbaum please on our racing, our director of our racing division. Good morning, Chad. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Good morning. Our first item on the racing agenda is the racing update. And just gonna do a quick one. I know we have a lot of different items on the agenda today. Earlier this summer at Plain Ridge, they held the Spirit of Mass trot for $250,000. And they added a new race this year, the Claire Barton Pace. This was another great way to showcase Plain Ridge and get some national attention. And it had the benefit, there were some people that had Massachusetts ties that actually their horse finished second in the race in the Massachusetts Spirit of Mass race. And then in the Claire Barton, some Massachusetts natives won with their horse. So that was kind of a highlight to not only have a big race like that, but also have New England connections, Massachusetts connections do well through the day. On the screen is a picture of commissioner Cameron in the, with the winner's trophy. Dr. Lightbaum, I think there were many, many people in that race. You included Dr. Lightbaum. I'll name a few of them. They had a nice day of different people come out for it. One of the people in there is the Massachusetts House of Representative Elizabeth Peoria and I apologize if I pronounced her last name wrong. Sportscaster Bob Neumeyer was there. Hall of Fame harness trainer, driver John Campbell was there. And then some local Plain Ridge people, Nancy Longabody, Melissa Rico were in the picture. And then their board of selectmen from Plain Ridge were there and the Patriots' Minutemen. It's quite a day. And do you know the overall attendance? They don't keep attendance figures there because there is no charge of admission. So I think we heard that it was certainly up over the. Yes, they had a nice turnout. It was on a weekend day so that they could do that. It was a lot of people. Yeah, bringing good business to Plain Ridge. And people were excited about the local ties winning races. Yes. Alex, a quick question. And maybe you know this. How did Clara Barton get a race name that way? Don't equate her with racing. I think they were trying to come up with names related to Massachusetts. And that's how they came up with that one. Steve O'Toole apologized for not being able to be here today. He had a prior engagement, but the next time he's at a meeting, he may be able to elaborate on his decision to name it that. The other exciting thing at Plain Ridge, which we just finished up was the Sire Stakes for the Massachusetts Sandler Breds. That program has expanded greatly. They had three legs, three different weekends where they held trials to qualify for the finals. The finals themselves, they gave out $800,000 in purses that day. And the overall was $1.8 million for that series. So it was definitely worth it. I looked back to 2013, which was before any of the gaming money came in, before Penn came. And that year, the total Sire Stakes purses was $253,000. So that's obviously a huge increase. And another exciting thing was for the two-year-old pacing Colton Gelding's division actually had to be split into two different races because they had enough horses for that. So that program is expanding. Suffolk Downs completed their final racing this summer. And I was going to go through and bring up statistics and all that, but those numbers end up in our annual report and all, and people can see those. The final day, they did have 12,000. Over 12,000 people come for attendance. The handle's always been good. They had a t-shirt that you could buy, and the proceeds went to Thorobrid Aftercare. And I just, rather than go through different numbers and all, I wanted to read a quote from Susan Walsh, our chief steward, who's been at Suffolk since she was a hot walker there, which is basically starting at the very bottom level. And then she worked her way up as a groom, became an owner, a trainer. Eventually, she became our chief steward. So her, to quote Susan Walsh, horse racing is, in the end, so much more than a list of winners or statistics on attendance. It's a crazy quilt of memories that can never be erased from those who have spent the best part of their lives here. I thought that was an appropriate send-off for Suffolk. And Alex, I know it's meaningful to you, too. It is, thank you. Do you want to share a favorite story? Let's see. I actually had a baby shower in the, it was given to me in what's called the Trainers Viewing Room. It's right on the turn of the track, so the trainers can stand there and watch their horses work in the morning. And they did it as a surprise. The way they got me there was they had the chief steward at the time tell me that there was somebody coming from out of town to do an inspection on the test barn. And so I needed to be down there. And I drove our people crazy beforehand saying, make sure everything's in. They were all in on the joke. Wow. So, yeah. And that's a personal one. The other things are obviously the horses and the people there. It was incredible, very much like a family. And generations of people through their families would work there. And, yeah, very exciting times. And you saw famous horses. Yes, yeah. They had several horses of the year that attended the Mass Cap, a Kentucky Derby winner that was in it. Cigar was treated as a celebrity. He was banned from New York and had a state police escort the whole way, the horse. So those were definitely some exciting days. So let's see. Our next item is the 2020 racing application. And I'll ask the Plain Ridge folks to come up. So today I have Lenny Calderon, the announcer, and Racing Services Manager, and Jason Savestano, the mutual manager here in Place of Sevo Tool to answer questions you may have. You all have had a chance to have the public hearing for comments. You've seen the application. They've basically asked for harness racing dates, April 6 through November 27. It's a very similar calendar to this year with the one change is that they've added a couple of days. This year they'll do 108. Next year they'll do 110 through an agreement with the Harness Horsemen's Association. And they're going to add the, as two Sundays, that they're going to add. I won't read the requirements. Those are in the memo and come straight from the statute. The number of days that they're going to race will also make them in compliance for the ability to simulcast that legislation is still in there for at least 100 days, which they will have with 110. The one thing that we have done for the last four years is ask that they have an independent review of the track surface done. The first year in 2016, Ed Ryan did it. He's been associated with Freehold Yonkers and is consulted on different training centers, building tracks, and things like that. The last three years, Dan Herbs from Rosecroft has done it with the Maryland Docky Club. So this year we're just asking that they have somebody new come in to do their review. And again, this is basically a standard operating procedure that we've done now for four years. This will be the fifth year. Does the commission have any questions on the application? Do you have any, are you going to approve or comment on who they select in terms of the qualifications of who's looking at it? Just please don't use somebody you've used in the past. They usually bring a name to me with their qualifications. So that'll happen before they. Yeah, it'll be informal. Yes, right. So Dr. Leipelm, obviously from the hearing, this application has very strong community support, which is always a positive thing when we look at licenses every year. So that I look at is a positive thing. Again, I mentioned at the hearing, and I'll mention it again, we really do appreciate the association working with Penn National in order to jointly come together with racing days, which is great. I know there's a long-term contract in place, so we really do appreciate and think that's best when there is that collaboration to do things the right way. And I know the track has been the safety, and we take that very seriously. In fact, I don't think there are too many standard bred tracks around the country that really require the safety check. I think it's a really important piece. And to have someone different, I think it makes sense, too, because we want people to feel. We want it to be safe. Yes. I know you feel strongly about that. You've always had the best interest of the participants, whether they be drivers or horses, their safety. So I commend you for always having that first before anything else, that safety issue. So I think those are very good, strong pieces in support of this application. Yeah, it is a strong application. May I agree? Commissioner Senigo? Yeah. Just to put a final point to the prior comments, the harness horseman association highlights in their comments the need for some replenishment of the track. Does anybody, Jason or Lenny, want to talk a little bit about that? Or are we to take the inspection to be the one to really tell us whether there is indeed some need for replenishment of the surface? I'm sorry, you said about the replenishment? Yes. In the back, there's a letter from the horseman's group saying that the track cover material needs replenishment. OK. Is that something you agree with or disagree with or is it going to be left for the inspection? I guess before you answer it, you got an opportunity to actually take a look at what's going on. I have not, but if you're not prepared to answer that, that's OK. You've heard a Steve O'Toole on that and he's looking into it. OK. Well, let me put the question to Alex. What do you see happening relative to this topic? We'll wait for the inspection. Well, Steve O'Toole was offered to meet with the harness horseman and that's where we've left it is that they should get together. Track maintenance is an ongoing issue. That's something that happens every day. Microphone. Track maintenance is something that happens every day. They have their machines out on the track and all that. And comments from drivers on a daily basis can be made to management. If they notice something, either sometimes the track is too deep, sometimes it's too hard. Those types of things can be taken care of immediately. And I don't know if they, I'm not sure on the stoned us level right now. I was up there on the Steyer State's Day watching. With Steve O'Toole, we could see the machines going around and you could see that it was digging down into there was stoned us there. And it looked like it was deep enough. I'm not an expert on tracks. But again, we have told the harness horsemen that they need to sit and meet with Steve O'Toole on those concerns. And that's something that doesn't need to come to the commission. They can say, we noticed that there needs to be some stoned us in this area. And Steve can take care of that immediately. Dr. Leipam, you are an expert, though, on the safety of horses and what it takes to maintain that. And have you seen evidence of breakdowns with horses, which would be an indication that maybe there's an issue with the track? Yeah, we haven't seen them. That, we did have one that had a fracture that needed to be euthanized. On the standard bread side, we don't see the number of incidences that they do on the thoroughbred side. And it's not unusual looking back at our statistics. Some years, we go without any incidences there. Other times, there may be one or two. And we haven't finished doing a complete review on that particular incident yet. It may or may not have been due to the track surface. So every time there is an issue with a horse, you do look into the matter and see if you can identify if there is a safety concern? Yes, any time there's a horse that dies at the track, regardless of what the reason is, we have an autopsy done on it, a full autopsy by an accredited laboratory that does this. And they give us that information back. We also get a blood sample from that horse and send it to our lab for drug testing. And those have always come back negative. Thank you. What time of year did that happen? Do you know approximately when that happened? It happened maybe about a month ago? About a month ago. OK. Thank you. And at our public hearing, the issue around safety was discussed as well when Mr. O'Toole was here to address the application. Yes. So thank you for filling in the details today. Any further questions about the application? I think when you look at the requirements, the public hearing was very helpful because we did hear from so many of the stakeholders, including the community members and including our public safety officials, the chief of police and the chief of the fire department were able to address issues around the racing. And they really acknowledged that there have been really minimal issues around community public safety. And in terms of the horse racing, I think what I see here is a request for a vote conditioned on, again, what has been the practice in any case of certifying as to the quality of the track. This year, you just want to make sure to be completely transparent with all stakeholders that it would be a new entity that would do the review. Yes. And that doesn't, in no way, puts a negative comment on the people who've done it in the past. That's true. They were all well-qualified. Excellent. Thank you for the questions. So do you want to, for the record, state your recommendation, Dr. Lightwell? My recommendation is that Plain Ridge will have an independent, when we start over again, the Racing Division recommends that the commission approve the application of Plain Ridge Gaming and Development LLC, Plain Ridge Racecourse for live harness racing in 2020 with the following condition. Plain Ridge will have an independent expert that hasn't previously reviewed the track surface, reviewed the track surface prior to racing. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission reserves the right to ask for further reviews during the racing season. So Madam Chair, I would move that the commission approve the application of harness race racing license filed by Plainville Gaming and Redevelopment LLC, also known as Plain Ridge Park Racecourse for the calendar year 2020, subject to the conditions outlined in the memo from Dr. Lightbaum included in the commission's packet and any other conditions discussed at the meeting today, which I believe there were no other conditions that we discussed. So the ones that Dr. Lightbaum has included in the packet. Second. Any further discussion, any additional condition? Okay. Those in favor? Aye. Opposed? 5-0 please, Catherine. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck with the racing season. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lenny. Thank you, Jason. Thank you so much. If I may say one thing. I know Mr. Sebbins, you asked about the Clara Barton, how we chose that name. If I could give a little bit of insight into that. My understanding is that Paul Verret, our race secretary was looking for, he was going through the historical records that was a native of Massachusetts and he came, I guess he looked through the books there and he came up with Clara Barton because she was a volunteer nurse. She was a native of Massachusetts and she was a volunteer for the Red Cross. So that's how the name came to be. Any thoughts on a Jeff Kinney ceremonial race? I'm sorry for what? A Jeff Kinney race. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Leipel, moving on to item five C. Our next item is the racing and a report for the year 2018. You have it in front of you and it's in the packet so we're not going to read it word for word. Just go over some highlights. Suffolk Downs raced eight days and in that year, Plain Ridge Park raced 110 days. The number of drug positives that we had went down a little bit in 2018. We always strive to do as much education as possible. We have a trainer's manual that is posted on the website. We leave a copy in our, there's an office hallway that we share with the racing office that the horsemen have access to. We leave a copy there and try to get the word out. We have a whole list of medications on the controlled therapeutic schedule that have thresholds and how to avoid getting over the threshold level. So we did see the levels go down a little bit at Plain Ridge, which was great. At Suffolk, it did go up a little bit. That might have just been that with Suffolk Downs, the type of racing there, you're getting so many people coming all at once from out of state that may have been in jurisdictions that may have had slightly different regulations. I don't know if there's, the rulings stayed fairly similar levels between that in 2017 between the judges at Plain Ridge and then the stewards at Suffolk Downs. At Suffolk Downs, there was a claiming issue that the stewards very diligently worked on and did a lot of research on as well as with folks from Suffolk Downs and discovered this false claim that involved maybe 10 different people. So all of those people got rulings against them and that's one of the reasons why the rulings at Suffolk Downs that year were increased. It's not necessarily that all of a sudden there were a lot of issues. That one particular incident happened to involve a lot of people. I'll turn it over to Chad now if he wants to go over maybe some of the financial highlights. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning, good morning. So after going through all the financials in the report, you did a bit of attribution analysis and overall we saw an increase in the revenue categories across all line items, except for the association licensing fee, which was down roughly 3%. And as Alex had noted on the compliance side, the fines and penalties on a monetary value were down slightly, but everything else was up. So overall that was good on the revenue side. I think one of the biggest attribution for that was there was a 7% uptick in simulcast. Suffolk Downs alone was up $10 million in that. So that's been happening over the past three or four years. The simulcast has really been increasing year over year. And then also there was an increase at 13% in licensing fees. So overall it was a lot of positive items on that and I just wanted to put out if there's any questions out there that you had. Dr. Leipbaum, you mentioned when you talked about medication overages and what the statistics were that you actually spent some time with educating people, right? How to avoid an overage. Yes. So that was of interest to me. So you're actually trying to be proactive here in assisting individuals on how to be smart about substances that are allowed, but certainly at only a percentage, right? Only a level. Right. They realized that there's a subset of drugs that are used by even maybe your pet veterinarian who uses every day their legitimate drugs to use with animals to help them heal or get over a cold and infection, different things. And so obviously we wanna be able to treat the race horses with those therapeutic medications. A lot of those also would not be appropriate to find in a horse that's actively racing. If it's a pain reliever, you know, it's certainly appropriate if the horse just got injured but you don't want it in the horse that's actually racing. So it's probably been seven or eight years ago, they came up, RCI, came up with a list of therapeutic medications and maybe added a few over the years, I think it was around 20 to begin with and now it's up to around 30 of drugs that you can legitimately use and it just gives guidelines on when to stop using them, how much you can give to stay under the threshold limits. It's not necessarily an exact science because there's different things that can affect how a horse metabolizes drugs but it is a help to trainers and veterinarians. Great, well I think it's important that you saw fit to emphasize and try to assist with knowledge, right? How to do this better rather than say, we got you on the back end, you're trying to be proactive on the front end so that people don't run into a problem with medication. Yes, we prefer not to have any positives. That would be, that's easier for everybody and we want fair racing so we want it fair for everybody and everybody to be following the same guidelines. Thank you. So it's a great report of course because of timing, we're looking at the calendar year end of 2018. Right. We can probably expect something really similar in terms of numbers for 2019 because racing and simulcasting was probably among the same levels but it is for 2020 that we might see a change. Of course, we'll have to see what that is depending on what happens with the legislation given that now we don't have a application from Suffolk Downs and there's still a question as to whether and how long they'll be able to simulcast in the next kind of year. Correct. So I just want to point that for the record. Yes. I have one quick question, Mary Ann, can you go to slide 34 please? It's the last, it's a photo on the last page. So I just noticed Commissioner Stavins is holding a bucket. Yes. I didn't know if you were doing double duty that day. I'm not a licensed test barn official. I think it was more of a prop. The bucket was empty. For the record, that's a water bucket. It's not a water bucket. Again, if you go back to the fact that it was unlicensed, I didn't know the difference. Did you know the difference exactly? I couldn't know. I'm a great team down there at the test barn. Yeah. Absolutely. I thought the report was particularly helpful for me as I continue to learn more about the horse racing industry, particularly the racing terminology. Thank you very much on that. I have a question that I forgive me for not knowing the answer with respect to simulcasting. Those revenues are treated in this, how are they treated for the purpose of state benefits in terms of local aid and taxes? There's no tax rate on simulcasting, correct? So the... If you could walk me just through how they're treated, that would be great. So the simulcasting is for local aid purposes, is lumped in under the handle. Under the handle. Yeah, the total handle. There's no different treatment. So the $10 million that was extra that came through Suffolk would be subject to the same division as all the rest of the handle. Correct. Okay. Confirming what I understood. Thank you so much. Excellent report. Thank you. And thanks for such a successful season and very ethical and the proactive piece of what you do. It's much appreciated. Thank you. So IMD is a raising legislation update and Captain Blue, our deep legal counsel, did the memo for it. We've both been following the different bills and are waiting to see what happens with that for raising. So in the commission packet today, there is a memo regarding the legislation that is before the legislature. The commissions, the racing statutes, chapter 128A and 128C were scheduled to sunset last July. At that point, the legislature passed an extension until January 15th of 2020. So at the moment, the legislature has a choice. They need to act before January 15th, 2020, or racing in the Commonwealth will no longer be allowed. They can either pass another extension, which would look very much like attachment A to this memo, or they can pass another racing bill. And what you have in the packet are three bills that address racing. The first one is HB13, that is the commission bill. It is broad and it gives the commission a great deal of flexibility to address the issues that impact racing through the regulatory process. SB101 is a similar kind of bill. It has some slightly different terms and it is a little more specific in terms of what's statutory versus what's regulatory. And there are some points in SB101 that would be worth considering by the commission if they were to create regulations around racing. HB322 is another bill. It's set up in a way that it doesn't seem to either extend 128A or 128C. I think it would have some difficulty standing alone, but it also tracks very much what SB101 does and HB13. And then finally, just because it's been out in public, there is HB4070, it's a gaming bill. The reason it's in this memo is because the proponent for that bill has talked about a racing component to any gaming application they would file. So there's been a lot of attention paid to that bill as well. Alex and I can answer any questions. We've been watching these as they've gone through. Again, the date to take some sort of action is coming up. I, first of all, general counsel, I appreciated this memo. I thought it was very well put together. Gave an excellent snapshot of each of the pieces of legislation that we've been hearing about and that are out there. Once again, we're faced with another pending deadline where the can kind of keeps getting kicked on the road a little bit. I think this is, it seems unusual and not common place in the commonwealth for regs of an existing business to keep getting sunsetted. I think it creates some level of uncertainty for operators, certainly some uncertainty for potential operators. And at a time when we know one segment of this industry is doing really well, which is with respect to harness racing by evidence of an extended purse agreement, I think I saw in the packet that we have an increasing membership in the harness horsements association, all good signs that are pointing to success in that industry. And it seems to me that the regs are not keeping up with the state of the industry as it is right now in Massachusetts. So one suggestion I wouldn't, we can certainly consider as I would like to see this commission renew emphasis for the bill that we've had up on Beacon Hill for a number of years and whether that wouldn't be at this meeting, but our next meeting maybe give the commission a chance to re-vote our support for the bill or whether we would allow our chair to put a new cover letter together with our existing bill and send it off to legislative leadership. I think that would be helpful. But again, we're looking at some just in January deadline that we usually wait up until the 23rd hour to figure out whether Plain Ridge or the folks at Suffolk could even do, you know, accept bets or simulcast or anything and it, again, I think we're at the right time in the right moment to give some more emphasis to our bill which kind of creates an open and transparent process going forward as to how we'd work with the horse racing industry. I think Commissioner Stavins, you're referring to the January 15th deadline for 2020. You know, I agree with everything that you say in conceptually, I would add a couple of things. You know, just a very fine point, you referred to regs that keep getting extended and it's really the legislation. It's a statute that I just wouldn't wanna confuse it with the authority that we do have when it comes to promulgating regs and the one that we don't have which is the legislative action. I do think that and agree that the memo lays out really the key summary or the key aspects and the differences of the bills but I think it really, and perhaps this is what you were alluding to, Commissioner, it really might be helpful to revisit the reasons of some of the recommendations when it came to what we drafted. The history and evolution of racing in this state but in many other states as well is one that has resulted in a lot of different numbers and premiums and takeouts and for one, what we feel that are the legislation that we were requiring and met the requirement to submit to the legislature. One of the things that they would accomplish we thought at the time and I think it's still valid now is streamlined significantly the ability to regulate racing. Not just give the industry and the stakeholders certainty which is critical but then whatever cannot be determined have the commission, this body to have the flexibility and to be deliberative, analytical and whatnot and come to ultimately a resolution either via regulation or anything else or votes. So I have to imagine that just given very recent history at the legislature they, because they extend at the 11th hour they may not really appreciate the thought that went into what we put together. I think it's to the extent that we can we should remind that or make it or send a memo like this with some of the additional some of the research that I know we did at the time when we compared the takeouts and premiums in other states and what other states for example have done to try to streamline and update their own legislation. So I think that's some of the things that we could highlight. I'm not optimistic that there's a lot of time to do that between now and January 15th. It's something that we've talked about at some point but I think again this memo begin to really begins to really articulate the key differences and one of simply to me is that with our legislation we think we would have the ability to among other things help the industry as it was intended in the gaming act. The race horse development fund that was put together with its moving pieces, the split and whatnot and was always meant to be an important piece to aid the industry and our ability to do that especially in the federal bread side has been constrained by the recent short term extensions. So. I just want to clarify the process. First off, I think I've given my thanks to you. Catherine on the memo is very, very helpful. So thank you. There was a filing deadline in my right Councilor Blu for refiling this particular SB 13. Yes, and we met that deadline last fall. It was last fall, not in this current. No, because we are, because we are a state agency we filed the November prior to the beginning and that's when we refiled. And that was filed under your name. Executive Director, is that how it worked? It was filed under the commission's name. So it came from the commission. So there was some discussion in last fall as to the support. So what I'm hearing from my fellow commissioners is that while it was filed properly to the channels that might be helpful to in an informal, less formal communication reiterate the commission's position on this particular filing. I don't think today we're prepared. I wouldn't be prepared to necessarily say we endorse this particular exact submission without further clarification with that said, I do think we could have time to get together some, you know, a letter correspondence on the filing. Certainly there is a process that the legislature expects and I'm not sure if we could, this is a question if we could actually amend it at this time or not. So, but we could certainly communicate whether we would suggest in the sausage making an amendment should be made of sorts. So perhaps we can think about it for a future meeting with some work done by Executive Projosian and Catherine and her team. No, I would make the same comment. The draft that's been resubmitted is something that happened, the meat of it happened before I arrived and before you arrived. And so there's been some discussion, but there hasn't been a deep dive. I trust and assume with the expertise in the office that any marketing necessary changes would have been made. But I do think having had this experience in other offices, it's always good to take a fresh set of eyes and look at it again. I do think this is a good opportunity, however, to maybe remind the legislature of our submission and the fact that I agree with you, I remember conversations you and I specifically had disagreeing over an approach having to do with certain monies connected to racing and the frustration in the only the sun setting rather than sort of taking a good look at it. Given the closing of Suffolk, also I think this is a very different landscape. And so I think that's an even more pressing reason to sort of go back to the legislature, remind them of the submission because I do think it is something that needs to be addressed. Yep, I would agree. I think it never hurts to, in an appropriate way, push something forward again. We think makes sense. Further communication is always helpful. I just want to make sure that we all know on the record a process was followed appropriately that there's only a certain window to file. So thank you for that. And we can put it on. If you want commissioners, we can think about drafting some type of communication that talks about the history of the bill, where the commission is now, and recognizes the potential for modifications and as you appropriately call it, the sausage making process. And also I think the other thing we want to just remind folks, I think everyone here knows it and people in the industry know it, but the connection between the racing bill and simulcasting, right? It's not just about racing, it is about simulcasting. When you hear those figures, that's important. So just to remind folks that there are different components of this. Right, and again, the commission really hasn't as a whole voted on this in terms of even, if we know we have a consensus, so it'd be a draft that could help guide our discussion. I think that'd be excellent. I think there's also the component that, because we always think about the impact of what the commission regulates on looking through a wide lens, there are issues around jobs attached to both the racing and simulcasting and the revenue numbers are important too. So we should think with the wider lens as well as the statutory submission. Any further discussion on that? Excellent, excellent job on the memo, thank you. Any, Catherine, did you wanna add now that we've chatted anything that further insights based on what we just talked about? No. Okay, you're all set, excellent. So does that conclude the racing legislative update? Any further questions on that? Then we go into the split discussion 5E for purposes of our agenda. Council will bring up a memo regarding that and just a reminder that Commissioner Cameron sits on that committee. So she can also comment on the meeting. And if you could remind us of the makeup of that committee, I know it's chaired by a gubernatorial appointee and Gail, as our representative here. The horse racing committee consists of five members. The chair is Brian Fitzgerald. He's appointed by the governor. There is an appointee from the treasurer. Emily, I can't pronounce her last name, I'm sorry, Kotunski. There is a representative from the standard red, which is Peter Goldberg, a representative from the thoroughbred, which is Joe Savage. And then Commissioner Cameron is our representative from the commission. Thank you. So as you can see, as outlined in the memo, the newly constituted committee did meet this fall, met a couple of times, had submissions from both breeds regarding what they thought was appropriate for a split. The committee many years ago, the original committee decided it would be appropriate to meet every year because racing was changing, pretty considerable changes, especially with both breeds, right? Penn National, with the race horse development fund and increased monies, increased interest, increased race days. And the thoroughbreds, obviously, the opposite is true, very few opportunities to race. So I think the committee takes all of that into consideration. Race days is one of many, many factors. Really thoughtful review of all of the submissions as well, Dr. Lightbaum and her team is very good at providing the committee with real numbers, hard numbers. Not only on participants, licensees, monies generated, but all of the ancillary pieces that everyone doesn't typically think about, meaning farms, how many horses, how many new horses for both breeds each year, all of the employees, which is a critical piece. And so all of those factors are taken into consideration. And it's a difficult job for the committee because both breeds are very, very passionate about racing and having their thoroughbred racing be successful, harness bred, just harness racing be successful. So there's spirited discussions. I believe the committee, I was one of the four that voted in favor of this split. It really turned out 5% more went to the standard breadth this year because of all the additional, the generation, the folks involved, the race days, all of the relevant factors that were really, the committee was very thoughtful about taking a look at. So the recommendation is for 5% more to go to the standard bred side. And what we did not do this year as a committee was get involved in any of the retroactive pieces. And I think that was a good decision as well. There were many unintended consequences around that that we worked hard to avoid. So as a member of that committee, I think this is a sound recommendation. And one that our commission should approve. Any questions for commissioner Cameron or for Dr. Lightbound on this, on the split? I would just add I was very happy to see the retroactive piece not included this year. I think that was a fair way to treat both horsemen's grip. And the types of factors as I understand that the committee considers is not only the number of race days, but factors around open space. The breeders, impact on breeders, the ancillary services goes beyond the number of race days. And that's where the 5% increase. Yes, because of the additional, you know, the additional, the entire focus of racing, the entire, when you look at all of the other factors that you just mentioned, the committee really did believe an additional 5% to standard bred was appropriate. Of course, the one vote here would be the representative thoroughbred industry. And of course, they're very hopeful that there could be another track here in the Commonwealth and there would be some monies there to assist with that endeavor. So that's obviously a very, we understood completely their point of view and came to this decision realizing all of those factors and considering them all. And like this committee, it's a public meeting. Oh, it is. And there's always an interested group of individuals, passionate folks when it comes to racing all with both breeds and many of them were represented at our meetings this year. Any further questions? Do I have a motion? Yeah, I would move that the commission approved the split of the racehorse development fund recommended by the horse racing committee. It's fully described in the memorandum from General Counsel Blue and Dr. Lightbaum, Director of Racing in the November 7, 2019 commissions packet. Second. For the questions, discussion, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Five, zero. Thank you. Now, back to Chad. This is item 5F, the quarterly local aid report. Thank you, Chad. Thank you. Each quarter in accordance with section 18D of chapter 58, local aid is payable to each city and town where racing activities are conducted. The amounts are calculated at 0.35 times the handle for the quarter ending six months prior to payment. The local aid payment for the quarter ending in September 30, 2019 is in the amount of $168,536.99. This amount reflects the total handle from racing that took place in January, February and March of 2019. And on the second page, you will see a breakdown of the handle as well as the distributions that are payable to each city and town. And this item does require a vote. Thank you. Questions for Chad? Looks pretty straightforward. All of the numbers are in order and I'm sure have been checked and rechecked and they're accurate. That's what we come to expect from this team. So that's always appreciated. And with that, if there's no further questions, I would move that the commission approved the local aid, quarterly local aid payments as described in the memo from Chad Work Financial Analyst dated November 7th, 2019, included in the commission's packet. Second. Any questions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? 5-0. Thank you. Thanks. Now, moving on to 5G, Dr. Leithbaum. So today I have Alice Spiehler with the Harness Horsemaids Association. She's the treasurer and what's your other title? Managing director. Managing director of ATFJNE to talk about their pension plans and different things that are doing benefits for their members. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners and thank you for having me. Welcome to Plainville. This is my town. I live here. My husband and I have had a farm since the end of 79 and went on to sell the first farm and buy another 60 acre farm. And he, being local for by trade, built a training track, USTA regulation training track in which another stable shares use of that track with all of us. So I'm very comfortable here. More so than Boston. And I just wanted to meet with you to kind of bring you up to date. Throughout the year I've been trying to do that. I wanted you to see our first year. This is our first year, actually our second year, but our first year of really promoting it and getting people going on that RSV. You can see we increased our participants from 112 to 141. It has been a big, big hit amongst the trainers and drivers. So much so that it's probably part of the fabric that's making racing work over at Plain Ridge. The criteria, the adjustment we made in the criteria because of the less racing days has worked really well and it's allowed them to participate the way it was intended. And our membership has over the past three years also increased from when I came on board. There was 256. We're now at 333 members. So we're really growing strong. And the Harness-Hosman's Association had an election in which all the same people were re-elected and the president, they felt, the membership felt strongly that they were being well represented. And I just wanted to let you know what some of that money's doing besides the pension. We also have, what we offered this year first time was a company, we teamed up with a company called 2020 and we did a vision program for them. And they brought a bus, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not following your order maybe. They brought a bus to the facility and the people were able to come in and have eye exams and the Health and Welfare Fund was able to help offset that cost. So people who would not normally be able to go get an exam or afford the glasses, maybe wouldn't even put the, didn't have the time, we made it really easy for them. So we had sent out a bulletin letting them know we were gonna do that. And I believe you received a copy of a kind of frequently asked question page we put together for them. And it was a big hit and everybody seemed very satisfied. So that's the kind of things we're trying to do. Vision, maybe get into some wellness checks, flues, things like that. We've got some big ideas that we want to work with the members and use that money for. And also, not that it's part of the Health and Welfare but just we wanted to give a little shout out to the fact that we were able to get toughs to offer our members a discount up there if they need any services. And that's the summary. That's exciting stuff. Again, it's, what I referred to earlier is just growth and success on the harness racing side of the business that. And it's all because of the legislation with the Health and Welfare Fund that this is possible. And there's just endless possibilities we're trying to put together for them. And we appreciate that. I agree with Commissioner Stevens that this is fabulous program. I see how hard you work every year to improve it. This is an excellent, I love the frequently asked questions. That's really helpful to people. Also, why are, in looking at those numbers of other states in our state, our numbers are so much higher, right? That first chart we showed, is that just, do you think it is the, is it the pension plan that people really gravitate around becoming members, or is it just the increase of racing that? Definitely was the pension plan that brought members aboard. And people that, I would approach people and I'd say, you know, we have a pension plan. I heard about it. What is it involved? And when I tell them, sign me up. And I just, I can't say enough about it. I mean, but I do have, the other side is people are asking me, what do I need to do? And have I met my quota?  I said, well, that was the idea. If you started early in April, you put your six out of eight months in and you needed to leave to head out fine. If on the other toss of the coin, some people would not be here early, but will stay now. They come up to me all the time. I need to stay in November to get my points, right? Yes. Okay, great. That's great. Alice, so you were here earlier discussing, you know, the uncertainty that comes in January 15, mostly around the thoroughbred racing, but of course, you know, it affects the standard rate. If it should something not be renewed, for example. So to the extent that you're not already doing that, doing the following or your membership is not doing this. Do you talk to your representatives or people at the legislature who might, at least you might wanna inform about the success story on this side? Our focus, yes. Very big focus. I have to say I have a brother-in-law who was in the thoroughbreds just passed. I'm passionate about thoroughbreds because I actually started as a groom in thoroughbreds. So I am passionate about the thoroughbreds. I'd love to be able to have them here too, and but we are at our legislative level asking for whatever information they need, whatever numbers we can give to them to keep us going because of a program like this. It's so important. Thank you. And that was it. Thank you very much. I just want to reiterate how happy we are to get thorough reports from you. And we also really want to send our appreciation for close relationships that we work together with Dr. Lightbaughn. It's so important for us to keep those communications really strong so that we can make sure to meet your needs and we can help in our regulatory process. So Dr. Lightbaughn, your leadership here is so important. And this is all reflective here with these increasing numbers. So thank you and thank you. I gotta tell you, originally I started just to do this plan. That's all I came on board to was do the plan and get out. And somehow I became a voice for the membership. And it's been a learning curve for me because I never had taken that role on. I've always been the trainer, the owner of the standard breads. That was originally why we bought the farm to do our business. So I was just part of the masses. Now I've become the voice of the masses. And I have a learning curve and I'm looking forward to working together. I'm trying to see that we can find that common ground and find the avenues that you take to get there. Well, it's very important. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Five, eight, correct? Yes. This is a request from Plain Ridge for a substitute judge for Plainville. His name is, let's get myself going here, James Tracer. He is accredited with the Racing Officials accreditation program as a thoroughbred steward. We've talked to the Harness Association, the USTA, about what he needs to do to get accredited through them and they have given him a provisional judges license with the understanding that at the next time they offer the course, that he will take the course and take the exam. So he will be certified through them and that also makes him eligible to get the rope accreditation for dual breeds. Once you've taken the full course for the rope on one side, then you just need to take the breed specific sections to get accredited for the other side through the Racing Officials accreditation program. So my recommendation is that the commission approve the request of Plain Ridge Park Casino to approve James Tracer as a fill in judge and racing official. Dr. Olaipa, although he doesn't have, this candidate does not have the official, he has a temporary accreditation. Right, a provisional. But you've reviewed his qualifications and you're making assurances that he is qualified even though the official certification is in waiting. Right, and what we've done is he's shadowed the current judges in the judges stand and so that he could start learning on that aspect of it. And then he will be, anytime he's on, he would be on with our two judges as well. So it would be our two judges and him for whatever races he was needed to fill on. So you are satisfied that the appropriate knowledge and qualifications are in place to approve this application? Yes. Okay. And Alex, I mean, we have a short amount of time for the racing season left. Is there appropriate time that he would be able to complete certification before the start of next year's race? I believe they're not giving it till sometime in the spring and I don't know if that'll be before the meet begins or not. They may not need him as a fill in at the beginning of the season. This is specifically for circumstances right now for this, you know, for the last month, six weeks of the harness meet. I understand you do need a vote for this, are there any further questions for Alex? No. Commissioner Cameron. So I move that the commission approve the appointment of James Traster as a fill in judge as requested in the letter from Steve O'Toole, director of racing at Plain Ridge Race Course, dated November 1st, 2019, included in the commission packet. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? 5-0. I had a request if we have enough time to go out of order a little bit. If Jason Savastano would like to be able to get back to the track, if we could take the pick in pool racing regulation now and then if the commission. We do have 15 minutes and second director for Josh and I'm not sure if we have more time for it to even go further. I think that's up to the commission. Justin might be, he might also be. I have told the most important thing that lunch is not here yet. So I can, we can give you the high sign and if you want to go until lunch gets here. Can we get a five minute break? Five minute break? For the record, this is exciting. We are ahead of schedule. So we do really note that in the minutes. I think what I'm hearing from my fellow commissioners is that we would like a five minute break and then we could move forward on these regulations. Sure. Thank you. Before we start, I realized that I had not been properly recording. So we had taken a brief recess. I had noted for the record that we were ahead of schedule which was exciting, but we're ahead of schedule enough so that we can accommodate some of our guests and move ahead to item number six. So this is now we're reconvening officially. So starting with item six, Dr. Leipzig and General Counsel Bloom. This is just bringing back the pick in that Plain Ridge had asked for in the spring and it's gone through the promulgation process and is now ready for the commission to do the final vote on it. Okay, moving ahead then with the pickin pools. I understand, General Counsel Bloom, that you're going to have Jason, correct? Speak on this. Jason is with Plain, or the combination of you and Dr. Leipzig will be presenting on it. Okay. Yes. Well, you were very helpful at the public meeting last week explaining it to me. So thank you for being here today. Thank you very much. The main feature of the bet is that it'll stimulate a pool of money and it'll grow. It's hard to hit it. The getting the full pool is with being the unique ticket that would have it. So if you're not the unique ticket, then you get a portion of the pool. And Jason can expand on it? Just like we adopted the pen effector that we have an effect now, which is the... Just like we adopted the pen effector, which we have now, which is our Wicked High Five pool. And it's a jackpot carryover. That's the highest this year. It's gone was $55,000. Generates a lot of interest. We did have a pick five at Plain Ridge at one point. We dropped it for not having enough interest in that pick five pool due to the lack of not having a jackpot go along with it. The majority, if not all of the other harness tracks have a jackpot associated with that particular bet. So we weren't really getting much handle and people are not gonna really bet into a race that has $800 in the pool then minus the takeout and there's not really much back to go around. This now would allow us that single unique ticket where half the money bet into the pool on that day goes back out to the public if the single unique ticket is not hit. And then the rest of it will carry over and build a jackpot at that point. So it will generate, in the beginning it starts off slow and then as time goes, as no one hits five consecutive winners in a row, the pool builds and all of a sudden you're up to a $30, $40, $50,000 pool. Now you have a lot of interest, a lot, a lot of interest of the public having a chance to win some happily decent money out there. And it's something that I really think that we should add. And it's my understanding that this language because it's complex is actually lifted from the rules of the Association of Race and Commissioners International, the exact language. Correct, the current CMR has the language up to, I believe, section F that's currently already in place. We needed to get to move forward with this from section G on. And all of those edits, which are marked in red in our materials are actually exactly incorporated by that association, the same language, no difference. Correct. Really helpful, thank you. Any questions for Jason? No, but I do like that we're following RCI you know, I believe, knowing the organization, knowing how much time and effort is spent on thoughtful discussion about how this should be carried out is important I think and I do appreciate that we are doing that. Excellent, we just try to, we wanna stay with the times if not try to get ahead of them. And the consistency, because these folks move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, understanding what those rules are on a larger level. So they don't have to go from here to Maine and follow a different scheme of things, right? Correct. So I think that's important too for the public, for the industry, and so I do appreciate that. Excellent, thank you. I would just like for the record that on their prior conversation this morning we were talking about chapter 128D, which we have submitted, some of the flexibility that's embedded in that legislation would be really helpful on instances like this. These, the request for this bet, for example, came in March, went through the whole promulgation process, we're finding ourselves now approving this. There would be, I would submit a real parallel to what we have done in gaming, have a regulation that's flexible enough and points to rules of the game that can change as the market changes. Even, and I would guess to venture that we will follow a similar deliberative process in terms of hearing the benefits, the trade-offs, what others are doing, how the market is doing. But under that regulatory scheme, I would say we would have a lot more flexibility to react to things like this. That would be very valuable to have that ability. Absolutely, RCI, they do change the rules. I wouldn't say failure regular basis, but as new bets come, new bets are in place and they want to change things and add things, it'd be nice for us to be able to just pick those up right away instead of having to go through the whole process. It's a competitive issue, in my opinion. If you are, all the betting public is really looking at signals from all other different states and if you're not able to incorporate them here, people are used to others, they'll simply would not, they would result in what you just said to us, you eventually have to drop perhaps a bet because the interest is elsewhere and it has nothing to do with your operational ability, but rather the environment that you are operating within. Exactly. Any further questions? It's a two part process. Do we have a motion regarding the small business impact? Madam Chair, I move the commission approved the amended small business impact statement for 205CMR, 6.35 pick-and-pools included in the packet. Second. Any discussion, questions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? 5-0. Thank you. Madam Chair, further move that the commission approved the version of 205CMR, 6.35 pick-and-pools as included in the packet and authorized staffs take all steps necessary to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any questions? Any questions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? 5-0. Just again, I failed to activate my microphone. The earlier vote was also 5-0. Thank you. Moving on then. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair, thank you very much. Commissioners, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. We really appreciate it. We appreciate your expertise. Thank you. So moving on now, I think we have time to go through all of the regulations. Catherine, thank you. So we are now on another horse racing regulation. And Jason, are you leading this? Justin, I see. Jason and Justin, Justin, I know you. It's a kind of a trip up. So yet, we have a number, Dr. Lightbound and I have a number of racing regulation changes. Many of these are ministerial and a couple others are sort of streamlining and updating a number of our regulations. Starting with the first one in the packet is 205CMR 3.01. The change to this particular regulation redacts duplicative language concerning appeals of racing decisions and directs readers to the proper appeal section within our regulations. And this is to start the promulgation process? Or no, it's an amendment to all three. OK, I'll address all those ones in section three first. And then I think we're going to do a vote on everything. And on the bus as to three. Exactly. So 205CMR 3.03, the change to this regulation, very similar. It strikes duplicative language concerning appeals and once again directs the reader back to our appeal section contained in our regulations. 205CMR 3.12, this adds additional language concerning objections to incidents occurring during a race and gives the standard bred judges the authority on racing interactions that take place during a race. So this is not a ministerial. It would provide them with the ultimate authority to make decisions of actions taking place during a race for a final decision. And just to be clear, that means removing any right to appeal. That's what you're saying. That is correct, yes. And we already have that provision in the thoroughbred regulations. OK. 205CMR 3.18, this adds a procedure concerning recusal of racing judges in the event of a conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest. So as you saw earlier today, there was an addition of another fill-in judge that would help to remove any possible issues if this were to become a concern at some point in the future. But it would allow for flexibility with judging of races that there had been to be a possible conflict of interest. And 205CMR 3.29, this formally adds a procedure that has already been in practice concerning a quarantine option for horses that were testing positive for an overage of total carbon dioxide in their blood. So it's essentially formalizing an existing procedure we had already. It adds language to that effect. 205CMR 3.35, this is a new section that it. Just a minute, just lost a second, sir, for rebooting. OK. Thank you so much for being in this. Hopefully, we'll reboot quickly. It's one omnibus for all the three. And then the other sections have an individual one. So it'll be omnibus as to anything relative to three. So 3.00? Anything included in 3.00. I'll always include it in the packet. Yeah, I see. I've got it right there. Thanks. I mean, if you'd rather, if I'm individually identify also. No, I guess I just want to make sure that we understand that the recovered sufficient may be more substantive ones. We'll be able to ask questions after the 3.0, like the confusion 3.0. We're back up. OK. Where did you just start on the section? I was just about to start on the section. No, I'll still on the 3.0. Can we go back to section? If you can go back like this section. Sure. I'll just go back to the last one. I think you count that out. Just in case we were cut off, the last regulation I had mentioned was 205CMR 3.29. This formalizes an existing practice concerning the quarantine of the option of a quarantine for horses that test positive for total carbon dioxide and blood. So again, this was an existing practice. It puts it formally into the regulations. And then I believe the last in section 3 is 205CMR 3.35. This is a new section under section 3, but the language was pre-existing. What this does is it moves the existing language concerning our adoption of the United States Trotting Association rules from the forward of section 3 into its own section, just so that it's easier to find and easier for those who might be looking for a particular rule to understand that, yes, the Massachusetts Game and Commission does adopt the United States Trotting Association rules, which often concern a lot of the granular details of what takes place during a race and what's permissible and that sort of thing. So this pulls that out into its separate section so that anybody who's looking can find it more easily. And with that being said, those are all the changes in the regulations under 205CMR section 3. I'm happy to answer any questions about those regulations at this time. I have a comment, which is I'm happy to see a formal process here for an official recusing and an alternate judge stepping in. I think it's really important that people recognize that we take conflicts of interest seriously and we encourage that reporting as well as the ability to bring another official in, in cases where there's a conflict or a perceived conflict. And that might be worth going through the process with just a little bit more detail so that when a conflict arises, can you just go through the resolution process, Justin? Sure, so what this regulation does is it sets forth parameters that would establish when a conflict of interest does exist between a racing judge and say someone who's racing in the race. So if there's a family relationship or another significant relationship, it sets forth the four corners of when a conflict of interest exists and then it also establishes a procedure by which that person can recuse themselves and also a procedure by which the recusal or the conflict of interest could be waived if it's disclosed to the director of racing, director of LightBound, and she examines it and says, okay, we're okay here and also establishes a procedure by which typically we have three racing judges. If one of them has a conflict, that person can approach the other two racing judges to raise the issue of a conflict to essentially query whether those two are, if they would be amenable to going forward without that third judge, which does occasionally occur and we don't like to be the normal practice, but if it does occur, we now have a procedure whereby it can be documented and set forth so that we know ahead and we can formally have on the record that there was an acceptance of that and it moves along. And there's also the potential for selection of an alternate racing judge because typically it's incumbent upon the person who has the conflict to find an alternate. If they're unable to find an alternate, you can go to the two judge system. The selection of an alternate judge does then have to be approved by our director of racing, which I think is an important step so that it can't just be anyone. It has to be someone we think meets the credentials of being an appropriately educated and experienced racing judge. And I know you spend time every year with training for all of our folks, whether it be our regulatory staff, judges, stewards, folks at the track. So I think this certainly would be appropriate to train so that they understand clearly where it is a new regulation, how to report, what it's all about, the kinds of things that are maybe perceived as a conflict. Yeah, we've made it a practice to have an ongoing channel communication with all of our judges at PPC and at the beginning of every racing season, I make it a point to go down and meet with them at the racing offices and do an initial training about the things that can rise up to become problems. So hopefully that they don't become problems during that particular season and also just to give them any updates on any changes. And this would absolutely be one of those that we would go over in detail. Great, thank you. Very helpful, Justin. Any other questions for Justin or Dr. Leiband on any of the particular regulations because I understand we're gonna vote as on a whole for 3.00 with that said, we could carve out anything, correct? So there's any questions you have on any of the regs? Okay. I think that you were about to ask the question or maybe it was answered, this is the beginning of the process, as I understand it, correct? That's correct. Thank you. All right. With that said, do we have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement for the amendments to 205 CMR 3.0, specifically 3.01, 3.03, 3.12, 3.18, 3.29 and 3.35. Harness race, horse racing, representatives and entations as included in the packet. Second. Any questions, discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Five-zero, thank you. Madam Chair, I further move the commission approve the version of the amendments to the same subsections just referenced to 205 CMR 3.0, zero harness, horse racing, references and annotations as included in the packet and authorized staff to take all steps necessary to begin the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any questions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Five-zero, thank you, excellent work. We'll move on to the next grouping. Thank you. 4.0. The next grouping of regulations deal with 205 CMR 4.0, which relate to thoroughbred racing. The first in these three is 205 CMR 4.01. This proposed regulation change would strike duplicative language, again referencing the appeals procedure, directing the reader to our proper appeals section, just 205 CMR 1.02, so it's really just redactions. The next in this regulation is 205 CMR 4.03. Again, this proposal strikes duplicative language regarding appeals, again directing the reader to the proper appeals section. And then the final one in 205 CMR 4 is 205 CMR 4.3. This proposal adds a procedure concerning recusal stewards for events over which they may have a conflict of interest, so it's a parallel version of what you saw in the standard bread that we just discussed. This would deal with thoroughbred if the same type of a conflict of interest were to arise in the context of a thoroughbred race. Any questions for Justin with respect to this particular reg? Any suggested changes? Again, we're just starting the promulgation process. Okay, do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the Small Business Impact Statement for the amendments to 205 CMR 4.00, specifically 4.01, 4.03 and 4.30. Rules of course, racing references and invitations is included in the packet. Second. Questions, discussion, others in favor? Aye. Opposed? 5-0. Madam Chair, I further move that the commission approve the version of the amendments to 205 CMR 4.00, the specific references earlier made. Rules of course, racing references and invitations is included in the packet and authorized staff to take all steps necessary to begin the regulation promulgation process. Second. Discussion, others in favor? Aye. Opposed? 5-0. The final regulation I have before you today is in 205 CMR 101.02, which deals with the appeal section to the commission. What this regulation does is it clarifies some of the language concerning the timing of racing appeals. This timing information previously existed in the now redacted sections of the past regulations. It's just making sure everyone goes to this section for any and all information on appeals. What this regulation also changes is its streamlines and streamlines some of the discovery procedures with cases of medication overages or violations in the racing context to make it more uniform and standardized so that the process can resolve more smoothly for the hearing officers and everyone involved in the hearing process. And to be clear, my understanding is too that some of the requests that have been coming in were voluminous, taking a lot of time and were in fact slowing down the process as we go and that this will keep it to the relevant material information necessary to move the hearing process forward. That is accurate, yes. That's correct. Any questions for Justin on this? So there's a housekeeping component and more of a substantive component on this one. Any questions? Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the small business impact statement for the amendments to 205 CMR 101.02, review of orders of civil administrative penalties for which is issued by the Bureau. Commission staff are the racing division as included in the packet. Second. Questions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Five-zero. Madam Chair, I further move the commission approve the version of the amendments to 205 CMR 101.02, review of orders for civil administrative penalties for which is issued by the Bureau. Commission staff are the racing division as included in the packet and authorized staff to take all steps necessary to begin the regulation promulgation process. Second. Questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Five-zero. Excellent work. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Does that conclude your presentation today, Dr. Leitha? Yes, it does. Thank you. Well, thank you for your expertise and we love being here in Plainville to do horse racing. So thank you so much. Thank you. We'll break now for lunch. We are gonna be, excuse me, reconvening. Washer. Thank you, pardon me. Thank you. One o'clock. One o'clock and we'll our guests be here. We have, Christopher Bruce is here, so we can. Thank you, my apologies. One o'clock we'll reconvene. Thank you. We're reconvening Gaming Commission meeting number 281 here in Plainville Town Hall. We are now on our agenda and I'm delighted to say a little bit ahead of schedule. So we have now Mark VanderLinden, our Director on Responsible, our Research and Responsible Gaming Director. Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman Juddstein and commissioners and good afternoon. So this afternoon we're turning our attention to the research agenda. Section 71 of the Expanded Gaming Act put a heavy emphasis on trying to understand what the social and economic impacts of casino gambling are in the state of Massachusetts. Specifically what happens when you open, in this case what happens when you open up a casino in Plainville, Massachusetts? What are the benefits to the community? What are the potential harms that we would see in Plainville and the surrounding communities? This is really what we're trying to answer here today through two different reports that are, two different reports that we have really three different reports. One is the social and economic impacts of Plain Ridge Park Casino and a new employee report, Dr. Rachel Volberg from UMass Amherst and Dr. Mark Melnick from the Donahue Institute will provide an overview of those two reports for you. And then second, we have an examination of four years of operation of Plain Ridge Park Casino. Though it seems like yesterday that it opened, we're four years into it, or greater than four years. And Thomas Peake will lead a discussion on the first four years of operation of this casino. The afternoon we will turn our attention to what are the public safety impacts of casinos in Massachusetts and Christopher Bruce will take a look at three different studies focusing on three different regions of the state where we have casinos, all in very different stages as you very well know. Understanding what crime impacts casinos spring to Massachusetts was also an important piece of section 71. Do you see an increase in specific crimes related to casino gambling? Or as Christopher Bruce says, perhaps we will see decreases in specific areas given a change in the dynamic within each of these communities. Christopher will describe to you what his findings are after four years for Plain Ridge Park Casino, eight months for MGM, and he will describe to you the baseline study forever in the surrounding communities. So to kick this off, I will turn it over to Drs. Volberg and Melnick. Am I supposed to? You just have to speak really closely. Just speak really closely. Okay. In contrast to the instructions that are here in front of me. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. It's a pleasure to be meeting with you in Plainville as opposed to Boston. And definitely a pleasure to see this building which I've heard a lot about but have not actually been in before. So let's see. The presentation that Mark and I are going to be doing is a bit of a hybrid. So we had a very large summary, inaugural summary report that we presented to the commission, I believe about a year ago, maybe a little less than a year ago, which looked at impacts at both the state level and at the regional level. And in thinking about that presentation and that report subsequently, we realized that there was probably some value in extracting from that report all of the regional impacts since most of them were specific to Plainville and Plainridge Park Casino and to basically just have a report that's focused on this area and the slot parlor. So I'm going to be presenting on the social and health impacts that we identified regionally. And then Mark is going to present on the economic and fiscal side but with a focus on an updated section that deals with employment at the slot parlor. And then we're going to turn it over to Tom who is going to present to you on a new report that we will be publishing shortly on the operational impacts of four years of Plainridge Park Casino. So to begin with, I'm going to go very, very quickly through some introductory slides. Some of you will have seen these multiple times. So they're just to sort of provide some background about the Expanded Gaming Act and why we have casinos where we have in the different parts of the state. A quick slide just to remind you of the importance of section 71 in authorizing the kind of work that my team and I have been up to for the last six years. And just a quick overview of the essential elements of the research agenda and the parts that we have been responsible for which are the baseline study of problem gambling and existing programs, as well as a much larger study to understand the social and economic effects of expanded gambling as those roll out over time. Again, a reminder of our where in the state the casinos are located and the officially designated hosts and surrounding communities, just for people who might be watching on the live stream or who haven't seen us present before. This is often a useful map for people to see. This next slide is a synopsis of the characteristics of Plainridge Park Casino. It is a slot parlor rather than a full service casino with table games. The next two columns are the host and surrounding communities. It gives you some information about the availability of gambling at the slot parlor and then also some notes about the fact that Plainridge Park Casino was previously a racetrack. The cost of the casino expansion, the size of the operation and the amenities and ownership. And then final sort of quick background slide. We were very fortunate when we started this project to have as one of the members of our team, Rob Williams, who just prior to our project starting had produced a very large systematic review of all of the studies of the social and economics impacts of gambling that had been done internationally from the mid-70s all the way through to 2010. He and his colleagues identified 492 studies which they reviewed. They documented all of the findings of the approximately 200 studies that were actually based on empirical research rather than sort of more theoretical issues and identified actually amazingly enough only seven of those studies out of the 200 were deemed to have what they called an excellent methodology which was based on specific criteria that they developed. Based on that review, they proposed a methodological approach to conducting social and economic impact studies of gambling that made theoretical sense, that enshrined economic principles and social impact considerations and was simple to use or at least that's what they said. I'm going to say as the first person to have led a team to roll out this simple to use methodology that it is not as simple as you would think. It's actually quite a complex enterprise and involves a lot of different sort of hands on the wheel but it's been my privilege to head this project up for six years and I'm very proud of the work that we've done. So just to review some of those methodological principles that we are employing, we like to call what we're measuring impacts rather than costs and benefits because the term impact indicates that a change has occurred without necessarily having to characterize it as positive or negative. There's a lot of disagreement actually between whether an impact is positive or negative depending on where you stand. So we just use that term impact. While many of the impacts of gambling are clearly negative such as problem gambling or positive such as employment, the nature of other impacts or changes is less clear and somewhat subjective and so that is the main reason why we use this term impact. The traditional approach is to use money to measure and quantify all impacts. It's appropriate certainly for capturing most economic impacts or changes but it's actually rather inadequate for capturing many of the social impacts since social impacts often have no obvious monetary consequences and many social impacts are best captured in a descriptive way, a percentage of change rather than trying to assign a monetary value to everything. So one of the biggest challenges in conducting impact studies is that the ability to attribute changes to a specific form of gambling can be quite tenuous. When there's a change in the expected direction that's temporarily associated with the introduction of casino gambling, really all that we can say is that the change is consistent with a potential impact. The likelihood that something is actually attributable to casino gambling becomes stronger when we triangulate this information with the presence or absence of analogous changes in other variables theoretically related to gambling and when other sources of information pertaining to the same variable allow more direct attributions. For example, self reports of gamblers in the population surveys or key informants who tell us that they see certain things as being the result of the casino. We take that as part of the evidence base that we're building as well. So just to turn to the basics of the study overall, this is a graphic that most of you have seen several times. Across the top are the various activities that our team is engaged in. The rows are timelines and basically you can see that in 2020 we're quite busy because there's activity in each of the areas where we are collecting data. So we're clearly past the baseline phase. We are still slightly in the construction phase in terms of getting ready to report on the construction impacts of Encore, but other than that one last report we will be fully into the operational phase once that report is published. So I'm going to turn now to the presentation itself. This is a top level summary, very top level, very summary of a much more detailed 80 plus report that will be available probably once I finish talking to you this afternoon on our website so that people in the audience or just the general public can access that report along with all of our other publications. So let's begin with the social and health impacts. The social and health impacts part of the project focuses on impacts that are primarily non-monetary in nature. We rely on many different sources of data to assess these impacts. Primary data includes the baseline general population survey, the baseline and follow up targeted surveys in the host and surrounding communities, key informant interviews, some of the patron survey data also feeds into our side of the project. We employ a lot of secondary data. Much of this data comes from government agencies in Massachusetts as well as federal agencies and then we rely on the work that Christopher Bruce does to be able to say something about the crime impacts that we also keep on the social and health side but that obviously have economic impacts as well. So to dig down into the specifics of the kinds of impacts that we have seen in Plainville and surrounding communities, somewhat to our surprise, we did not identify a significant change in problem gambling or related indices that is likely to have occurred as a result of the introduction of the slot parlor in this region. There was no significant change in the rate of problem gambling or at risk gambling in the targeted population surveys between 2014, the one we did in baseline in 2014 and the follow up survey in 2016. Nor was there a significant change between those two surveys in the percentage of problem gamblers wanting or seeking help. There were no significant changes between the two surveys in the percent of regular gamblers reporting negative impacts due to gambling, no change in personal bankruptcy filings in the county that were different from previous years and there were no changes in divorce filings, restraining orders or number of cases of child welfare involvement at the county level. With these secondary data, sometimes it's not possible to drill down to the local municipalities so that's why we're reporting county level data here. And this is a couple of quotes from two of our key informants that we interviewed in 2018 indicating that there did not seem to be any impacts on the health and wellbeing of the people of Plainville and that residents have not come forward with concerns about an increase in problem gambling. So that was another sort of triangulating effort to make sure that what we were seeing in the survey data was supported by folks who actually live and work here in Plainville. Turning to attitudes, there was evidence of a significant change of attitudes toward gambling between the baseline targeted survey and the follow-up targeted survey. There was a decrease in the percentage of people who indicated that gambling was not available enough and a corresponding increase in the percentage of people who felt that the current gambling availability was just fine. So they seem to be pleased with what they have but they're fine with what they've got. There was also a evidence of a significant change of attitudes towards gambling in terms of, in the same two surveys, in terms of the state impact, there was a decrease in the percentage of people who felt that casinos would be beneficial to Massachusetts and a corresponding increase in the percentage of people who felt quite neutral, neither beneficial nor harmful. And then also a change in perceptions of the impact of the casino on the community of Plainville, an increase in the percentage of people who felt that the new casino in their community would be neither beneficial nor harmful, a reduction in the number of people or percentage of people who felt that the casino would be beneficial. Finally, in terms of population health, there was no evidence of any change in the health of the population, in the wake of the opening of Plain Ridge Park Casino, no change in the reports of levels of health, happiness or levels of stress, and no significant change in the percentage of people who reported seeking help for their use of alcohol or drugs or who reported a behavioral addiction. So we're going to come back to the implications of the social and health impacts at the end of this presentation, but I'm going to turn it over now to Dr. Mark Melnick to talk about the economic and fiscal impacts. Good afternoon, Madam Chairperson and commissioners. It's good to be in front of you guys again today and thanks to Mark and Rachel for the introduction. I'm Mark Melnick, I direct the Economic and Public Policy Research Group at the Donahue Institute and we are partners with the School of Public Health at UMass Amherst to lead the economic and fiscal side of the work that we're doing as part of the Sigma project. Let me echo what Rachel had been saying a little bit before about just the pride that we have and the work that we've been able to do over the last six years in this project. I think I say this every time I'm in front of you guys, but it's such a unique opportunity when you're analyzing an industry, when it comes into a marketplace that it wasn't there before. There's very few things that ever exist in such a way that you can say, well, we didn't have this industry and now we do, and for the state legislature to have the foresight to say, let's try to analyze all the different elements of impact that might be a part of this. It's a very unique opportunity for us as researchers and while we get to sit here and be the ones that present that to you, there's a big group of folks who support us in the background and on the economic side alone, there's seven different staff members with areas of expertise. So what I'm gonna talk about today will be this high level overview of some of the impacts that we've seen in Plain Ridge. Tom's gonna step in after and do the preliminary operations report of what we've seen over the last four years. Tom reminds me all the time about what innovative methodology and how unique this type of work is because of our ability to leverage data directly from the operators so that we can tell a very complete and full story of what economic impacts look like now and what they would look like going forward. So the big story, though, when we talk about economic and fiscal impacts in Plain Ridge, in Plainville and how it relates back to Plain Ridge Park, is one that's generally a very positive story. What we've seen and what I'll highlight in the data for us is that what we've seen is a unique job growth in the city that outstrips what we've been seeing in terms of job growth statewide or in the county. Not terribly surprising when you put a very large employer in a very small place, but still one that highlights the fact of job growth. Another element of positive that we've seen in the city and region is the, and what I'll highlight in the new employee survey and the latest new employee data that we have is that a large number of folks who are employed by Plain Ridge Park or folks who are either previously unemployed or underemployed, and these generally are folks with much more limited educational attainment than the typical labor force in Massachusetts. What does that mean? What highlights the fact that these are accessible jobs for folks? And so, again, another positive element of the story in terms of economic development and economic activity. The third part I'm gonna highlight is talking a little bit about government and fiscal and what, with the infusion of cash for local governments, we've seen and we're sitting in an example of that because the resources that were leveraged by Plainville are part of what built this town hall. So first, let me talk a little bit about our analytical framework as we do the economic research. There's a number of different ways that we can think about theoretically or logically how we put our work together. We generally group it into three main buckets. I think about it in terms of economic and community impacts, which are more macro level types of things about how a community changes over time. And one of the unique elements of having a baseline analysis but then continuing to track how things are operating. So this could be simple things as demographic changes, population growth, employment growth, other socioeconomic characteristics. These are not things that would change specifically because of a casino or because of any one employer but are the characteristics of community that may shift and have other elements that are related to it. So it tells the story of community. The second element of work that we do is around casino impacts that are much more direct. And those are leveraging in a lot of cases direct data that we're receiving from the casinos. So this talks about direct employment, some of the spin-off economic effects that are associated with that direct activity in the casino so that talks about both direct spending, business to business spending, and then consumer spending that's leveraged through dollars in people's pockets. But then other elements of the casino, like what are the characteristics of the workforce? What types of folks are coming through here? What can we say about patrons who go to the casino and so on? This third element that we refer to as special topics is something that we haven't really delved into yet because we've been doing a lot of descriptive work about the impacts of the casinos directly, but we've seen a lot of questions raised over time as a part of our work on, boy, wouldn't it be interesting to understand a little bit more about what the casinos are meaning in terms of impact on travel and tourism in the community? And I think as we get into a fully operational phase of the casinos, our intention is on all elements of the project, particularly on economic and fiscal, is to roll up our sleeves more and try to understand these more direct economic effects that are happening in communities and related industries. So a couple of things I'm gonna highlight in this conversation first is around employment. I already teased a few moments ago that what we've been observing in Plain Ridge to date is pretty robust job growth in the town over the last several years. Between 2014 and 2016, we've seen an increase of about 300 jobs in Plain Ridge, Plainville, excuse me, to a little over 4,600 jobs. That's an increase of 17.3%. Comparatively, the state's grown about 4% over that time period. Norfolk County and Bristol County have grown about 3.2%. A good amount of this job growth as we've been able to observe it is tied directly to employment that we see in Plain Ridge Park. There are some limitations to what we can say with secondary data with this because of suppression issues and how state data are reported back. So they suppress when there's one major employer and one NAICS code. But the aggregate numbers show this growth and a lot of it, again, tied to what we would expect to see with a large employer moving into town. So we've seen robust job growth in town. Couple of things that we've seen through our mixed methods approach. So we've analyzed secondary data. We analyzed data that we get directly from the operators. But another way that we supplemented our work over time is through talking with local experts to understand how impacts are being felt by folks on the ground, especially where we may see data lags. Employment data always has a year lag to it. So what are people saying in real time about some of the things that we may be observing through secondary data? And so a few things that have come out through talking with different local officials. Here's a quote from Jennifer Thompson, town administrator in Plainville. One of the things that the casino promised was they'd reach out to Plainville folks first in terms of employment and they've kept their word. They're the largest employer and that's definitely had an impact. And then Lou LeBlanc also noting that employment has been a positive impact so far for the community. The next thing I'm gonna talk about is our new employee survey. So what we do is interview folks as they are employed by the casinos and ask some very basic demographic questions about first their characteristics, such as what they've been doing previously for work, what industries they worked in, where do they live, educational attainment, why do they wanna work here. There's a report that's already, we've been doing this data ongoing throughout the entire time Plain Ridge Park has been open. The data I'm gonna highlight for you is for fiscal year 18. Over time we've added new questions because either we're like oh, that would be a great thing to add additionally or through feedback from folks like yourself. But for us it's trying to understand the characteristics of the folks who got jobs here, what their character, what experiences they are having. And our goal is over the long term is to continue to track what's turnover look like and these kinds of things as they relate to new employment. The most notable part, the most notable part which I highlighted at the beginning was the level of accessibility of jobs for folks getting employed at Plain Ridge Park. Here what I have on this graphic demonstrates that of folks who were employed during fiscal year 18, what was their previous employment status? What we find is that 51% were previously employed full time while 46% were either unemployed or part time employed. In fact, so what we're seeing here is that this has been a great element of job creation for folks who may have been lightly attached or unconnected from the labor market. Other parts of this that are positive stories, of the folks who were previously unemployed, 72% of those went from unemployed to having a full time job. And of the ones who were part time employed, 42% transitioned into a full time job. So it's a positive story in terms of economic development and access into the labor market. These data points are very consistent with previous data that we've been presenting to you in the past. The original new employee survey that we had done which was I believe the one year mark showed about 50% of folks were previously unemployed or underemployed. So this does seem to be a trend but would be something we would continue to track over time. We asked what industry folks used to work in, unsurprisingly, the vast majority of folks were coming from Accommodation and Food Services Retail. What's interesting about this though is that some of the industries that are strongest here, Accommodation and Food Services Retail, we see some transportation and warehousing. There's a little bit of manufacturing there. But some of these were industries that were very heavily hit after the recession or during the recession and maybe didn't recover jobs as quickly in some instances. So it does tell a story too as well of folks who may have been disconnected from the labor market because of economic downturn and now finding good opportunities in a new industry. A couple of slides that we had to drop because we were too long of the original slide deck but a lot of the reasons why folks were interested in working in the casino dealt with career opportunity and increased wages. So the first two that we're seeing here, Accommodation and Food and Retail are traditionally low wage industries and one of the interested coming to the casino was an opportunity to make more money. Next slide here is a map that just highlights local employment and where people are coming from during fiscal 18. Not surprisingly, the majority of the workers in Plain Ridge Park are coming from Plainville or other parts of the host and surrounding communities particularly North Attleboro and Attleboro. But as you can see, the kind of employment trends really runs along 495 and some of the major highways and the accessibility that Plain Ridge Park has for people in the broader community. About 62% of the folks that were hired in fiscal 18 were Massachusetts residents, 68, excuse me, 32% coming from other states, Rhode Island and Connecticut. I already highlighted a little bit earlier that casino employment is creating opportunities for folks with limited educational attainment. About 22% of the individuals who were hired during fiscal 18 had a college degree. Comparatively, over 40% of Massachusetts has a college degree, about 46% of the labor force. So what this is highlighting is jobs that are accessible for people with limited educational attainment. Yeah. Could you please say that, the comparison again. Right, right, so the percent of the Massachusetts population with a college degree is about 40%. Work force is a little over 40%, approaching 46%. So comparatively, obviously there's quite a bit of difference here between the folks who are being employed at the casino. So jobs that are accessible for folks with limited educational attainment. On the government and fiscal side, in terms of impacts, what we're seeing is there are some natural increases that are taking place in terms of governmen