can I just confirm that there's a 245 heart stop today? Is that, I want to make sure that's the right time? Okay. All right, thank you. Okay, Dave. Thank you. All right, ready to go. Good morning. This is a convening of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. We're sorry, we're a few minutes late. We don't have many technical challenges, but today we did have some challenges with our network providers. So we'll get started. I need to do a roll call because we're holding this meeting virtually. Good morning, Commissioner Bryant. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Good morning. Good morning, Commissioner Maynard. Good morning, I'm here. I'm here to indicate that my microphone is unsteady right now. So I don't know if it's in or out, but we'll proceed. I am going to call to order today's public hearing. The meeting of number 444, and it is March 23rd, Thursday, 2023. Before we get started, as I indicated earlier, we've been having some network provider challenges in the event that the meeting is disrupted. Dave Sousa is here and he would be able to, he's working off-site, so he'd be able to provide instructions to the public through a screen saver and we will work hard to get our team back in front of the virtual meeting. All right, so we'll get started. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, Madam Chair. I move that the commission approve the minutes from the October 27th, 2022 public meeting that are included in the commissioners packet, subject to any necessary corrections for typographical errors or other non-material matters. Has everyone had a chance to review them? Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any edits? Very thorough job. All set, commissioners? Okay, Commissioner Bryan. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. And Commissioner Maynard. Aye. All right, so I vote yes, five, zero. Thank you again to the team. You have administrative update. Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning. Good morning. So as an initial matter, something that has come up unexpectedly, there's a conflict, a serious issue for one of the commissioners on the 28th. The chair has asked that we want to accommodate that. So we currently had proposed scheduling the Massachusetts Great Crown Association review of their category two license applications for sports majoring. So it was thinking, Chair Nards doesn't make sense to just bring it up today to see about rescheduling that review of the application. We do have two dates that were on holds for the review of that application. And that was April 12th or April 26th. So those would be options or if the commission wants to do another date, we could see if we could arrange another date. But I think the applicant is eager to get going. I think we are ready to go. The other piece is that as you may recall from the prior conversations we had about this application that the IED is looking at the contract that the applicant has with Caesars Entertainment to be the operator of the establishment. We are currently keeping that sort of on track and would do that on the 30th. So currently you have that placeholder on the agenda for the 30th for that review. So you can go through that before doing the review of the entire application. So I'll defer to the commissioners. However you want to schedule that we'll reach out to the applicant. We also will reach out to GLI, RSM. We have our internal team looking at it so that we would be prepared on whatever date the commission wants to review the application. Questions for Karen? Special Berlin. No, no questions, just confirming. I see the holds and I'm available either if those are equal dates for that. Commissioner Maynard. I'm good with either if the applicant's eager I'm happy with the 12. Commissioner Hill. Yes, I'm all set. Okay, Mr. Skinner. I'm all set for either date. Okay. And so I'm not sure if those dates have been vetted with the, maybe Director Lillios have they been vetted with the applicant? Do you know? Hi, good morning, Chair. I think they are aware of those two dates. I'm not, I think they will do everything possible and make themselves available on either of those dates. So I think they'll be happy with the earlier of the two being the 12th. I will confirm right now if there's any issue I'll bring it up during the course of this meeting. Okay, excellent. So I'm hearing April 12th works. I think everyone can be ready for the earlier date. We're ready for the early date. Right, commissioners. Thank you, Karen. All right. So the next item is the Exclusion List Plan approval update. We did have a prior meeting where we talked about the requirement of the applicants to submit their Exclusion List Plan. We do need that to be thoroughly reviewed by staff before I sign off on it. Those did not come in as quickly as we had expected and you're still in process of review. So that's something I think I should report out to you at a subsequent meeting. Hopefully those plans are all approved but we will need to move that to another date. Any questions on that? Okay, so we'll keep that and I'll mention that also in agenda setting. And then the next item on the agenda we're gonna have our interim gaming agency, Bruce Burke give us an update on what's going on at the casinos and even has a PowerPoint for the commissioners. So I'll turn it over to Burke. Thanks, Karen. Good morning, Madam Chair, good morning commissioners. Nice to see everybody. Gonna give you a casino update on the operations that are happening at three casinos. And additionally, as Karen said, I have a little PowerPoint to review the table numbers, slot numbers and some poker table numbers. First I'll start with PPC. Preparations are in place for opening day of racing which is April 10. PPC is preparing to track, getting the barns ready to receive horses and drivers. PPC is working with the horsemen and the state racing staff to ensure a clean opening day. Sports betting operations in the temporary sports book continue with many fans joining PPC over the March Madness Tournament. Construction continues with their permanent sports book. This weekend, PPC hosts one of their most popular promotions, the jackpot frenzy. Guests who have won a taxable jackpot during the earning period will drop their ballots starting at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 25 and five winners will be drawn every 15 minutes to win $1,000. And then finally on Monday in March, members of our free to join My Heroes program for active duty, retired military and first responders. Receive a bonus offer by swiping at the kiosk or presenting a card at the player services center. Next, MGM. On St. Patrick's Day, the mummers were on site and they paraded around the outside of the floor and much to the pleasure of the patrons, they enjoyed that. MGM is gearing up for the Friday concert series to move outside. An Indian motorcycle apparel store is just reopening and to spur a little better foot traffic down on that end of the establishment, they're going to start to sell New England sports apparel also. Encore. Encore expanded PIT 36 in front of the wind sports bar due to high demand and swapped out 85 slots for six tables. I happened to be on site last Thursday, the opening of March Madness and those two PITs were really jumping, it was busy. The sports book was crowded and there's a lot of buzz around that area. Those PITs open when there's high play for the weekends. On weekdays, Encore opens half the PIT by 6 p.m. and the other half of that PIT by 8 p.m. And on Friday and Saturday, PIT 36 opens at 12 noon. MGM, I'm sorry, Encore also sponsored a MMA event a couple of weeks ago. Now we can take a look at the slot and table numbers across the three casinos. And do you want to turn to page 26 of the packet or do you want me to share my screen? What works best? To Mistress, do you want, do you have your materials up? I think if you could share it would be better. Okay, let's share. We're rolling the dice here. I'm kidding. All right, are we up? You are. Okay, let's go through a little background before we start the PowerPoint. As I believe three commissioners weren't here in March of 2020. So March in 2020, the pandemic hit and MGC mandated that we close the casinos down. We did that. In July of 2020, the casinos were allowed to open back up with Plexiglas and proper distancing on the slot machines. And they were also allowed to open BJ style table games with three seats. Then in October of 2020, Roulette was allowed to open also with Plexiglas and three positions for the players. After the new year in March of 2021, MGC allowed crafts to reopen, three players on a side with Plexiglas, total six players and a fourth gaming position was allowed to the blackjack style table games. Poker at this time was still not offered because it could only be three or four players and it didn't make sense that it wasn't profitable so the casinos didn't want to open it at that time. May of 2021, all the restrictions were lifted and following that poker did open at MGM in October of 2021 and Encore followed right after that with poker opening January of last year, 2022. So now with that, we can look at the PowerPoint and the first slide, we have the three casinos across the top and the slot machine numbers. As you can see presently, we have 4,907 slot machines at the three locations. Table games, we have 203 at Encore 48 or total 251. Poker games are 24 and 14. Stadium gaming is 40 and 15 and with Sportsway Dream kicking off last couple of months here, the kiosks are steady with 118, 18 and 20. Okay, now slot machines. This is gonna show the changes. March of 2020 is when the pandemic hit and these were the slot numbers right before we mandated that the casinos were closed. You see that Encore has the top bar, 2715. MGM's a light blue with 1844 and PPC has 1320. So we were closed for three months and then July of 2020, we reopened. During this time, the slot floors and casino floors throughout the country were being reimagined. As you can remember from the old days, slot aisles used to be aisle after aisle after aisle and you would sit shoulder to shoulder. Well, as the pandemic came, the casinos throughout the country were reimagining the casino floor which included more space, more carousels. You might have a carousel with four slot machines, six, eight or even 12 and they had more room in between all of the slot aisles if they still had aisles. The carousels afforded you the opportunity that you had like literally three or four feet between shoulder to shoulder. Whereas if you were sitting in an aisle, we remember you were literally right next to somebody. So when we reopened in July of 2020, you see that the numbers are down, 1852 at Encore, 869, MGM and 789 at PPC. The next gathering of information was a random month of last summer, July of 2022. And you'll see the numbers have gone up a little bit. And then of course, on the first slide, March of 23, you see in the last column there. Any questions on the slot machine and the evolution of how this went through? I wish I was. What was that? I actually have a question, Madam Chair. Yes. Burke, to the best of your ability, why has the spike began to fall, especially at certain properties from July of 2022? And that's a good question, Commissioner Maynard. And the Encore spike we'll see on the other slides is that they increased their table games. So they took away some slot machines because the market was dictating that they could bring in more table pits. And you'll see on the other slot machines that those numbers have gone up a little bit, okay? Next slide, table games, the history. We have March of 2020, right before we closed, Encore had 184 and MGM had 79. After the pandemic, the model had changed a little bit at the two casinos, especially at MGM where they brought on more slot machines and they got rid of a couple of gaming pits. So July of 2020, you're seeing 43 and 189. July middle of last summer, you see 184 and 48. And as we just discussed, March of right now, you see that the gaming pits went up, is that 19 games? And tables have held steady out at MGM. Any questions on table games? Commissioners? Burke, this is, I think, is that all the increase? Is that all in the pits that were near the sports measuring bar? Do they open others too that account for that increase? At Encore? Yeah. Yeah, if you remember walking right in the hotel entrance and if you turned left, you'd head towards the red eight. A pit down there right in between that connection, they threw in some tables there to connect carnival games with their main float in the center of the casino. And pit 36. Okay, thanks. Okay. Poker, March 2020, right before the pandemic, you see that Encore had 74 poker tables. MGM had 22. When we reopened, remember poker, it took a while to find a profitable July of 2020. It wasn't allowed to open. And last, in the middle of the summer, we see that it was 14 and 15. I think both casinos, when they did open, I mentioned the dates of October 21 and January of 22. I think they both opened with 12 and 13 and they've increased a little bit to the 15, 14 number. Now of course we see that we're at 24 and 14. Any questions about poker? Are there any other, I know there's a longer range request from EVH in terms of what they wanna do, but in the short term, any discussion of EVH or MGM putting more poker tables in? There is discussion. I'm not gonna delve into what their plans, they've introduced some plans for increase possibly. So that's still in the works. There's no firm commitment that they're doing that, but they are discussing the viability of that. Thanks. Okay. Stadium gaming, I'm sorry. Can I just talk about the poker change? Commissioner Hill, when you came on, I'm not sure if you have this history. But I know we started talking pretty immediately after you came on about poker, but I recognize when I saw this slide yesterday with Burke, it really does remind us the impact of COVID. And then it was the last table to come back on. So, but that's a dramatic change of the amenities. So I thought I just wanna thank Burke for these slides. It was really for me a good reminder. So thank you. We threw in stadiums gaming and speaking of slides, a big shout out to Louis Lozano, Andrew Steffen and Angela Smith, and the gaming agents for helping us to compile this data. So thank you for that. Stadium gaming, we do this slide in just as a point of reference. Stadium gaming can be either a dealer up front and you can sit at an individual station and play or it can be assisted as a computer game. And I think that, yep, that concludes the slides. Any questions on anything there? So very helpful from my perspective, Burke, thank you, commissioners. Commissioner Skinner, question? Burke, I know that any changes to the gaming floor need to be reviewed and approved by IEV, particularly where those changes involve a reduction of table games, reduction of slot machines. Is there any review and assessment of the licensees commitments made at the time of application? And I, you know, maybe Director Lillios can weigh in and I just, my measure when assessing any changes is, you know, whether or not the licensees continue to maintain their commitments that were presented at the time of the application. And I know on the community mitigation side, Joe is teeing up a presentation for us in terms of where the licensees stand relative to those particular commitments, but I would just be cautious and I'm just noting, I guess for the record that we do need to be mindful that we're not sacrificing anything that was promised or that the licensees aren't sacrificing anything that was initially promised when they were approved for license. Yes, of course going forward, that is a great point Commissioner Skinner and we are going to look at that very closely going forward from here. I think the X factor or the asterisk would be that if you want to call it a pandemic reset and marketing conditions and after the March to July 2020 situation, I think the market dictated some changes and I guess the pandemic dictated some changes but going forward, we do want to keep a mindful eye that we're paying attention to what was promised. And the changes that the casinos may be appropriate. Absolutely. It's just, I would like to get a fuller understanding of exactly, you know, where they fall short even if they're justified in doing so, but where they fall short in terms of what was promised and what is being offered right now. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you for very well done. Thank you. Thank you. See you later. Director Wells, are you all set? I am, thank you very much. We move on up. We have a new face and this is a formal introduction yet but Grace Robinson is in today and part of our meeting and I just want to introduce her. I know many of you have met her on the team but for those who are either the public or our operators or our licensees, Grace joins us as the new chief administrator opposite to the chair, special projects and external relations manager. And so we welcome Grace and thank her for tuning in today on this first public meeting for her. So thank you. I'll do a more formal introduction at the right time. Okay, so we'll move on to good morning, Derek. Good morning to financial officer. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Just to say welcome aboard again, Grace. Welcome aboard. Great to have you here. But today I'm joined by Douglas O'Donnell and we're here to discuss the taxation of daily fantasy sports. Our materials begin on page 30 of the public meeting packet. In a public meeting in January, the commission reviewed comments to 205CMR 240. A few operators submitted written comments to our emergency regulation pertaining to their calculation of adjusted gross fantasy wagering receipts in the taxation of those receipts. Specifically, the operators requested that the commission use the same process that 17 other states taxing daily fantasy sports utilize. We prepared the PowerPoint that is in the package today for that January meeting as well. And we walked through the request as well as the definitions. The commission requested examples of actual language, either regulations or laws from the other states that are taxing daily fantasy sports. That language is included in the packet today, as well as a proposal for a regulation change, which we would like to withdraw that regulation change proposal. Upon legal review, our team thought it would be wise to give the finance office's proposed language a deeper look and spend some additional time on word smithing. The issue that legal brought up is that the manner in which we have written the change brings up a question of whether we can actually do this given the inclusion of the word only in the definition of adjusted gross fantasy wagering receipts. And when I say this, it means the way we propose doing it. Our proposed language may give a layperson the impression the commission would be allowing operators to write off more than what the statute allows when in actuality, we are merely trying to implement the law fairly and logically. So we're not looking for the vote today. We are rather wanted to bring language back from other states, give an idea of what we're trying to do, which is consistent with 17 other states and let you know that the raw language that finance proposed may not be prime time ready, but we need to do a little more work with legal to make sure that we are implementing it in a clear manner and getting across the practical and logical purpose of taxing only on applying only a piece of the tax that's for Massachusetts games or Massachusetts entry fees versus taxing the whole pool. Because as you know, fantasy sports when we talked about this last time across many states, unlike most gaming. So we're trying to do this like other states have while working within our statute. But we do have nine operators that are paying daily registered and seven of them have already paid their daily fantasy sports taxes. And this is a question that comes up regularly. Are we using this location resident percentage like the other 17 states that are taxing daily fantasy sports? So I think this helps to discuss it in front of the commission so that we can say to the other entities, yes, we are looking at that. We're trying to find the best manner to do it. And we hope to come back very quickly after we get a chance to get this in front of legal to find an appropriate manner to do it. Did I summarize that correct, Tug? Yes, that's exactly right. Thanks, Derek. Thank you. So at this point, if there are any questions, if you'd like, I mean, basically what the, and we went over this last time, what we're looking to do is there's a pool of applicants and the daily fantasy sports and all we dive into this is more like a pool play where you take a bunch of entry fees in, you have predetermined payouts and there should be winnings each time. If we went with just a Massachusetts base, we wouldn't be getting taxes necessarily each time because if the Massachusetts players did very well, they would be carrying over a loss, which is why it is my understanding with the research we've done, other states have gone to this method. So you can pull in the whole pool and then you can take a percentage of the winnings from that pool to be taxed. Are there any questions we can answer? From now I have Doug here, if there are any questions on registrations as well. Michelle Ryan. I have a question, but I think it's probably more legal and it's maybe something we can talk about offline, but is this something that might to do the location resident percentage, we would need a statutory language change? Not necessarily. I think we just wanted to take a slightly closer look, but as Derek mentioned, this is the approach that has been adopted in multiple jurisdictions, presumably in recognition of the idea that tax should only be assessed on an operator for a taxable event that occurred in their jurisdiction. And this makes sense. I do think that commission and all likelihood has the discretionary authority under section four, which is the area of the section that talks about regulations and ensuring that regulations are in place to effectively implement the law. And secondly, the idea that the law presumably recognizes the idea that tax should only be assessed for events that occur in Massachusetts. This just happens to be the approach that's been adopted pretty much nationwide. It makes good logical sense. It makes sense from a legal perspective and from an equitable perspective. So I think if the commission is comfortable with the general language, the plan would be to just really polish it up and have it back before you really shortly. In all likelihood, I think this is a passable approach to handling this issue. Okay. Other questions? I have one, Derek. You mentioned the registrants. Am I correct that you are working with the attorney general's office to determine or help on that? Or can you explain the process in terms of... We do have some intersectionality here with the attorney general's office. Correct. So the attorney general's office actually regulates the DFS operators. We are responsible for taxing them and we worked with the attorney general's office to put into our regulation that we can register them because they do not register or keep track of them at this time. And they looked at their regsmore's consumer protection. So if we have issues where an operator isn't paying taxes and we become aware that they're operating in the state without paying taxes and we reach out to them and they refuse to register, then we would be working with the attorney general's office. Each time we've been told someone is operating in the state, we have, Doug has reached out to them, got the email address. They have registered quickly. We have worked with their councils to show the commission meeting where the taxes went retroactive and they have all paid. Now there are a few that we need to work with because they're showing negative revenue and we need to understand that when these are pooled and almost like poker areas where you take a piece off the top right away. So we're wondering how you're showing negative revenue or if they're doing something different than the others. And Doug is following up with those few select operators. But that's the education too. We actually have two calls today with those operators to review their reporting as to why it's been negative. Excellent, thank you. Madam chair, I have a follow up to that. Is there somewhere on our website where the actual registered operators or somebody can click to see who's actually registered and complying on our website? I see Nels is joining us. So we do have a monthly detailed revenue list but Doug, Tom and Dave are working on getting just that registered list because that changes between the time period where, I mean, we went January, we had four operators and in February we had nine paying taxes. So there were five that registered throughout the month but that is something that we have had requests on. It's a good question. And I think we're working on getting that up. I don't know if that has been determined where it will reside. So I think Tom and Dave can help with that. Okay, yeah, thanks. Thank you, thanks Dave, thanks Nels. Anything else for Derek and Doug? Thank you. And I didn't miss anyone, right? Okay. So we don't need a vote on this today. As Todd said, we'll bring back some better language that makes it very clear what we're trying to do at a future meeting, hopefully very soon because this is a hot topic for the operators. And that was my delay, not legal and getting it. I've, Todd reviewed it very quickly for me, so. Derek, thank you for that. And just as, I may have missed it but I wanna be just as a reminder, it's our understanding that you are collecting it as if that rule is in place. And then if there were adjustments, it could be, they would be made by Joe Acton. That's correct. So any operator who has asked us, we have said, assume that would be the rule. We don't want you to do anything different or overpaste. Then we'd have to return money by paying on a pool that doesn't apply to Massachusetts. But we did let them know, we are not the final decision makers, the commission is and we'll move from there once we get the final decision. Okay. Thank you, very, very, very clear. Thank you. I think for me, I needed the two lessons, Derek. So thank you. Every pressure was really powerful. Okay. We get pinged on this regularly. So I understand that it's not something that everyone else is dealing with on a daily basis. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Doug. I need to do a little bit of a check on the order of our agenda today, Executive Director Wells, because I know we have a 2.5 hard stop. We have a lot of regulations to deal with and we also have items six, seven, and one, at least I know one, which are update number eight. Should we start the regulations and see Carrie because at a certain time, if we need to pause to bring those items up, that's my question or should we go on those? Yeah, the only thing, I believe that the clerk, item seven, the clarification on the Russian and Belarus participants and sports wager, I believe that is a very quick item that may be something if all the commissioners want to be involved in that, we could do that really quickly first. Just to be clear, all the commissioners will be available throughout the whole meeting. Okay. Yeah, so yeah. Oh, I seriously, yeah. So we could do that because we do need to give an answer on that, correct, Bruce? That's correct, Karen. Okay. So maybe we could do that and then go to the regs. Okay, and then we'll go to the regs and then for the legal team, we might pause during a discussion to bring in Alex's racing matters and then the outstanding commissioner update, okay? Thanks. Then we'll go, we'll turn to Bruce and team now. Yes. Number seven. Yes, this is a clarification on Russian and Belarusian restriction language that was from a earlier meeting when we put that restriction on the catalog and Stroll will kind of present this to you. Go ahead, Stroll. Good morning, chair and commissioners. So what we're asking is just direction and clarification of the meaning on the or the interpretation of the restricted language for Russian and Belarusian government bodies. So on January 23rd, the commission adopted sports wagering catalog for all licenses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In doing so, two motions were voted on at that time in which commissioner Hill motion the removal of wagers on any sports or sporting event overseen by Russian or Belarusian governing bodies, leagues, events and players that are not allowed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We were asked for clarification from DraftKings in an email stating lastly for the Russian and Belarusian directive. We wanna confirm that we may offer wagers on Tennyson MMA on Russian players competing under a neutral flag. So they also provided some language that they've seen in other jurisdictions. We then just are asking for clarification and meaning of what we exactly want to refrain from wagering in the Commonwealth. And I put something together with the help of legal that if we wanted to, we could write if the, I guess what we should be asking is, is this meant to restrict all athletes that are born in Russia and Belarus that might be competing in an MMA fight elsewhere, let's say in Tennessee. So I guess I will stop there and ask if that was the meaning or if we just wanted to restrict the governing bodies and countries representing Russia and Belarus. So if I could just, because it's such a good memo just direct everyone's attention to it's the last two pages of our packet. The language that you're suggesting you might want to read. Mr. questions, Mr. Browning. I don't have any questions. I can just sort of state, I'm the one that brought this up. I think the chair also noted the Colorado had done it. And my intention was to make sure that there wasn't any, not only sort of the restrictions on the overseeing sports authority from those countries, but also the idea that maybe sports success could be used as some sort of propaganda tool. So the question I have is, I want to make sure that whatever we're suggesting as a clarification doesn't, I don't know about this neutral flag concept for one the idea when they, the whole crew marches into the Olympics under the Olympic flag and then they're still being touted as sort of the Russian metal tally and all that stuff. That's not something I want to see that kind of neutral flag idea being bet on because to me that's just a red herring. It's still the Russian Federation participating and being lauded. But I can see why there was simply an individual who happened to be born there who for all intents and purposes has no country affiliation as participating in a sport. I don't have an issue exempting them but I don't want it to be something, the neutral flag concept I guess is that that language is what I've tripped up on in the proposed language because to me substituting a flag but essentially letting them go forward and participate and be bet on to me is the exception as well as the rule. So maybe I don't know what everybody else was thinking but that's where I was coming from. Chris and Skidder. My questions actually really go to the heart of what Commissioner O'Brien is saying. I want to know how that neutral flag arrangement works because I would be concerned as Commissioner O'Brien stated that if it's just a way to bypass the intent of this regulation then obviously I would not support that not representing them. Like what is not representing the Russian government? What is that test? So if someone, is there a declaration that needs to be given by the athlete? Is there a denouncement of some kind? I would just like some additional information and I did try to do my own research and really came up quite short. So that's the missing information for me. Can either yes, Sterl, thank you. Just for clarity, the neutral flag is draft King's language. I do not include the neutral flag in our proposal. Maybe we should look at your, do we have your proposal versus theirs? Maybe I'm turning to legal to help here. Sterl. It's at the bottom of the- I thought the very, very bottom. Any events or leagues that language? It's the italicized until further notice, the following rules apply to all events overseen. Right, it's at the very end of the year. I wanted to, Sterl, do you want to read and false in case anyone's just listening and they don't have a minute out of them? Yeah, I will be more than happy to read it. Until further notice, the following rules apply to all events overseen by Russian and Belarusian governing bodies. Wagers, wagers are not allowed to be offered in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on any event or leagues overseen by Russian and Belarusian governing bodies. Further, wagering is not permitted on any athlete competing individually or any team in an approved event or league representing Russia or Belarus. If an athlete from Russia or Belarus is competing individually or on a team in an approved event outside of these countries and not representing them, wagering on these athletes would be permitted. I'm sure Brownian. I guess I'm looking for stronger language, not only the representing, but or affiliated in any way because I'm trying to figure out how to write it in a way that makes sure, again, to Commissioner Skinner's point that this isn't sort of a backdoor way around it. I'm going to turn to legal, sorry, Commissioner Maynard. And Commissioner Skinner, sorry, I think you were next and then Commissioner Maynard, sorry. Thank you, I still have, I want to talk through how we enforce this to ensure that, I mean, if there's a, again, what's the test? How do we understand and determine whether these individuals are not representing the country? Commissioner, I'm going to turn to Todd. Good morning, Councilor Grossman. Good morning, Madam Chair, commissioners. Well, Commissioner Skinner's question is something that may in many cases have to be considered on a case-by-case basis, but we can run through some examples just to kind of get a sense as to the commission's perspective on certain things. And I think Sterl has already mentioned a couple of them. Like if there's a Russian-born fighter who's fighting in the UFC, they're not really fighting on behalf of their country, although they're from that country, is that an event that could be wagered on? So that's one example. That's more of a micro example. Obviously the Olympics are a broader example, but it's really the more narrow ones that I think have caused a little bit more of the issue, at least in the short term. So there's someone like a UFC fighter or an MMA fighter or a boxer, and then there are tennis players who don't necessarily play on behalf of their country, but they are from that country. So if there is a Russian player playing in Wimbledon, would we allow a wager on that particular player? And then certainly there are a lot of Russian-born players in the NHL. Presumably the intent was not to restrict wagering on NHL games because there are Russian players playing there, though the assumption was that there would be no wagering allowed on the KHL, the Russian version of professional hockey. So there's a lot of nuance here potentially. So it may be that there's some discretion that would have to be baked into the sports wagering division, but I think it would be important to understand where the commission is coming from here by answering some of perhaps these micro questions. And then, of course, we need to look at the actual language itself. But I don't know, Sterl, does that kind of capture some of the issues that have come up or are there other examples that might be helpful to reference those pretty much hit them all? I would just state that I would believe it's the assumption. And I think I remember something happening with Russia previously in the Olympics. So a person who, Russian athletes could not be wagered upon in the Olympics is the understanding, and this is what we're getting at in Belarus. If they were, what I think I'm hearing is I believe some athletes wanted to compete not under the Russian flag and just be literally excluded from representing Russia. And at that point, do you state, since they're not representing and going out stating they are not representing their country, are they then allowed to be wagered upon? I guess we'd be like that one outstanding caveat. Mr. Maynard. Hi, thank you, Madam Chair. I share Commissioner O'Brien and Commissioner Skinner's worry. I also think about it this way too. I think Sturrell's answer is getting, I think it's almost there, whether we strengthen the language or not. I mean, I have family members who are Russian-born and I would hate for them to not be able to, participate in a sport because they fled the Soviet Union right in the early 90s. And so I think that we have to strike a balance of allowing someone, to me, I don't even know what the constitutionality would be of not allowing a dual citizen who was born in Russia to compete under a neutral flag, much less restricting them in any way. But I do think that Sturrell's answer kind of is striking the balance. I mean, we could strengthen the language around the representation piece, Commissioner O'Brien, but I don't want, I just want to be on the record. I don't want anything that would restrict someone who was Russian-born from competing in this country. Well, and just to be clear, because that's an important point, Commissioner Manard, we're not at all suggesting that they wouldn't be allowed to compete. It's just that we wouldn't allow wagers to be accepted on that event in Massachusetts. I just, to me, that sets a dangerous, it's dangerous. It's dangerous. Michelle O'Brien.  It's a question of wording. For my comfort level, I think if Sturrell's proposed language, you also have or affiliated with, not just representing, but affiliation is somehow incorporated. To me, that I think satisfies the concerns that I have. And I think still allows for that individual carve out. I don't know if it addresses Commissioner Skender's concern. She's looking for something that's maybe a little more formal in terms of guidelines or a test, but for me, if that affiliation language is in Sturrell's, I'm good. Commissioner. So I think the examples that Todd and Sturrell outlined make sense. I think, I guess, because the operators are the ones who are going to be making the determination as to whether or not the event fits, then I would like to see us issue that specific guidance, utilizing some of the examples that you gave, so that the intent of the decision today, which I think will be in your favor, Sturrell, as you recommend, so that it's clear. And I just want to say, Commissioner Maynard, I understand where you're going. For me, this isn't about holding any one individual responsible for the actions of their government. It's the representation of that government during the sporting event. So I'm with you, I'm on the same page, but I agree, we never want to restrict anyone's participation in a sport, but in terms of, again, advertising and sort of counting the country is a problem for me. Commissioner Hill, do you want to weigh in? Well, I agree with my fellow commissioners on what the intent of the original regulation was, but I want to be clear as well, that I think what I had hoped for is we were looking at federations, we were looking at leagues and representations of those two countries, but with the little switching of the language here, I think we can get our message out pretty loud and clear what we intended to do back when we originally passed this regulation. So with the new language being proposed, I'm okay with that as well. I have no problem allowing an athlete who was born in a country to be able to be bet on as long as they're not riding the flag on the way in. So I agree with Commissioner O'Brien and Commissioner Skinner and Maynard with their comments. And I think a little wordsmithing, I think we can get there. Excellent. I see that Bruce is weighing in. Good morning, Bruce, again. No, I was just agreeing with what the commissioner said. I think that we need to clarify the language a little and we'll be right where we need to be. In order to move forward, I'm just going to ask Todd, do you, for guidance, do we need to clarify that and then have Bruce and Sterl come back? Yeah, I think that might be helpful. I think this guidance has been helpful. Maybe if we can just circle up and draft and make sure we polish up the language and bring it back, perhaps we can even get to that today and see if we can finalize this. I think that'd be helpful. Sterl, does that work for you? That would be great. I mean, I just, I tried my best to try and get that language together. So any help from Todd would be greatly appreciated. I think we're under the, I think we're all under the same meanings and maybe the discussion with Todd, we can get that final language to like work. Thank you, Sterl. Excellent job. All right, we'll circle back if we have time today, otherwise we can perhaps add it to next week's meetings. But I know it's still, you want to get that clarified. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce. Thanks. Okay. So let's move now back to the slew of regulations that we have and I guess we're gonna have to scroll up on our documents leaked as we turn to, oh, sorry. I just need two minutes. So I can disappear while you're getting everything cued up or if we could take a five minute break, that would be great for me. I'm happy to take a five minute break, Michelle Ryan. Let's do, let's turn on five and we'll come back at 10.15. Okay, thank you. Thanks. Eileen. Yeah. I sent you a message asking if you wanted to meet on those ads next week. Oh, okay. I'm out this Friday and Monday. So any time that works for you. Okay. All right. So send me when you're free. Okay. That's good. We'll be on it. Okay, great. Kind of hate to admit it, but I'm at the Isle of Palms and Charles, you're Charleston for a couple of days. Good for you. Yeah. I've never been to Charleston. I was down at the NACC, which is the Nashville Advocacy Center years ago when I was in the AG's office. And I was trying to figure out if there was a way to get over there before I flew home and I didn't manage to do it, but I hear it's nice. Oh, yeah. It's really pretty down there. Yeah. And nice and warm. Yeah. Well, it's funny. My daughter's friend, they've been on break and they were down. And ironically, I think Tuesday was it. It was warmer here than down there. Oh, well. Yeah. Yeah. Unusual. It's like 82 right now. Oh, good. That's a swing. Yeah. Cause they were saying it's like 50 and we were like 56 up here on Tuesday. Yeah. Now do you golf? No, not really. I'm actually going down there for a wedding and my birthday. And I double, you know. Oh, nice. Is this Charles? Is that you said Bruce? Yeah, I turned 70, you know, 70 is the new 70 that they say. Nice, nice. I'm going to a wedding down there. But when is your wedding? Mine is Saturday. So. Okay. Yeah. Well, I want to hear about it cause I'm going in May. Okay. Well, yeah. It'll be nice down there. The water is already about 70 degrees. So, you know, that's kind of nice. So I'll tell you how nice it is. Yeah. And I hear that the eating is excellent, but that's not so. Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice area. Yeah. Do we have everyone? I think we can take the screen down one for you today. Thank you so much. Also. Okay. So we are reconvening. Are we all set? Are we streaming? Okay. Yeah. We are good to go. Okay. Thank you. We are reconvening our meetings. That's started this morning. Public meeting number 44, because we are holding this virtual to a real call once again. Commissioner O'Brien. Hey, good morning. I'm here. Commissioner Hill. I'm here. Commissioner Skinner. Good morning again. Commissioner Maynard. Good morning. So we'll get started now. We're turning, we took care of audit order item number seven and we'll turn back to item number five. Good morning to our legal team. And I see Councilor Ropios. Good morning. Who's starting today? Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Just to kind of set the stage for these regulations today. You have 10 regulations on the agenda. All of these are currently in effect by emergency and have been running through the promulgation process, have been out for public comment, went to a public hearing and we're now at the final stage of the promulgation process seeking final adoption. If we could take these just a little bit out of order today, that would be helpful just to accommodate A&K schedules. So we were hoping we might be able to start with 205-CMR-229, I'm sorry, not 229-232, which begins on page 81 of your packet. And if that's all right with everyone, I will turn it right to Mina to walk us through that regulation. Good morning, Mina. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Madam Chair. The, thank you for accommodating our schedule on these. We have a couple that I'll take in a row and then we'll be switching a little bit between team members. 232 is the enforcement and discipline regulation that we had talked about a couple of months back. It is now back up for a final promulgation. We received one comment from BetMGM, which appears on page 85 of your packet, asking to insert the word knowingly in a portion of the regulation at the beginning with respect to the types of violations that might subject an entity to discipline. Our recommendation is not to adopt that change for reasons I've said at prior meetings, while the knowledge of an operator may factor in or a licensee in this case, because this applies to others as well, may factor into the discipline that is appropriate. Our belief is that it should not be a threshold to whether there is a violation in the first place that you might discipline. So unless there's any further questions, this one is unchanged from our last discussion. Questions for turning on Marquiel's carry on set. Who is putting an arm first? Hi, Commissioner Bryan. I can give a motion if we're ready for it. Okay. If there are no questions, Fishers? I'm hearing none. Okay. Then I move that the commission approve the amended small business impact statement and draft of 205-CMR 232, as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. And further, that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the Secretary of the Commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any discussion? Okay. Commissioner Bryan. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. I vote yes, 5-0. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So we will move to page 89 of your packet for 239. Can I just pause and to make sure I'm not somehow, because I know I'm here, but I'm just having a little trouble getting my packet. So, Carrie, is the most current in the email or did you all get it from the calendar? The most current is attached to the calendar, the one that says revised 322. Okay. So let me just pull that up again. And it might have been because just had a little, let's see if I can just, okay. Patience everyone for a second, please. Can you repeat the page number for me also? Sure. It is page 89 of the packet. If you're looking at the PDF, it's actually marked at the top as page 75 of 177. See mine says 194. Right. Sorry. Madam Chair, the distinction is the actual packet has 194 pages in PDF form. I'm only, the 177 is, just happens to be a notation on this document. So I just... Okay. So if I just, can anybody help me in terms of what I'm looking for? Commissioner Hewitt. Hey, Dana. Yes, it's 89 is the operative one if you're on a computer. Yeah. Thank you so much because it just went blank and I had to retrieve it again. So thank you. Okay. Thanks, Mia. No problem. So 239 has to do with the disclosure and reporting obligations. As a reminder, many of the provisions in 239 are actually just summarizing and putting in one place required submittals elsewhere. We had a few minor changes that we're suggesting here. And then I can briefly talk through the comments as well. Some of which I believe we actually spoke about in a prior round because they might have been received before. So we can go through fairly quickly. On page 90, there are a few just typographical edits. Reports does not need to be capitalized. I think at some point there was a belief it was going to be a defined term. It does not need to be. Same with disbursement report. This is, I apologize because we're correcting a typographical edit but I notice there is a typographical problem in the correction that change in I, the second one, should say disbursement report, not risk-bursement. So with that change, that's it for the changes I believe. With respect to the changes, to the comments, we received a handful that start on page 96. There is a comment, a question as whether to require monthly rather than bimonthly reporting for disbursement reports. We spoke in with finance and IB. This has been in place under 138 for quite a while and recommendation is to not change this. This is a twice a month report. That's that version of bimonthly and they'd like to keep it that way. Same with the daily monthly and annual adjusted gross wagering receipts. Remittance and reconciliation reports. Again, these are required in a separate section. We're not recommending changing that here and those should be tracked only. And I believe if I just want to double check this, that's one of the reports filed with the commission. So again, we would expect on a daily basis is a preference. 239036, there was a comment, there's a question really not a comment why are promotional wagering credits included in the quarterly report covering complimentary services because promotional credits are a complimentary give to a patron in order to engage in wagering. And the like promotional offerings were required, have been required in the past under 139 for casino. So this felt like a, this was the natural analog as a promotional credits. 239047 and nine, there was a question or comment that annual business plans would contain very sensitive competitive information. And they'd like to oppose at least not be included in the final regulations. Just to be clear, 23904 does not require filing with the commission. It requires maintenance of these records and the commission may have access to them. So our view is that anything that's competitively sensitive or has confidential issues could be dealt with if there is a need for the commission or commission staff to look at it then, but we're simply asking these be maintained and these are basic business records. 239061, the comment was that BEDMGM was asking, do they need to prepare state specific balances or cash flow statements? And the short answer to that is that the regulation already provides that the audit can be national, especially for companies that already provide that with notes as necessary to make clear information applicable to one state. So there isn't a separate requirement listed in there and the language that BEDMGM had discussed is actually already reflected or what they're asking to be sufficient is already covered in the regulation exactly that way. There was a handful of comments received after that matrix was prepared. So I'll just go through those quickly as well. On page 99, there's a question of whether patron, patron information obtained by BEDMGM through this process be promptly deleted or raised for storage once information is no longer needed. This is in respect to 239046A and B, which if you want for reference appears on, excuse me, on pages 92 to 93. Again, this is for information that's retained by the operator and it's information about how much patrons are spending, spending accounts, et cetera, and players to characteristics and statistics. The information does not suggest how long it needs to be kept at this point. First of all, and the second point is that is critical information for understanding any misuse of that data. It is certainly up to the operator to ensure that that is properly maintained and safely maintained to avoid any invasion of privacy for the patrons. DraftKings asked for a similar edit as BEDMGM on the financial statements piece with respect to Massachusetts. Again, we believe this is already covered by the language that's there and that there already is flexibility to provide what might be a national approach to our locally based sports operator as well. So if they need to provide a master's specific thing. DraftKings also raised a question, this is on page 101 about bi-monthly reporting for reasons we discussed. The preference is to align this with what is required now. I do agree that perhaps in a future round for both here and 139, it may be worth saying every two weeks if we mean that bi-monthly to avoid that confusion but knowing that that is a question, I believe that the IAB and the executive director's office could answer in the time being. I'm not sure, I would not create a distinction between what's in 139 and 239. This may be a good topic for the overall regulatory review that the commission's doing. So I mean, just to clarify for Karen, the question is bi-monthly and there's every other month or twice a month. So that would be two every two weeks, right? Twice a month. It's twice a month, right? Which is what I think has been understood on the gaming side, the question was raised here. I would not change the language from one to the other but it may be worth clarifying in the future. Yeah, so we're clarifying it right now too. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. And with that, with those minor changes that I mentioned to 239, as you can see, we're not suggesting any additional changes in response to comments. We believe most all have either been addressed or are not recommended. Questions for Mina on this? I have one question. Then Mina, I couldn't go back and forth but we did get comments this week. You know we were anticipating conversation with Attorney General's office and they do address data privacy. Is there anything here that we're missing that we should be including? It's a good question, Madam Chair. Not in this particular provision and the AG's office did not include, I don't believe, any comments on this particular provision as well. They did on some other sections outside of advertising as we can get into, or actually, I might as well say this part here and then you can save the rest of the conversation for advertising conversation later. The AG's office proposed edits to 138, 238, 247 and 248. Those are largely the internal controls and then the ones, the two that sort of covered the conduct of sports wagering accounts and play. Our suggestion in talking with members of the legal team and certainly on the A and K side is as you might recall, we had pulled a data privacy, a very detailed data privacy portion of the regulation from 138 and relied instead on sort of background data privacy laws, including 93H and 201CMR 117 with the promise that we would come back to you with a data privacy reg as a separate piece. The Attorney General's office's comments were and will be very helpful in developing that additional reg and then may merit some corresponding changes in 138 and 238. We certainly, as we always do, we'll review this regulation 239 to make sure nothing else needs to change then. But at the moment, we don't think this or really the advertising reg are the appropriate vehicle for most of those changes. But those comments will come in very handy for that piece. Thank you. Okay. Do I have a motion on this one? Is that carried like that to press to proceed? Good. Thank you, Christian. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the amended small business impact statement in the draft of 205CMR 239 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. And further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with secretary of department will finalize the regulation promulgation process. Sit down. Okay, any questions or edits? Okay. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes. So five, zero. And the last one was 232, right? Am I right? Correct. Thank you. Madam Chair, I would direct everyone to page 104 at the moment. This is 205CMR 241. This is a surveillance of the sports wagering area and sports wagering facility as well as regulatory, excuse me, monitoring inspections. This regulation was fairly simple. It really gives the commission the same authority over sports wagering areas at gaming establishments or eventually in category two facilities as it does over those facilities in the gaming side. There were no comments received on this and we are not suggesting any edits. So unless there are questions, this one is also ready for a vote in record time. Is that, does anyone dare ask a question? Sorry, I don't want to discourage any questions. Okay. No questions. I'll take a motion. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the amended small business impact statement and the draft of 205CMR 241 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. And further that the staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Thank you. Any questions or edits? Commissioner Ovar. Hi. Misha Hill. Hi. Misha Skinner. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. 5-0. What do we got next? Thank you Madam Chair. Yeah, thanks Mina. So we, if we could jump back up now to 205CMR 106, which is on page 44 of your packet and Annie is going to take the next three regs for us. Thank you, Carrie. Good morning commissioners. Good morning Madam Chair. So for you is 205CMR 106 on information and filings. As you'll recall, we proposed amendments to this regulation to essentially add references to the sports wagering act to essentially sort of amend the regulation to include sports wagering as if sports wagering, as if the sports wagering act had been passed or had been in place when these regulations were first drafted. We also included technical corrections such as making the language gender neutral. We did not receive any comments on this regulation while we were proposing any edits. And so pending any questions, I would put this forward for vote. Commissioners, are you comfortable not walking through the changes or are you all set? Okay. Any questions for Annie? Good to see you, Annie. Take a motion, Patricia Skinner. I move that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement and the draft of 205CMR 106 as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. And further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Thank you. Any questions or edits? Mr. O'Brien? Hi. Hi. Patricia Skinner? Hi. Mr. Laird? Hi. I vote yes. Five, zero. And that was on our, that was number. 106. Thank you, right at the top. Thank you. Appreciate that, Commissioner Hill. All right. What do we have next, Annie? The next regulation is 107 on page 50 of your packet concerning professional practice. Similar to the amendments made to 106, these amendments are made to incorporate the sports wagering act. So if an attorney is going to practice before the commission, in addition to being familiar with the gaming act, they must also be familiar with the sports wagering act. Also included technical corrections as well to reflect that more regulations have been promulgated beyond 131 and also to revise the language for gender neutrality. No comments were received on these proposed amendments nor do we suggest any other edits. Questions for Annie? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Lee. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the amended small business impact statement and the draft of 205 CMR 107 as included in the commission packet and discussed here today and further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Thank you. Any questions or add? Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. I vote yes. 5-0. Okay. If I may, the next regulation before you is 109 on page 54 of your packet. This is concerning the authority of the commission to act in an emergency situation. The amendments are again to include references to the sports wagering act and the applicable provisions that allow the commission to take necessary action to regulate operators as well as other regulated entities in the event of an emergency. We have also included amendments that capture the sports wagering facilities and sports wagering areas that are unique to sports wagering operators versus gaming licensees. The commission did receive one comment from the MGM related to requiring some sort of advanced notice in the event that the commission chooses to, or is likely to sort of take action to condition, suspend or revoke a license pursuant to an emergency situation. That comment is not relative to any amendments that were proposed to the commission before. And so it's such, we would recommend not accepting the comment. We have no further edits to make besides those that were presented before the commission previously. Questions on, or any on that in the comments? Commissioner O'Brien, are you prepared to move or do you have a question? No, I'm prepared to move as presented to us in the packet. Any questions then? Okay. Commissioner O'Brien, thank you. Yep. I moved that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement in the draft of 205 CMR 109 as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. And further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the Commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Any questions or edits? Okay. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Mann. Hi. Hi. Okay. Fine. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and Commissioner. So if next we could move to 205 CMR 213, which is on page 68 of your packet, and Paul will take the next two regulations for us. Good morning, commissioners. 205 CMR 213 is a brief regulation covering the withdrawal of applications and which is based on parallel provisions in the 100 series. We received no comments on the regulation and we have no proposed edits, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Questions for Paul. Paul, do you just want to remind us of, this is withdrawal of an application. Just if we could just go through that quickly, the steps so that we're reminded. Thanks. Certainly. So paragraph A allows applicants for sportsway during licenses, individuals who are in the process to be qualified, individuals who are in the process to otherwise be licensed, including vendors or registrants to file a notice of withdrawal. Paragraph B makes clear that such withdrawal is permitted without commission approval unless there has been a hearing or other formal evaluation procedure scheduled. The point is to ensure that entities where the commission has invested a certain degree of time and energy or that entities that have subjected themselves to the jurisdiction of the commission where there may be some integrity or investigate or investigatory concerns remain subject to the jurisdiction of the commission. Paragraph C provides that the commission can condition a withdrawal. Again, if the commission has put a certain amount of time and energy into an entity and they withdraw at the last minute, the commission may want to prevent them from reapplying within a certain period. There may be other conditions that the commission would be interested in imposing as well. And paragraph D adopt a provision in the 100 series that puts related, that puts related limitations on the surrender of individual credentials such as an occupational license or a vendor license. Thank you. Any questions for Paul? Thank you. Good. Commissioner Skinner. I'm ready to move. Madam Chair. Thank you. I move that the commission approved the amended small business impact statement and the draft of 205 DMR 213 as included in the commissioners packet and discussed to care today. And further that that be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Questions? All right. Hi. Commissioner Hill. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. I vote yes. 5-0. Thank you, Paul. What's next? Next is 205 CMR 229 which governs the transfer of interests in sportsway during licenses or indirect interests in the same. So again, chapter 23 and section 6-H requires commission approval for the transfer of sportsway during licenses. This regulation has its roots in the comparable provisions governing the transfer of ownership interests in gaming companies with a few tweaks to account for the differing scope. We received no comments on this regulation. There are a few tweaks but they are all technical edits. I'm happy to walk through them or take any questions. Chris, do you have any questions for Paul on the few edits? Hearing none, do I have a motion? I can move. Thank you. I move that the commission approve the amended small business impact statement and the draft of 205 CMR 229 as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. We further that staff be authorized to take the steps necessary to file the required documentation with the secretary of the commonwealth to finalize the regulation promulgation process. Second. Any questions or edits? Commissioner O'Brien? Aye. Mr. Hill? Aye. Mr. Skinner? Aye. Mr. Maynard? Aye. And I vote yes. Five-zero. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and commissioners. So if we could take next 205 CMR 202 which is on page 59 of your packet. This is the definition section. Which I'll turn to Mina to walk through the changes. And then if after that, if we could possibly, so Mina is unavailable from 11 to 12. If we could take 202 and then possibly do the racing items and then come back for advertising at noon, that would work out great. Knees to my ears. That helps me. Carrie, that helps a lot. Cause I was wondering how we've been breaking and the advertising does have a good amount of discussion. It might be. Mina, can I just ask your schedule at noon time afternoon? Do you have any, if we were to take a lunch break at any time, do you have any, you're available? I am available the entire afternoon at three o'clock, so. Okay, I'm sure I can touch with that Dr. Lightbaum. So she actually was anticipating this. She was watching how quickly we were going through these. So she is reaching out to the Steve O'Toole because he would need to participate in this. So she's coordinating that. So it seems to be working out just fine. Oh, good. Excellent. Thank you so much. And just one other thing on the definitions. So we can walk through this right now, but we'd ask to hold the vote until after we've gone through the advertising rig, in case there are any new definitions that we need to add or change. Excellent. And so it starts on 54. Thanks. Excellent. I'm sorry, 59. Oh yeah, sorry. Thank you. I just want to give a lot of praise for the choreography, Cary. Thank you very much. And now it's my turn to not mess up the schedule. So I will do this quickly, Madam Chair. So, 202 as Cary said, as you know, look at all the regs every once in a while, certainly with this one coming back up, to make sure no new definitions are needed. There were no comments requesting new definitions or changes here, but just a few minor adjustments. First, you'll see at the top of page 59, as we spent more time in an overlap between the 100 series and 200 series regs, for instance, with internal controls. It made sense to add language, making clear that where a definition is used in the 100 series, it applies here as well, unless the context clearly requires otherwise. And for ones that would be confusing, for instance, category one, category two, we've already done things like make clear as category one sports wagering. So that's a sort of procedural edit that hopefully clarifies things going forward. Other than that, there is a change at page 61. There is a reference to the definition of responsible gaming messaging, which is defined in 256. Again, I assume that the use of the term will not change. Even if there are changes to the actual definition, but that's one that was added. And other than that, there are no other changes. Any other red lines are just a matter of formatting or comparison to the last document. So that is it for 202. Questions for Amina, Ms. Scherz. Okay, have a motion. Madam Chair. Madam Chair. I think we're holding off on that one, Madam Chair. That's right. Thank you so much, Mr. Hill. Thank you. And I know you just said that two minutes ago, but I was on a roll. Thank you. I apologize to Carrie.  I didn't mean to do it. Oh no, I was gonna say the same thing. You were both all jumping in. I heard it, but I was just one stepping move. Thank you. So we're gonna hold and just a reminder too, because I may do what I just did. So let's make sure we get that taken care of before we, perhaps, I guess it will be when we finish with advertising. Okay. All right, so Amina, we've gotten you off on time. Yeah, thank you. So I don't think I have anything further. I don't think it makes sense to start advertising. So I will let you go on to other agenda items and see you soon. Thank you. Karen, I do have item eight, a commission update. Does it make sense for me to do that first or is Alex ready to go? Why don't you do that and I'll reach out to Alex, okay? Okay. Commissioner, I'm not, I don't think this is intended to come off to full big discussion, but during public meetings in December and then in January, we discussed promotional play and the directive provided by chapter 93N. Over these two meetings, discussion focused on if the law allowed operators to deduct promotional play from their taxable sports wagering revenues. In January, we took a vote, the results of which indicated that the majority of commissioners thought the law was sufficiently ambiguous to allow the commission discretion to determine a promotional play should or should not be deducted. I've been advised that conversations on this matter in our January vote have recently invited several questions from interested stakeholders, including the media, public policy researchers and at least one legislative office, which was raised yesterday afternoon. I have not received or reviewed them. I wanted to bring these inquiries to the attention of my fellow commissioners to determine the next steps you may wish to take if any further clarification. Commissioners? No, go ahead, Commissioner O'Brien. Is there a way to get more specifics in terms of exactly what were the queries that have been received by the office? I don't have them, but Mills, I think they were directed to you if he's available. Absolutely, Chair. The questions that have been received have all been some form of will promo play be deductible for the operators. That is where the, I think, clarity is needed from those entities that the chair mentioned, members of the media, public policy researchers and the one legislative office. And is there a way to identify for us the public policy researchers in the office? I don't think that that should be a problem. The public policy researcher is a professor at Boston University and the legislative office is the office of Senator Will Brownsberger. Okay. And do you have the name of the professor at the end? Not handy, but I'm happy to get that for you. It was in an email to our NGC general email. Okay. So, the Mills brought to my attention that he thought that while there had not been any, they had not been raised in any our agenda-studying meetings that it might make sense for me to do it this way. As I mentioned, there was a majority vote by three commissioners that the law was sufficiently ambiguous to for interpretation. Two commissioners felt the law was clear and that the law did not commit promo play to be deducted. So at this point, I'm looking to see what steps if any of the commission would like to take on providing clarification. Madam Chair, I would ask that maybe during an agenda-studying meeting, we set up a time for us to debate this and vote on it. Okay. In the very near future. And to follow up on that, I'd like there to be an invitation for comment to be had in terms of other players in this. Maybe there's other legislators, maybe there's AG's office, Treasurer's office, RG that would want to chime in on this as well. And I had a clarifying question for Mills and it spoke to, it's really speaking to comment where the, is the communication, the communication that we received from those interested parties, were they limited to just an inquiry as to, you know, yes or no, or did they provide written comment? The commissioner's going to ride say that some were telephone calls that I received and my role is the media affairs contact here at the commission. And a couple of them have come in emails but it, you know, generally speaking, the question was simply, will promo play be deductible? So for the record, ma'am chair, I agree with commissioners Hill and O'Brien just to next steps. Commissioner Maynard. Madam chair, I appreciate this. I do remember the conversation very well. And I remember that some of the team members had some options as far as the policy goes and there was a threshold question of can the commission make a decision when a statute is ambiguous and three of the commissioners did believe it was sufficiently ambiguous. I think that I agree with commissioner O'Brien, commissioner Hill, commissioner Skinner, you know, I need kind of the whole depth of the information commissioner O'Brien's to commissioner O'Brien's point, there was a sentence or two in the AG's letter that addressed this that I found very important. And again, I think that the decision was and at least my understanding of what my decision was was that I believed we had the ability to make the decision, but I never weighed in on the policy. In fact, I think I said multiple times in that meeting that, you know, I probably think it should not be deducted, but I do think that the commission has the ability to make that decision. So I would appreciate a fossil conversation on this matter. Commissioner O'Brien, thank you, commissioner Maynard. Commissioner O'Brien. No, certainly, I mean, as everyone probably recalls I was with the chair on this where I didn't think the statute was ambiguous. And I think as at present, it is not deductible as written in the statute. I'm not lying where commissioner Maynard does in terms of what I know at this point that I don't see a reason why it would be even finding contrary to what I believe that we would have the authority to make a judgment on that point, but to further the conversation, putting this out for comment for interested parties, getting information is absolutely part of our process. I don't know that there's even gonna be call for a vote when we get to the end of that, we'll see. But if we want to mark it up to get a more formal commentary on this, I don't think it's gonna be anything but helpful to this process. Commissures, could I ask for perhaps one just change in the approach commissioner Hill said, could we wait for agenda setting? I'm wondering if it would be, we've already started to create a list of items that we would want, can we launch that now and then set the date of the agenda setting because we wanna be careful not to get too much into substantive discussions at our agenda meeting. So I've heard a little bit of a list. The first one I've heard is, well first, are we okay if we just get a look, delve into a list of information to start with and does it mean we wouldn't look for more down the road? Are we comfortable doing that right now? Commissioner Hill? Yes, I was actually wondering and proved for thought, I have absolutely loved having these round tables that we've been having on different issues surrounding sports wagering. And I'm wondering if this might not be an opportunity for us to have a round table regarding this issue. It's a big issue that we're gonna get a lot of information about and those round tables have been invaluable to me as a member with the information gathering that we get at those discussions. Just thought. Okay, if so I'd love to have a list of likely participants, Commissioner Hill and if you wanted to work with Bill. So if I could just stop the train on that a little bit. I'd like to see the commentary on the who's interested in what before we go talking about round tables because one of the restrictions and the limitations to round tables was actually at the table. And so I wanna make sure if we're doing that, we've got interested parties. And so I think until we have a sense of who the interested parties are, us crafting the round table, I'm concerned is gonna be slanting the conversation maybe a little bit too much for my test. So, okay, let's just put the round table as a possibility and from the other commissioners as well on that, but that's one option. I heard you, Commissioner Irene, Commissioner O'Brien mentioned the AG's office, the treasurer's office, I would throw in the governor's office and ANF because some home play deductions would have an impact on revenue. And other ideas, Commissioner Skinner, Commissioner Mayer? I would wanna hear on the RG piece. Right. What's the effect on the RG side? And then of course, I know that this was also, the whole conversation came from a letter that came from an operator. So if that operator would like to show up in person and explain kind of the thought process on this, I'm comfortable with that too. Well, I think there might have been a couple of comments. So, could we include that as part of the, whatever other comments we get, Commissioner Mayer? Is that okay? We are gonna forget the early comments in other words. I would throw in, I'd like to hear from RSM because our applications of course presented what they anticipated to be their ability to generate revenue for the commonwealth. And so I'd like to at least include RSM and it might require an executive session if it was sensitive information. I think there was at least one public statement made by RSM about this, but I don't wanna get into that at this point. Other information? Commissioner Skinner, are you leaning in? Was it RSM was my contribution, but you beat me to it. My apologies. Commissioner, anything in particular? The round table, I think if we decide to go that route, we could allocate a day with that input. I might say if we got some of the initial information and would take the temperature of the commissioners and then decide do we need to use the valuable time of round table participants. Again, it was food for thought and I wanna get as much information as I can beforehand, whether that be before a round table or at a round table, doesn't matter to me. Okay, thank you. Anything else commissioners you could think of so that we could get on the leg up? So we put it out for comment and I'm gonna turn to John counsel Grossman. Can we just go ahead and ask for written comments? Come in on this matter or how would we proceed? Yeah, I think that's fair at this juncture. You're not making any decisions just gathering information. So that's appropriate in my view to move ahead as you've described. The one week to we proactively reach out to the people that we've identified. So my question is, you know, trying to take notes here. So I had the AGO, the treasurer. No, we have the operators with the office and Anna. Anyone else specifically that we should reach out to? So Brianne, who is the RG lobbyist, I think following up on commissioner Maynard's comment, Mark Stotz internally, but then also Brianne has information or insights. We might just have, I'm so sorry, go ahead, Karen. No, no, no, just saying. So what we would do is we would put something on the website as we'd normally do for a request for comments. And then we would basically send that to these parties and indicate we have this process. And if you're interested in commenting, there is the billing. It might be helpful too, if it's not to taxing mills to kind of collect, there's been various articles and we've done some past research on other jurisdictions, maybe to collect that because as you know, this is a very fluid conversation across the nation. We are actually in a favorable position of being able to learn from other states at this point. So maybe we collected some of those instructive news articles that have been passed around as a way to collect them. Okay. I'd also love to have, we'll only have three weeks come the middle of April, but I wouldn't really want to do this until we had some stats on what the gross revenue is without the deductions. That's the status now. And so I think that would be very informative to me. Ties into your R&M comment that you and Christopher Skinner made, but. I think probably then we want to make sure that Derek was involved to understand, I don't know the process of selecting what we've been collecting already and what the operators, there have been of course some revenues already collected. Right. So sort of give us an update on what has been occurring. Right. I know they're normally not announced till the 15th of the following month. So, but it would only be the three weeks in March, but it's actually mills we talked about the next revenue day because it's a holiday and a weekend involved. What date do we think? Yeah, I believe it will be the 18th of April. We'll be the revenue release day if my memory serves. Yeah, because the 17th is holiday. Okay, let's do it. Okay. So a few days later then. Thanks.  So is there anything that you would think that we should also need? No, but I wouldn't, I think I would caution as commissioner O'Brien points out, we're not gonna have a lot of data in these first few months, everyone's going for the, all the operators are going for the grab as far as offering a lot of promotions. So it may not, you know, total handle may not be reflective of what it would look like in steady state. So I think we might want to take a look at some other jurisdictions too for that, what it looked like at the beginning and then what it looks like in steady state. Right. Madam Chair. Maybe we could ask our assembly to do that. Commissioner Muir. Can I ask the assumption now, right? And I'm just, I'm making this assumption, right? Is that the operators are not deducting this until a decision's made, right? Derek? That seems to be what's happening is I'm understanding that they have interpret the law so special. I wouldn't say that, Madam Chair. I would say that they're operating a certain way until we interpret the law. And the most conservative. Commissioner Maynard, excuse me, but I think it's the lawyer in me because I'm thinking there's a very savvy tax lawyer who's helping them out, but I might be wrong, you're absolutely right. There was also, so there's one, one of the things Derek, there was when you presented that information, it was very helpful. There was also some assumptions built in of what could happen if the entire market grew versus if the entire market didn't grow. I don't know if RSM could look at that also because there is a short term, long term, right? Definitely short term. If there's no deduction in promo play, there's gonna be more tax revenue. There is an argument that, and I remember hearing it, that if the entire market grows, you would have a long-term growth. And so I'm just interested in hearing about that, if possible. Correct, and that was very, mine was very rudimentary. So I think it would be better if RSM or someone better at forecasting and projecting those models did it. And just that basic general discussion again, that these are taxes right off of revenue, right? So a lot of assumptions out there that this is done to avoid taxing or done to avoid would get to the point of these operators would no longer be going entities because they have no money to pay even for payroll if there's nothing to tax on. So I think RSM would be good for that discussion. Excuse me. Karen or Derek, who do we arrange for this? Who arranges this exercise with RSM? There's been several questions for RSM's analysis. Is that something that Derek does or is? Well, Loretta's actually been the one coordinating with RSM. So I would suggest maybe have her reach out to that. I don't know. I mean, I don't really have. Well, I haven't taken exact notes on all the RSM increase. I know Commissioner Maynard just made one. I suggest looking back at other jurisdictions generally and then Derek, maybe Grace, you've gotten some of those notes, but we just want to make sure that if we ask RSM that it's complete so somebody can look at the record. Is there anything else we want from RSM? We're just kidding. You had them in mind too. Anything else you're doing? Nothing additional. Okay, anything else that, all right, maybe from there on then, unless there's any further questions or another commissioner's update. And again, it was given that the, it was Tom Maranis, the increase from the legislative office to my attention yesterday. So we thought that was an important increase to respond to. Okay, are you all set then, Mills? So you can do your job. Absolutely, thank you, Chair. Okay, that's all right. I don't hear any further questions. It is still a good morning, Dr. Leibow. Good morning. How are you? Good, how are you? Excellent, thank you. So if we could take our items out of order, Steve O'Toole had a personal thing that he's attending to this morning. He'll probably be ready in 10 or 15 minutes, but if he's not, we might have to take your break and then do him right after. No problem. But I do have Suffolk's item ready to go and that's on page 187 of your packet. And Mike Buckley and Bruce Barnett are on the call as well. They're ready to go. Hi, Mr. Buckley, hi, Mr. Barnett. Hi, commissioners. I'm still scrolling just one second, please. It just went all the way from the top of it. Again, it's page 187, the Suffolk Request for DK Horse as an account wager and company. Great, thank you. Okay, so Suffolk has asked for approval of DK Horse, which is Drafting's horse, as one of their account wager and companies. It's going to be based on the backbone, so to speak, of the Churchill Technology Initiative company which runs Twin Spires, which has been authorized in Massachusetts for a number of years and the commission did approve them earlier as an account wagering company again for Suffolk for this year. Since my memo was written, I've been updated by Mike and DK Horse that they've also been approved in Colorado, Indiana, Washington and West Virginia. We don't have any information that there's any issues with these providers and obviously we've had the experience with the Churchill Downs infrastructure for years. Again, we just note that with Greyhound Racing, wagering ending up until August 1st, that's included in the recommendation is that it be approved just until then. I'll open it up to Mike if he has anything you'd like to say. Hi, commissioners. No, I think that perfectly summarizes the objective here today. Again, DK Horse is an affiliate of Drafting's who would be using the backend technology of the Churchill Twin Spires platform and this relationship is very similar akin to the Caesar's Racebook and Naira relationship, which was also approved in December as well. So those are, I think, good examples of the ask here today. Questions, commissioners? I'm just looking for clarification again on the Greyhound Racing part of it. I understand that they still race minimally. Is the reference to the 2022 and the August 1 expiration, is that racing in general, ADW, or is that specific to the Greyhound Racing? That's specific to the Greyhound Racing. So the ADW request goes through the calendar year? Correct. The Greyhound would be the expiration at the end of July. Yep. And the reading of the statutes at present is despite the fact that it's illegal on the Commonwealth, it's still legal to bet by the ADW? No, it's just to point out that it will be illegal as of August 1. Right, as of August 1. We just wanted to make sure that that's noted. And to be honest, I'm not even sure if some of these account wagering companies don't show dog racing already. And I just don't know if DraftKings does or not. I didn't check, but just to cover ourselves that, there's no confusion that when August 1 comes, there is no more heading in Massachusetts on dog racing. There's only one right now that is doing it. Only one ADW right now. So is this language irrelevant as to DraftKings? Do we just say it's not part of the authorization? I can't opine on that. I'm not sure if they are gonna include it or not. Are they using Twin Spires as the back end, Mike? Yes. Okay. So Twin Spires is one of the only ones that currently uses dog racing. So that's something that at that point, if they do do that, and I would have to talk to you anyways about to make sure how we can sunset that whole thing. So, but yeah, they are, that's the one ADW that is doing dog racing right now. Can we just get a summary from legal as to the legal context for how it's illegal, but you can still bet through July 31st? In terms of the ADW? Yeah, I don't know if Todd or anybody is on. This has just been a little part of this ADW that's bothered me. If I can clarify, DK Horst is not gonna be doing any great dog racing on their ADW platform. Okay. And then Eileen, I think why the actual sun setting is out there now is because Gray2K came out and said, well, that's great that we eliminated dog racing here in Massachusetts. However, we had thought that it was gonna be across the board. So the way of doing right now through Twin Spires is only, there's only one, two tracks left in the United States. So the rest are coming mostly from Ireland. And possibly. Commissioner O'Brien, the reason why we've included this in the wording, and when we did it with the San Ocasio and Account Wadring in December, was because the legislature, when they renewed the racing legislation, that is included in that for the first time. They made it very clear that that's when it ends. That's why we brought it up now. Got it. So it is in the statute. And in December, we, and I'm sure Bruce Barnett remembers the conversation we had. We had a discussion about that going into when, whether it was July 31st or August 1st. First August 1st. I do remember that. It is in the statute. Yeah. Yeah, it's actually in the, it's an outside section of this session law that inserted 23N in the, they did it in phases after the referendum in 2009. They banned live grayhound racing in the Commonwealth, but it has been until just coming August, permissible to wager on it if the actual race takes place somewhere else, right? Mr. Barnett, even if there's this notion that jackings won't be, won't be airing or allowing for any of grayhound, it's a clean way for us to get this to move on this, just to tidy everything up from a legal point of view. Madam Chair, I missed the beginning of the question. I think the, I understand that jackings is not going to allow for betting on grayhound racing. That is outside of Massachusetts or on your way outside of Massachusetts. So even so that makes it sound moot, but is it, am I understanding that this would be a sort of a clarifier and a clean way to conclude this by moving on this map? Yes, and you're saying doing it in the way that it's presented in Alex's recommendation? Yes. Yeah, I agree. It just puts them on the same footing as everybody else for the next four months. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Sorry that my question was less than powerful. It was a reception and reception issue on my end. I think I'm, I am, I probably was less than clear too. All right. So Mitchers, do you have further questions for after my honor, Mr. Buckley or Mr. Burnett? Okay. Are we inclined to move in itself? I'll take a motion. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve DK horse LLC as an advanced deposit wagering vendor for Suffolk Downs, prepare a mutual wagering purposes only on the condition that if DK horse LLC accepts wagering in Massachusetts on Greyhound Racing, it may do so only until August 1st, 2023, consistent with chapter 128 of the acts of 2022. Thank you. Any questions or edits? Mr. O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Milner. Hi. Hi, Sarah. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Thank you, Christian. Thank you very much. Thanks very much. Nice to see you. So I did get a note from Steve O'Toole that he was able to join us on the phone. So we can go ahead to his items. So which page so that we can... Yep. We'll start on page 180. These items are going a little out of order from the agenda. I wasn't clear when I talked to them about the agenda, what order it should go in. So we're going to go in the order that the packet is. Whatever works for you, Alex. And actually, Alex did it correctly. It was on me. I didn't have it in the order she submitted. So that's not on Alex. So thank you. We're all a team here. Yeah. Okay. Alrighty. So, but we just took care of which items so I can cross it off, Alex. We just... It was the last item. Yeah. E, B, I mean. And now we're referring to item A. Yeah. We're not going to start with item A. I think item A is the... One of the reimbursements. Instead, we're going to start with item B, which is on page 180 of the packet. Okay. And I actually think I heard D. So I really needed clarification on something to item B. All right. Good morning, Steve. Good morning, Commissioner. Can you hear me? We can. Very good. Okay. So our first item that we're going to cover for Plain Ridge is there a routine item that we do every year. It's their approval of their operating personnel and their racing officials. Steve O'Tool has submitted a list dated March 14th, 2023. And interestingly enough, this might be the first time we've had a list that is basically identical to the year before. Usually there's a few additions and subtractions. So these are all people that have been licensed with us in the past. No issues with them last year, obviously. In addition, the five operating personnel that are listed, they have current gaming employee licenses. I did check with the gaming licensing division to make sure they were all licensed still as far as that goes. On the racing side, they're still in the process of getting their licenses. Some of them have them and some of them don't. As you can imagine, the meet doesn't start for a couple of weeks. So the officials are just starting to come back now. So my recommendation is that the commission approved the request of the operating personnel and racing officials pending the satisfactory completion of licensure by the gaming commission to visit the racing and the satisfactory completion of their background checks by the state police. And I'll turn it over to Steve if he has anything he'd like to add. Thank you, Alex. The only thing that I, and I apologize for not being on the screen, and seeing everyone, but the only I'd like to add is that I'm thrilled that the team is back and everyone is coming back to their positions because they all do a great job and I don't have to worry about their duties and the way they carry them out. Our presiding judge last year was new to that position and I was very, very pleased with his performance as well as Alex's team that support him. So just hope to have everyone back on board this year. Thank you, Steve. Any questions for Steve O'Toole or for Dr. Leicam? Mr. Maynard. I'm ready to move. I move that the commission approved. If I mis-commissioned, he'll my apologies. I might have missed you. Who did not? Okay, thank you. Thank you, my apologies for interrupting. Sorry. I move that the commission approved Plain Ridge Park Casino's list of operating personnel and racing officials for the 2023 racing season as included in the commissioner's packet and discussed here today. Subject to the conditions that such operating personnel and racing officials obtain the necessary licensure and satisfactorily complete their background checks by the Massachusetts State Police. Back in. I think that there was two at the same time, I'm sorry, commissioner Skinner, do you yield to commissioner Hill? I do. Thank you. We have a second. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Leicam. What's next? Okay, so if you scroll to the next page, the packet of the request from Plain Ridge for a waiver of 205 CMR312, number seven. They've asked for this, I believe since 2018. Yes. And the commissioners approve it each year and there haven't been any problems with this waiver. When the horses are off for a certain amount of time, they need to come back and do basically kind of like a practice race. It's a, we call them a qualifier. It's non-betting and it's for no purse money. And basically it gives the horses a chance to get back into racing shape. It gives a chance for the veterinarians to make sure they're in racing shape and it gives a line for the future betters. So again, we haven't had any problem with this and my recommendation is to approve it. And if Steve O'Toole would like to add anything. The only thing I would add, Allison, I think you explained it well is that at the beginning of the year, any horse that hasn't raced for a considerable amount of time will qualify. And then once they're qualified, if they should happen to take a break in that period for whatever reason, they would come back and re-qualify and the rule states 30 days. The breed has developed a considerable since this rule was put in place years ago. And most jurisdictions are at 45 or even 60 days. So I think 45 days is the right number. And so that's the reason that we put in the request and the horseman obviously are behind this and actually are the ones that she suggested in 2018. Okay, I just want to make sure Chad, do you want to weigh in or are you all set? I am all set right now. I do- You're coming on, yes, yeah. I'm just trying to read the room virtually, Chad, thank you. He's on deck and swinging his bat, ready to come on. I can see that. Sometimes I just don't know if they're sort of touching that home plate, Commissioner Hill. So here we go. Drive of motion. Madam Chair, I move that the commission waive the requirements set out into a five CMR, 3.12 sub seven that all horses not showing a satisfactory race line during the previous 30 days and do a qualifying mile at a race before the judges and change the 30 day period to 45 days for the 2023 racing season for the reasons discussed here today and included in the commissioner's packet. Commissioner Skinner. Okay, the answer questions. Commissioner Bryan. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Lee. Aye. I vote yes, five, zero. Madam Chair. Yes. I do have just a quick question now that the vote is over. So this started, these requests started in 2018 and we continued to allow them to move forward. Would there be a reason why we wouldn't take a look at the regulation and maybe change it, considering that we continue to offer this waiver every year? That's a really good question. I bet Dr. Lightman has it on her list. We can certainly add that to the list. Part of the regulation actually says the association may request a waiver of this requirement. So it's right in the CMRs now that they can ask for a waiver of it. So I guess I'm asking, why wouldn't we change it from 30 to 40 days? Right, we could just change it to the 45 days, yeah. And it looks like there's enough evidence and data to show why we could do that or would do that. So just food for thought moving forward, that's all. Sure, that's really good. And I know that that's an exercise that we're going through to look at our rags. So Dr. Lightman, Commissioner Hill's got a good idea that helps, unless there's any reason to imagine that it wouldn't be good, but I'm with Commissioner Hill. Excellent idea. Thank you. All right. Okay, so our next items are the two reimbursements at Plain Ridge is asked for, and I'll turn it over to Chad Bork now. It's Alex. So as she mentioned, Plain Ridge is requesting reimbursement for the two handicap capping contests that were approved by the commission back on October 13th of 22. And just to recap, each month funds are deposited into the harness horse promotional trust that Plain Ridge can use to engage customers, increase attendance and handle. Distributions are made upon the commission's approval of the licensee's request for consideration followed by a request for reimbursement. So the first request is for $25,000 to reimburse funds that were used for the penultimate handicapping contest that took place between the dates of November 5th through November 25th. The second request is for $2,500 to reimburse funds that were used for the survivor handicapping contest that took place on October 24th. The funds will be used to reimburse Plain Ridge for payouts made to the patrons who were winners of the contest. I reviewed all the documents which included acknowledgement forms of the payouts and it did match up. Each prize was paid out in the manner that was stated in Steve's consideration. The fund currently has a balance a little over 280,000 and that does include the approval of this request. I do consider that to be in good order and recommend approval. If there isn't any questions, I don't know, Steve, if you wanna come back on and add a little color to that. I would just say that it was a hit with the customers, free to enter and 25,000 up for grabs and I just wanted to add it. So it was very well received by our customers and fans on the for the 2,500 survivor contest that was held on Sirestakes finals day and the Breeders Association, they split that with us. So it was $2,500 a piece, it was a $5,000 prize. And what the survivor was, you pick each race and then as soon as it drops out that there's just one person left. In this case, there was actually two people left and then they didn't hit the next race. So there was two winners there, they split the 5,000 but it was very nice to have the cooperation of the Breeders Association to split that survivor contest with us. And we're talking with both the horsemen and the breeders to do similar contests for this coming season. Questions or chat or Steve? Okay. So we have a vote on that as well, Chad. I have a lot of questions. Are we gonna do these separately or are we gonna do them together out of chat? Well, if we're doing them. If we're doing these, there's two items. It's items A and E. Thing and E. They're on the agenda separately, but in the packet they're kind of sequential on together. You know what, you're the moving parties. So shall we go forward, Chad, and do the next one? You know what, and I know that we have draft motion, so I don't think we'll do that. I think Chad mentioned both, right? It's a question of, can we do them in one motion? I think you can do them in one motion, Brad, if you can specify them. That's fine with me. Okay. Thank you, Brad. I wondered if I had missed something. Okay, thank you. So let's see if I can pull this off. I move that the commission approve the expenditure of $25,000 from the Harness Horse Promotional Trust Fund to Plain Ridge Park Casino in accordance with chapter 128A, section 5G for the Penn Ultimate Handicapping Contest, as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today, and further move that the commission approve the expenditure of $25,000 from the Harness Horse Promotional Trust Fund to Plain Ridge Park Casino in accordance with chapter 128A, section 5G, for the Survivor Handicap Contest, as included in the commissioners packet and discussed here today. Second. I have the addict, because I understand that because of the way the motions were structured, why you asked the question, Commissioner Kell, but you always have the ability to do it the way you want, you know, these are draft motions. I think that worked out nicely. So that's my comment. Any other comments or edits on the motion? They're all good. Commissioner O'Brien. Hi. Commissioner. Hi. Commissioner Skinner. Hi. Commissioner Maynard. Hi. Yes, 5-0. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you, Chad. Good to see you. Good to see you too. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you. Checking these right off, Dr. Lightdown. Yep, that does it for the racing items. Thank you. It does all. And it's still before noon. So I think commissioners, we have to, this team really got us organized today to Director Wells. Congratulations to all your teams. So far, this is a very productive morning. And we do, Madam Chair, along those lines, we do have the language ready for discussion on the Russian restriction, if you'd like to do that. So we have that and then the advertising rate. Excellent. And I see Starla's already. So that's great timing and I know that Mina is coming back at noon and commissioners. We can think about what we want to do for lunch break after we hear from Sterl. And thank you, Sterl, for being able to come back in such timely fashion. Thank you, Chair. So Mr. Grossman helped with the language and we are, if you would like, I will read it out and we can discuss whether this meets the ideas of the commission. Sound good? So we wanted to change it to no wager shall be offered or accepted in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by a licensed sports wagering operator on an event or league overseen by a Russian or Belarusian governing body, but body headquartered in Russia or Belarus. Further, no wager shall be offered or accepted on any athlete competing individually or on any team in an event authorized in the Commonwealth's catalog if the individual or team is known to represent Russia or Belarus. Wagering is permitted on a Russian or Belarusian-born based or affiliated athlete competing individually or on a team in an event authorized in the commission's catalog if the event is scheduled to be conducted outside of Russia or Belarus and they are not known to represent or promote these countries. Commissures, would you like, Sterl, to share that language or are you okay carrying it? Would you like to see it, Commissures? Can I see it? Thank you. It was emailed also, people need to pull it up. Thank you. We've got it now in front of us. Do you mind making it? There we go. Is it big enough? It's good, thank you, Sterl. There is one typo in the word Belarusian the first time it appears. We can fix that of course. Fine, yeah. Questions for Sterl? We can take it down if it's available so we can see each other. Any questions for Sterl or God? And Bruce is here too. Patricia Skinner. So thank you, Todd and Sterl for the quick turnaround on this language. I think the intent is clear here. Where is this language going? I just wanna clarify that. It is going in the guidelines tab on our sports catalog on our website. Okay. It will be updated once approved. And will we also include a few of those examples that you captured earlier in the meeting? I don't know if those examples are appropriate to be set out in that guidelines document but if so, I would suggest we add them. But I'm fine with the language as written. I think that's a question for Todd whether it should be legally or I mean, I don't see a problem listing them out but I don't know. Examples. I think we can offer some clear examples for sure. So with that said, we did discuss this and we wanted to make sure. So we have an understanding for our operators. We state at the end that they're known to, known to represent or promote the countries. That being said, an athlete not known to do so but then wants to then and some opening ceremony of a hockey game, for an example, starts waving a Russian flag. That would invalidate wagers on that event but will be looked at going forward as somebody who would not be able to be wager upon due to promoting those countries. That is our understanding. I wanted to know if that is the understanding of the commission as well. Seems like a fair interpretation. Thank you, Commissioner Ryan. Thank you. I was on mute, but I said, I think so. I think that's exactly how I would interpret it. Thank you, Commissioner Hill. Bruce, are you? I was glad for that interpretation. That's how we all kind of looked at it. Our concern with it as well. Okay, and you would like to vote on this for it because it's going to the camera. I have a motion to find it. I don't know where it went. Okay. But if someone hasn't ready, please vote free. Well, I think we need to reference, I can move and then what I'm going to do is just reference the language that Sturl read at this most recent discussion. I would move that the commission amend the adopted sports wagering catalog for all licensees in Massachusetts by replacing the restriction prohibiting wagers on, quote, any sports or sporting event overseen by Russian or Belarusian governing bodies, leagues, events and players, end quote, with the language most recently read by Sturl Carpenter at today's meeting at approximately 1145 a.m. And as further discussed here today. Second. Any questions or edits? Richard O'Brien. Aye. Mr. Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Mr. Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes. So five, zero. That's excellent work. Thank you. Thank you all, Madam Chair and commissioners. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate the inquiry. Okay. So that brings us to 10 of 12. I see Executive Director Wells very much nodding her head. So we would be turning now to our advertising break. But I know that Mina doesn't return until noon and there's Carrie. How should we proceed commissioners and Carrie? Yes, Madam Chair. So we could take a short break or you could take an early lunch break, however you'd like to proceed. And then afternoon will have Mina available for the advertising rights. I would think the lunch break makes most sense now.  Makes sense. 10 of 12. So, and there are, as we all know there are extensive comments. And so it gives us a chance to preview of those and we consider them and eat some good lunch. So what time do you want to return? 10 of 12. So my only, my question is, does Mina have enough time to get something to eat before jumping back on with us at 12, 20? What if we did like 12, 30? That's what I'm asking. Then he can have time to make sure he's had enough to eat before he types in with us. Yeah, I think if we come back at 12, 30, he's gonna have the same time as us. Does that make sense? I was gonna recommend a little bit longer break across. Okay. And then we'll go straight through to 45. We'll conclude the meeting then and any work that needs to be done, we are preserving Monday, March 27th. So if we have additional work to do on this regulation, let's see how we do. All right, with that, see you at 12, 30. I'll set. Yep. Thank you, Dave. I'll set. Thank you. There's, I think, second director Wells will be joining us shortly. There we go. So, welcome back everyone. We'll have a little bit of a lunch break. So the convening of the Massachusetts Game Commission. So holding this meeting virtually, so I'll take a little call. Good afternoon, Commissioner O'Brien. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Commissioner Hill. Hello, President. Good afternoon, Commissioner Skinner. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Commissioner Maynard. Good afternoon. So we'll get started. I see Carrie and Mina. We've been worried that actually, Commissioner O'Brien was particularly concerned that you might not have enough time for lunch. Mina, you all sat. I am. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thanks. Okay. But Caitlin, that and Christina. Hi, Christina. All right, we'll get started. Carrie, they're on legal and we only have one right left. And we'll have five, Sam, our 256 item 5J. Yes, Carrie. I don't know if you have any prefacing remarks. If not, I can kick it off. Go ahead and take it away, Mina. All right. So again, this is sort of our next step in looking at the advertising regulations. And this is one that I know the commission has spent a considerable amount of time with in developing. You had at least two round tables that Christina and I attended, perhaps or others that I'm forgetting. You received a lot of comments on this, both from the regulated entities, other interested parties. And of course, it was a subject of the conversation or much of the subject of the conversation with the attorney general's office a few weeks back. What we'd like to do today is walk through the proposed edits to the regulation that's coming back for final promulgation. The comments in this case, unlike some of the ones we covered this morning, were more extensive, more thematic, and with a lot of narrative behind them. So there's a lot of great information in your packet about the comments. However, it's not probably not the best use of time or the easiest really to go through the 75 pages or so of that. So instead, what we'd like to do is we'll try to highlight the comments as they came up. Because again, there's a lot of agreement or at least sort of the same themes popped up again and again. We did receive just yesterday the comments that I mentioned this morning from the attorney general's office, which included a number of comments on 256 as well as others. Just to reiterate what I said this morning, the comments on 138, 238, 247 and 248 since those aren't before you largely, not entirely, but largely had to do with data privacy and use of patron data. That is a subject for a regulation that we plan to put together. And so we'll be taking that feedback into the preparation of that regulation. The comments for 256 and are the last couple of pages of the AG's office's comments. I will try to cover those. The A&K team has had an opportunity to look at those briefly since they came in yesterday. But part of the plan here, assuming this takes as much time as we anticipated to, is we'll try to cover this, give everybody a moment to digest the information, but perhaps unless we're able to, perhaps not take a vote right away on it and just take some feedback from the commission about how you might want to address some of those comments. So that's the approach we would like to take. Madam chair or anybody else I assume that's okay. I'm sure it looks good. It's not intense. And so 256 begins on page 107 of your packet. The first comment that I'll note seems in 250.601, a slight change to add the word sports wagering ahead of the phrase or ahead of the list of items covered by this regulation. The reason for this was comments from several entities, fanatics and pen in particular that want to have clarity that this didn't apply to perhaps, to their other lines of business or to other activities they might engage in. And so for the avoidance of any doubt, we added that language in. So it's a simple add in 250.601. The next item which does not appear as an edit yet or in any on the document but is an issue for conversation and was probably the most commented on and I know you've spent a lot of time on it is the language in 250.601.3. So this is the language that absent the waiver that's currently in place would ban agreements between a sports waging operator, any third party where the agreement provides for compensation dependent on or related to the volume of sports, excuse me, of patrons who sign up or wagers placed or the outcome of wagers.  And including getting into the nuances of the particular kinds of agreements here. The revenue share ones versus the cost per acquisition. We've also just to recap for, I know most folks here know this but just in case anyone also is listening in the public also had the changes to the vendor and registrant licensing schemes to address this in a slightly different way. The operators, the broadcasters, entities like IDEA, the teams, the sports teams who also commented on this like the Red Sox. Basically everybody in the regulated industry side has advocated for removing this section either in its entirety or limiting it to just, limiting it in some, in different ways. For instance, Fandall suggested limiting the prohibition to arrangements based on wagers placed as opposed to patrons that sign up in their comments. But there is, as you know, there's a lot of feedback you received about the waiver and then also now the attorney general's office has asked in their comment letter initially and in the comments they provided yesterday that this section be retained. They would also, if it is retained with, would seek to add a brief, excuse me, I'm just making sure I have the right language. They wouldn't be here, sorry. That they would be language in a one sort of referencing back to agreements as well. L111 is post-013. So that's the current state of situation of where things stand out. Mr. Mayor, are you making it? Just one second, sorry about that. So I was trying to, I just wanna nail this down. I have the comments up and I wanna make sure that I'm looking at this correctly. Did they comment on subsection 256.01, subsection three? I see the 01, subsection one addition. Yeah, so, Commissioner Maynard, I may have misspoke about the red line. There were, as you might recall, there was a letter before the last session in the letter they advocate for keeping it in, but there was no red line associated with it. So they would like to keep it in, is all we know about it, about that position. In their initial letter, the rationale for that had to do in part with, at least the stated rationale was, a concern about potential problems from a party having both a ability to benefit from a wager placed or drawing folks to wager and also acting in a capacity of giving potential advice on what to wager on or how to wager. That is also addressed elsewhere in these regulations. And so that on its own, probably would not be a reason to retain it. I think the reasons for and against retaining this language or modifying this language are effectively what you've been talking about in the prior conversation. I don't wanna repeat those all, but basically the conversations about third-party marketing affiliates generally. This is the language I think when Paul was presenting a lot of that over the last couple of weeks, pointing to this is where the next change would be if you were to make a change in line with the waiver. Does anyone have a question? Cause I have a clarifying question. What we're seeing right now, 256, 01, 1, and 3. But we made a decision to change this through April 14th, right? But that's not reflected here. Correct. It was through April 14th, which is when this emergency regulation would end. And so we wanted to today talk about whether this language, whether to continue the decision permanently would be one option, whether to keep this or to go back to this language or some modification in between as well. And, okay. And so is it, I just wanna make sure commissioners remembered what our decision was and we're all set. And, official finding? Yeah, so the status is that the language is as it is and it's just a waiver. And so to your point, if the decision still has yet to be made on striking it in its entirety or retaining some portion of it. So there's sort of the three options. There's the waiver expires, you go back to it as written. The decision is made by the majority to strike the section in its entirety or you go back at the end of the waiver to this subsection, but it's altered in some way. So we do need to have that conversation. But on clarifying or Commissioner O'Brien or Nina or Kerry, we did, and I'm sorry for my memory is not serving me well, we did decide, and maybe we didn't, did we decide that they would have the elevated, that there would be an elevated status license? That part is in, that would not be in this section though, and Madam Chair, that is in 232 steps. Thank you. 234, yeah. Okay, so that's an, all right, so that's the good reminder that it's in the other section. So the status right now is cons per opposition or permissible through April 14th and revenue sharing is permissible if it's an elevated status from registration to enter in a nutshell. I believe that's right, Kerry or others on the legal team will correct me, I'm sure if I'm wrong on that. So I guess I'm right, so I'll take it. Yeah, no, I think that's right. And so we did it by a waiver to Commissioner O'Brien's point, the waiver waives three and then the others, the other section. Okay, thank you. Very helpful. So I have a question process-wise, Madam Chair, Commissioner O'Brien just brought up the three options which I have listed as well. At what point do we have that discussion? Is that today or is that at a later date? I think Nina, are you opening up for discussion right now? I am, yes. So I think those are the three options before you is keep it in total, essentially end the waiver and apply the rule as originally written, extend or extend the waiver in whole or in part, either by removing this section altogether or by modifying it in some way. For instance, you could have a provision that allows cost per acquisition but not revenue sharing as a possible modification. But that's another, that those are the kinds of options you could look at. So there's also in terms of CPA though, there's different things in here. And when you look at the comments, some of them are CPA only to the point of KYC, then there's compensation. Then there's CPA, maybe not rev share but then the person has to actually do a wager and then there's sort of the CPA that comes into rev share, which is well now I'm gonna get more depending on how active and prolific this person is on your website. So it seems to me, unless it's being stricken in its entirety and all of those are an option in terms of compensation for third-party marketing, there does have to be a conversation about those, in terms of what are, if the answer is it's gonna be something in three but less than what's there now, what exactly are the options? Short of repealing it altogether. So one option that would mirror what is happening, what was sort of set up in the 234 vendor and registrant licensing part would be to change subsection three. And I apologize, you don't have this draft language in the packet, but just as a suggestion is that we came up with essentially the last day or two is no sports wagering operator may enter into an agreement with a third party to conduct advertising, marketing or branding on behalf of or to the benefit of the licensee in exchange for a percentage of net sports wagering revenue earned from users that the third party directs to the operator. So that one would limit revenue that goes to the operator from being shared. That is our attempt to keep it as close to what is currently in the 234 as previously discussed. Where is that language you just read? It is in my personal notes. I apologize, I can put it into a Word document or something just to share the screen if that's easier. Yeah, no, I like it, but it's my understanding that the revenue share or marketing affiliates who have the revenue share agreement with operators do not, their compensation is not increased depending on the amount that is wagered by a patron that they directed or sent or advertised on their websites. That's my understanding. I think the language is good as an added measure of protection here for patrons, but I do think that there is a distinction or misunderstanding rather of how the revenue share agreements work. At least I was under one impression and was able to be informed as to how it really works. So whether, and I'm not claiming to be an expert on this subject at this point, but it's my understanding that the revenue share marketing affiliate gets paid the same, whether patron wagers $10 or $100. That was not my understanding because that's a CPA. The CPA model is pure sign up. It doesn't matter how much you bet. The rev share is, I get a portion of what you bet. Well, the distinction is it's not a one-time payment. The revenue share is sort of an ongoing payment model. So I believe that each time the patron wagers, there's the tracking of that and there's compensation to match. But I think the rate of compensation is the same, whether the patron wagers $10 or $100. It's just if that patron wagers five times over the course. Yes, the revenue share affiliate is getting paid for each of those touches. I think they're both options. I don't think one is exclusive of the other. I think you can have either percentage of bet or number of bets. I didn't think one was off the table. That was my understanding of it. Well, the language that Mina suggests or proposes, I think would cover that scenario in prohibiting it. So the follow-up question I had Mina on the language was the last phrase that says that you can't have it based on clients that they brought in. Is that necessary language? It would seem superfluous to say, you can't have a percentage of the bets on anybody. Like what's the reason for the extra phrase? I think the idea for that extra phrase was reflecting that that may be one of the ways that folks get paid. But I think you could do it. That's certainly another option is to say percentage of net sports wager and revenue period as opposed to earn from users at the third party directs to the operator. So that's an option. Yeah, cause my worry is if Commissioner Skinner's concept is the accurate one, the language saying that you can't get them their percentage of their own, is there some way that they backdoor it? Well, it's some cumulative amount. And it's like, well, we're not just basing it on that, you're just getting percentage of X that we give to everybody as bonus money. Versus if the phrase isn't there, then they just cannot get a percentage of the amount. That's the gross amount. I wanna share the language. Sure, yeah, let me do that. And I just as a process question too, because it's unlikely we're going to vote today one thing we will do is based on feedback from today on these comments and whatever we can from the AG's comments, our goal would be to have a revised version that you could see on Monday as well. So, but I will share this here as well. We just make sure I'm doing that correctly. I have a request. Could we try to get clarifications more formal clarification as to how the revenue share agreements work in that specific regard? Because I don't want my fellow commissioners to take my word for it. I do want there to be something that we can be comf