Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Hill. Good morning, I'm here. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Good morning. And good morning, Commissioner Maynard. Good morning. All right. We have a full agenda today. And we're gonna start with a couple sets of minutes. Commissioner Hill. Yes, Madam Chair, I moved that the commission approved the minutes from the December 22nd, 2022 and January 3rd, 2023 public meetings that are included in the commissioner's packet subject to any necessary corrections for typographical errors or other non-material matters. Second. Any comments, edits that were extensive? All right, Mr. O'Brien. Hi. Mr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Skinner. Hi. Mr. Maynard. Hi. And I vote yes. All right. Administrative update, Karen, I know we have something from Burke. Do you have other updates for us? Yes, nothing in particular. So I'll turn it over to the Chief of the Gaming Agents Division, Burke Kane. They have a presentation for you this morning. Thanks, Karen. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, commissioners. Today I'm gonna give you an update on some of the happenings at the casino. And then we're gonna discuss with you some of the evolution of slot machines with regard to slot denomination, multi-denomination, lines of play, and credits per line. So let's start with PPC. Partial sports book was still under construction. PPC is working on presenting the new gaming area to the commission. I think the target date is still roughly September 1. PPC is currently posting for positions in the restaurant of the sports lounge. Live music continues every Friday and Saturday night, 8 p.m. to midnight. Next Saturday, July 8th, a Beatles tribute band, The Return, will be playing at the Revolution Lounge. This weekend's promotion is summer Saturdays, five to nine, 25 pen play loyalty members will randomly be selected every 15 minutes to win $50 in pen slot play. MGM. Early in June, MGM opened the 15th poker table within the poker lounge. And in July, they'll be running a very popular Christmas in July promotion. Between June 8th and June 11th, MGM hosted a variety of entertainment including comedians Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, psychic Mac Frazier, Free Music Friday, concerts and music sensation Bruno Mars was at the convention center. Not to mention that the city also hosted an Ironman competition, which all led to approximately 50,000 visitors through MGM in four days has been reported to me. Lastly, MGM will be hosting their annual Fourth of July viewing party on the eighth floor of the garage. The local nonprofit Spirit of Springfield organizes a fireworks spectacular from the Memorial Bridge. Encore, they will be continuing their numerous promotions for grand prizes, prize money, free slot play through July. Some upcoming events for them, Pine Street and kitchen prep. Volunteers are helping to prepare meals and Boston for those who are battling homelessness. Also, they have a greater Boston food bank volunteer program, volunteers sort and package food for distribution to hungry families across Eastern Massachusetts. Okay, the slot machine presentation unless there's any questions on the updates at the casinos. All set. Okay, before we go through the PowerPoint, this starts on page 24 of your package. I could give you a little backdrop on how slot machines have progressed. I think we all remember 20, 25 years ago when we played with actual coins, nickels, quarters. A player would drop a nickel into a slot machine and you could play up to five coins, you pull the candle and if you won cherries or bars, the coins would immediately drop right into your trade. But with the creation of slot machines, displaying credits and becoming more computerized, having no coins, but actually tickets and tickets out, the slot machines have progressed to multi-denominational, multi-line and multi-credits. So we can begin the PowerPoint. Would you like me to share?  Commissioner, do you wanna share or do you have it? Your choice, Mark. Okay, well... Well, it's always nice to share, Madam Chair. Okay, thanks, Commissioner Hill. Am I sharing the right screen? I think so. I don't quite see it yet, but it could be me. Commissioners, Commissioner Bryan, can you see it? Nope, not yet, or? It says that it's sharing, but I don't see it. It says it has started screen sharing. Sorry, I think that's what somebody else just said. I would stop sharing and then try again, Burke, there. They're seeing, it looks like it's trying to, but the connection's just not going. Is he frozen now? I think so. I was just gonna say that. I can unshare his screen and maybe that'll jar him back to normal. May I suggest we look at our packet and... If you spack, is he frozen still? Hey, Burke, can you hear us? I can hear you. I can't see my computer, literally. I just got the new computer yesterday and I'm using, he said, don't use it, use the old one.  If you want, you're frozen in a nice fashion, just so you know, if you wanna just go ahead and give your verbal presentation, maybe you'll unbreeze along the way. I also have, I have the packet here if you'd like me to try and share my screen, if that's helpful. Whatever works. Burke, do you want me to do that? No, please, you can't hear him. No, that's not helpful. Burke, are you able to present or are you offline altogether? I think. Looks like he's frozen. Really frozen now. Yeah, all right. He had told me he was nervous about this presentation. I didn't know I was how nervous. He shouldn't be, he does such a great job. Yeah, I was only kidding. Good. All right. I think he's popping back on. That's right. You can all curse me later. There we are. I literally did this with Andrew and Dave Diorio 10 minutes before. So this is a lot of fun for me right now. Well, no, you know what, Burke? Right when I turned on right at nine, told me to restart. So, oh, so technology and these meetings, don't worry about it. Don't worry at all. But do you think he should share? Do you think we should look at our own right now? Would someone else share? Do they have, well, they don't have the packet. Okay. That might be good. That might be a stressor on your system. I can share. Thanks, Grace. Excellent. Thank you. Well, I apologize again for that. No apologies. Let me know if you're seeing it. Yep. I think everyone recognizes this first slide. This is just an update of where we are in June of 23. You can see the slot machines across the top at the three properties, table games, poker games, stadium and kiosk. I mean, go to the next slide. Can you see the next slide? Yes. Yep. I think we see it yet. Yeah. I don't know if you're in present mode, Grace. I'm still seeing just the number of games slide from the internal deal. We have it now. There we go. And this second slide might look familiar also. It was the pre-COVID numbers reopening and then presently where we are today. We can go to the next slide. OK, here's a breakdown of the slot denominations roughly by Casino. This is ever-changing. The floors are always changing, upgrading the machines. The Encore first column is a little bit different from MGM and Springfield, MGM, Springfield and Plain Ridge Park. Looking at Encore, you can see that they break down their penny games. There's 1,099, and they break down multi-denominant national machines. 25 cents are under. They have 744. Then if you look at quarter games, 50 cent games, dollar games, each of the casinos are representing what they have. The difference in the MGM and Plain Ridge columns are that they default their multi-denominational games. You see the column multi-denominational 25 and under. They have zero. They default their numbers to penny games. The next slide might help us understand what that is. So if we look at Encore, you see 43% of their games are penny games, and 32% of them are multi-denominational 25 cents and under. So that's roughly 75%. So now if we look at the MGM and Plain Ridge columns, you'll see 78, 4, and 1 is roughly 82%. And Plain Ridge is 71 and 5, which is roughly 75%. So you can see that 75, 81, and 75 across the board percentage is what the casinos have as 25 or under slot machines, either predominantly penny games or a share of them as multi-denominational. And you can see the percentage then of 25 cent, 50 cent, 101 dollar games that are pure, that denomination only. OK, we can go to the next slide. So as I was mentioning a while back, you would walk up to a slot machine. It would be a 25 cent game. You could put in one to five coins, and you would play. Now with the advent of the new technology, several, these are could be hundreds of different themes now where you walk up. This is only an example. You can walk up, and the first thing you're going to see is what denomination do I want to play. You can choose one cent, five cent, up to $2.  So if I put in $20 and make it a one cent game, I can still play that game as a 25 cent game. In essence, I can play 25 cents per line for five lines. It's the same as back a long time ago, where I would drop in five quarters. I'm simply this time making 25 credits for the five lines, but it's only a penny game. We can go to the next slide. This is an example of how many lines now you can play on a slot machine. It used to be a slot machine had one center line, right? Drop a coin in, pull the handle, and it was that center pay line. As you can see here, the new technology has allowed slot machines to go to, on this example, 50 different lines that you can play on a slot machine. Number one is straight across the top. Number two, it drops down one unit in the center, and so forth, and so on. So once again, if I walked up to a penny game and put my money in there, I could play 50 lines for one penny, 50 cents, and I would have 50 lines in operation when I activated the machine. Next slide, please. This is just another example of how the lines would plays that could be on a slot machine. The first graph box on the left, that's the one to five. That's the old traditional center line. Second line was up above it. Third line was horizontal below it. Then it came down as a fourth line, and then it went up as the X for the fifth line. Now it's showing you lines six through nine, and so forth and so forth, on up to 22 through 27 lines on this particular type of slot machine. So we can go to the next one, I think. Now we have multi-denominational. We have multi-lines. So what else can you do? Now you can play multi-credits per line. So you can activate a penny machine. You can play 10 lines, and you could play 150 pennies per line, which would be $15. So you can see the best technology has allowed a simple 5-cent game, 25-cent game, to evolve to where a lot of them default to 1-cent because you can make a 1-cent machine into anything you want. You can make it a 25-cent game by choosing how many lines you want and how many credits per line. I think that might be the last slide. So we have a breakdown of, thank you, Grace, we have a breakdown of roughly what the floor is, and it's as it was. Traditionally, a long time ago, Bruce would remember on our casino floor, we would have 5 to 8 or 5 to 10% 5-cent games. And then we would have 40 to 60% as quarter games. Once again, that's getting real close to that 75% as I showed you before. But that's when we had actual coins. So the evolution of slots with multi-denominational, multi-line, and multi-credits per line gives the patron the opportunity to basically customize the slot machine any way they want. So if someone ever says to you, hey, there's not a lot of 25-cent games in the casino, I think the technology has changed to where there are some pure 25-cent games left, but a lot of them just give you the opportunity to make it a 25-cent game if you like. 30-cent game, 40-cent game, whatever you want to do per line. I hope that's hard to explain at times, but I hope that might clarify a little bit of how this has evolved. Is there any questions about that? Mr. Rahel, I think that you had asked for sort of an update on this. Any questions? No, that was very clear and helpful, Burke. Thank you. Thanks. Excellent. And great to have the update on the numbers too, Burke. Thank you so much. Oh, it's for that technical glitch. I'm sorry about that. That's nothing. All right. Also then, commissioners, thank you so much, Burke. And Karen, are you all set? Yes, I am. Thank you. OK, then we're turning on to item 4a on the agenda. Good morning, Dr. Lightbaum. Good morning. So our first item on the agenda today is recognition of the Jockey Guild as the representative of the Jockeys in Massachusetts. This is something they've been doing for years. In 2021, the commission reviewed the program in light of the fact that there had not been racing in 2020. This payment is retroactive, basically, for this, for right now, even though we're in 2023, we're approving money for 2022. So at that time, the commission reviewed the statute and decided that they could still recognize the Jockey Guild as a group, even without racing. We still do have money coming in from Suffolk Downs with the simulcasting and account wagering. And there is enough money to cover the $65,000. In 2021, Attorney Mindy Coleman for the Jockey Guild and I reviewed the qualifications and decided that there really wasn't a way to still pay out money for active Jockeys because there just aren't any active Jockeys that are in Massachusetts. Obviously, there still are retired Jockeys and there still are Jockeys with disabilities. So we came up with those qualifications in 2021. And then this is what we used again last year. And we haven't changed those. We've both looked at those qualifications and decided that they're still pertinent today. And I'm just asking that the commission once again approve the Jockey Guild as a group and let them distribute the money. Attorney Mindy Coleman is on, if you would like to hear from her. And in her memo, she says there's about 15 Jockeys that would be eligible. So they get each get a little bit over $4,000. And I forgot to mention the documents for this item start on page 32. Thanks. Questions for Dr. Leibandling? Good morning, Attorney Coleman. Thank you for hearing today. This is a process that we did look at a couple of years ago. And I also know, I believe, Todd and Dr. Leibandling that you're working on maybe creating some efficiencies going forward on these types of matters. Whether or not the commission always has to act on it.  Do you have any questions? So 15 Jockeys, right? Attorney Coleman, up to you. Yes, Madam Chairman, there are 15 Jockeys, 11 who are retired and four who are permanently disabled as a result of injuries sustained in Massachusetts. This number has decreased from last year. And that is because two individuals that had advised us they had retired have actually resumed riding a road more than 50 races last year. Oh, I misread the thank you for that clarification. I did misread that. I thought just the opposite had increased. Thanks. And so that guides up to about 4,000, no active Jockeys. OK, commissioners, if you have no questions, I do know that Dr. Leibandling, Attorney Coleman, would like to vote. Madam motion. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the Jockey Guild as the organization that represents the majority of Jockeys for the purposes of MGL Chapter 128A, Section 5H4. Second? Michelle Bryan, thank you. Any questions or edits? I know we keep those disabled Jockeys in mind. Chair O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Hill. Aye. Commissioner Skinner. Aye. Commissioner Maynard. Aye. And I vote yes, 5-0. Thank you so much, and it's nice to see you again. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. OK. Moving on to 4B. Dr. Leibandling. And so our next item is the escrowing of the Resource Development Fund monies that would go to Thoreau-Bred Purses. This is a request by the New England HBPA. It's the documents for this start on page 36. Just to be, I'm going to make a few points to start, and then I'm going to turn it over to Judith Young, our associate general counsel, who has done a great job and a lot of work on this item. As the commission's aware, the Resource Development Fund divides up money going to the two different breeds and then into different buckets of purse money, money towards the breeders, and then health and welfare. The course racing committee, which is a separate group from the commission, the commission does have a member on that committee, is the committee tasked with deciding how that money is divided. Originally, when this program first started, it was shifted towards the Thoreau-Breds. And so early on in the program, a lot of money accumulated into the Thoreau-Bred purse and money. Since that time, the committee has looked at the formula numerous times, and each time gradually shifted the percentages so that more of it goes to the standard breed. So the money right now isn't accumulating as fast as it once did. But there is about $22 million in that account that would have gone to Thoreau-Bred purses. Let's see what else. I think now I'll introduce who we do have here today. Judith Young, our associate general counsel. Derek Lennon, our chief financial and accounting officer, is also on and has helped us on this issue. And then Paul Ambrolo from the executive director of the HPPA is on the line, and Kevin McCarthy and Matthew Clark, who are board members of the HPPA. Is that I just am checking it's not me, correct? No, it's not. I'm wondering, maybe we should have held off on computer updates by 24 hours. Yeah, she just disappeared altogether. Oh, now she's back, but no picture. Don't come back. On that issue, Ms. Sherpa, I actually just, and Madam Chair, I actually just got a, my computer is not going to allow me to not update, so we may have to take a break soon and let me switch to another device. Yeah, I'm hoping mine doesn't do the same thing, Commissioner. Madam Chair, I'm getting a message from Alex to just have Judy go along and proceed. She can, I think she can hear, and so she knows what's going on. She indicated to me earlier it was a little audio issue. Can I interrupt one thing before we turn to Judy? Karen, is there any way you can check in with IT to see if they can stop the restarts? I think that they may be able to do that. I just don't remember. I had it happen during one meeting. I'll go check. Okay, thanks so much, Karen. All right, Judy, good morning. How we doing, everybody? Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, commissioners. So yes, Alex gave a pretty great overview of what we're here to discuss today. We received earlier this fall a request from the New England Horsemen's Benevolent Protective Association, NEHBPA, as I try to refer to them, for the process of S-growing funds. So I've got a PowerPoint here that I'm going to attempt to share. If we run into any sort of technical difficulties, I'll back out of it and one of the members of the legal division will share it and I'll just talk through it, but I've got high hopes, so let's see what happens. Someone just let me know if they're able to see and we can go ahead and get started. It looks good to me. All right, let's do it. So again, discussing the Resource Development Fund and S-growing of accounts, it's worthy of noting that the active S-growing accounts is not necessarily mentioned in statute or contemplated for that matter. It is something that is only discussed in our regulations. So we thought we would have a thorough discussion of how the process is done. I will walk you through the regulations. We'll discuss the request and we'll answer any questions. So as a brief roadmap, we'll give an overview of what the Resource Development Fund does and its distributions as Dr. Lightbound kind of already provided. We'll discuss the request from the NEHBPA. I'll give you a rundown of how S-growing of funds works. We'll discuss some considerations and things that we found in our research and discussions with the Treasurer's Office and the Comptroller's. CFAO Lennon is here as well if you have any more technical questions about that sort of thing. And then I'll turn it over to the representatives of the NEHBPA to answer any certain questions that you have about their requests to give remarks. And then we can kind of close with a more fulsome discussion and any sort of questions that you have from commissioners. But that said, please jump in at any time. If you do have questions, I'm screen sharing so I can't see you, but by all means just feel free to jump in and interrupt me if necessary. All right. So first getting started with the Racehorse Development Fund. As many of you know, the Racehorse Development Fund is discussed in 23K, section 60, as well as 205-CMR-149. That regulation is just titled the Racehorse Development Fund. The Racehorse Development Fund is primarily intended to support the racing industries. And it was created in the inception of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in the acts of 2011, chapter 194. It's predominantly funded by gross gaming revenue. So of the 25% of gross gaming revenue that is received or collected from CAT-1 gaming establishments, 2.5% of that is deposited into the Racehorse Development Fund. And then of the 49% of gross gaming revenue kind of collected, excuse me, from CAT-2 slot parlors, 18% of that is deposited into the Racehorse Development Funds. So the distributions, as Dr. Lightbrown talked about previously, were set by the legislature within 23K. 80% is allocated to go towards purses and interest-bearing accounts. 16% is set aside for the breeding efforts of horses in the Commonwealth. And then that final 4% is for the health and pension benefits of jockeys, trainers and drivers. So all in total, adding up to that 100%. With the end of live thoroughbred racing in 2019, revenue allocated towards thoroughbred purses has continued to grow while the distributions and spending on these purses has ceased. Gaming revenue continues to increase in the wake of the pandemic. And so as a result, the funds deposited in the Racehorse Development Fund continue to grow. So in the last year between July 2022 and May 2023, roughly $1.16 million of purse money has come in and remains within the Racehorse Development Fund. So to kind of combat this income of money and not necessarily doing anything with it, in 2021, the commission and the horse racing committee voted to shift and reallocate a greater portion of Racehorse Development Funds towards standard bred racing, also known as harness racing, and reallocated the disbursement of the Racehorse Development Fund accordingly. So 92% of that 80% distribution would now be allocated towards standard bred racing. 75% of the 16% allocation for horse breeding efforts would go towards standard bred racing. And finally, 50% of the 4% held in pension benefits would go towards standard bred racing. So that's not to say that the overall distributions within 149 and 23K changed. However, the allocation of that money was updated. So 92% going one way, 8% to thoroughbreds, 75% to standard breds, 25% to thoroughbreds, and finally a 50-50 split of the health and pension benefits. Any questions on that before we keep going commissioners? Julie, I have a question. Yes. Excuse me, the 92, 75 and 50% are an increase from what? That's an excellent question. I did have that number off the top of my head, but I am reluctant to kind of say it. I think it was a 65, 35, 25, but I could be incorrect. I can try to get that figure for you later on in the presentation, if you like. We can get those figures to you, commissioners Skinner. We keep track of all of the different splits and how they were broken up and the dates that they were broken up by the Racehorse Committee. And that's tracked on our website. We report that monthly. Okay, thank you so much, Chief Renner. Okay, any additional questions commissioners? Okay, let's keep going. So that brings us to why we're here today. We received a request from the New England horsemen, I'm sorry, New England horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, NEHBPA, a little easier on the tongue, an organization that's aimed at promoting and protecting the throwback racing industry and the interests of those involved. The NEHBPA submitted a request earlier this fall and again, more recently in June, asking the commission to utilize the procedures within 149 to safeguard those purse funds that were allocated to throwback racing and are currently not being utilized for purse funds, predominantly to establish an escrow account for future use. And within both letters, they highlighted the protective need to safeguard this money in case it was just commonwealth or the legislature attempted to reallocate it or redistribute it accordingly. So getting into this request or getting into the process of escrowing funds, as I said, it's a familiar concept. It's been discussed by the commission and previous iterations and in different years along with other requests for distributions from the fund that the commission has considered, but it's never necessarily been done or fully complimented, contemplated, excuse me. One additional thing of note is that 23K does not necessarily have any reference to escrowing funds. It's mentioned here in the regulation, but not necessarily anywhere else. So with that, I'm gonna walk you through the relevant portions of the reg, we'll get into it and we can have some different conversations and considerations about that. But starting first at the top, within 205CMR 149.01, I've pulled some of the relevant definitions for our discussion today. First starting with the fact of a discussion of a harness racing association and it kind of back sights to 205CMR section 3.02 and a horse racing association, which utilizes the definition of association defined in 205CMR section 4 or excuse me, chapter 4. All of those highlight that an association is any person or persons associations or corporations licensed by the commission to conduct harness or horse racing within the Commonwealth for any stake, purse or reward. Next we have what is called a horseman's organization and this is the organization that represents the horse owners and trainers meeting. So we do acknowledge that we've received this request not from an association as is defined in 205CMR 3.02 or 205CMR 4.02. However, we do want to go through how this process works and have a discussion and allow the NEHBPA to offer remarks and explain their request to you also. So next moving into 149.02, which describes the distributions from the race horse development fund and not yet an escrow account, but it kind of reiterates what we discussed in previous slides about distributions. So the commission has the authority to make distributions between horse, also known as Thoroughbred and harness racing associations from the race horse development fund based on recommendations of the horse racing committee. So again, those allocations that we discussed is that harness racing receiving 92, 75, and 50% of those distributions with Thoroughbreds receiving 8, 25, and 50% respectively. Subsection two points out that associations will distribute the funds in accordance with compliance of 23K section 60 and the later portion of the reg 205CMR 149.04. So again, that is those distributions of 80, 16, and 4%. So this specific section of the regulation kind of sets out the duties that an association would have and also what the commission would have. And lastly, this regulation points out that to be eligible for funds, associations have to comply with the relevant safety standards adopted by the commission. Okay, there's a lot of text on this screen but bear with me, we can also jump out and look at the regulation but moving next into how funds are first considered by the commission and placed into escrow, there does need to be some kind of triggering event in which case the association in 149.03 subsection one provides the commission with notice of intent to do one of the following things, either discontinuing races for the remainder of their meeting, either permanently discontinuing races altogether and outright. They intend to close the track that they utilize for racing, fully relinquishing their license, giving notice to the commission that they don't intend to apply for a renewal of a license in the following year or lastly, transferring and less commonly, transferring a race track to another entity. So these things are kind of triggering events that would ultimately allow the commission upon notice or when they learn of the event that's described in 149.03. I'm looking at that little brown square. The commission can do may do one or more of the following things. So first 149.03 to a lays out a great myriad of things that a commission can do once it conducts or decides to hold a hearing to determine. So at first can decide whether the money from the racehorse development fund that was going to be received by an association to be placed in an escrow account. Next, it can decide whether or not it wants to transfer the money from the fund to a different association. That's not necessarily applicable to what we're discussing here as there is no other thoroughbred association currently in existence that could receive that money. So number two, isn't necessarily or directly relevant to our discussion today. Next item three, the commission can decide whether or not to transfer an association's license to another association. Again, not necessarily relevant to our discussion today as there isn't another association ready to receive a license or over the licensure of awarding a license to a racing meeting recipient is something that the commission contemplates elsewhere and goes through another process to do. So that brings us to item four in which case the commission can decide to take any sort of other action within its authority to protect either the interests of the Commonwealth, harness racing and horsemen or lastly the intended beneficiaries of the racehorse development fund. So I'd say items number four, given its broad discretion also paired with the broad discretion and authority of the commission and items number one in that list are likely going to inform our discussion today in which case the commission can decide whether money should be placed into an escrow account for future use or to kind of take other action within its authority to discuss. One thing before moving off of the slide, I would say that the commission has great discretion in this case. It does not have to do anything. I would point out the May underlined within 149.03 and on my slide. But the commission can also in 149.03 to be decide to simply allow this racing association that's given notice of intent to discontinue the opportunity to kind of conduct a winding up in which case this association would pay any sort of required fees, excuse me, breaks, taxes, outstanding funds owed to the commission back and then just kind of cease to exist or cease to kind of continue practicing. Any questions commissioners on 149.03 as it exists and we move into 149.04? I'm happy to stop sharing and pull up the regulation if you want to get like a deeper look. I'll set two weeks ago. Okay, thank you. Fantastic, okay. So moving next into 149.04, this portion of the regulation, and I guess again I should probably say the regulations are included in your packet starting on page 39. So this portion of the regulation contemplates once a commission has decided within one of the incidents we're triggering considerations of 149.03 to A that monies should be placed into an escrow account. So I'd like to kind of carve out the fact that you can't just kind of jump into 149.04 without first contemplating those things that are discussed in 149.03 to A. However, there is kind of some discussion for how this regulation was promulgated and written and I'm happy to kind of get into that a bit more. But walking you through these paragraphs and subsections, the first one of course deciding that if the commission decides that monies should be placed into an escrow account, the commission will establish an escrow account to hold the funds and any such interest and distribution in accordance with 23K section 60. And of course, the recommendations of the Force Racing Committee and this regulation. Next, moving down, subsection two discusses that the commission can establish or excuse me, shall establish separate race horse development fund escrow accounts for the association that is determined it's necessary. In which case there's no commingling of funds for funds determined to be allocated to a standard bread racing association, excuse me, and in a thorough bread racing association they're kept separate. Subsection three is kind of one of the most important portions of this regulation I'd say in of this section. It details the requirements for how long funds can be placed in escrow and what can be certainly done with them. So it's important to note that funds placed in escrow cannot necessarily remain there forever and grow interest. Funds can only remain in escrow for three years from the date of the determination. And after those three years, the funds must be redistributed by the commission and in accordance with the horse racing commission. Excuse me, yeah, horse racing committee. Next we jump into distributions. This is a large portion of the regulation that I tried to easily paraphrase here for discussion. But this kind of just echoes the same distribution models for the race horse development fund that we previously discussed on earlier slides. One thing of note I would say is that 149.04B does again allow the commission discretion to distribute less than the entire amount of funds within the race horse development fund or an escrow account. And it also allows the commission to make payment of those funds to future years or to future associations. Any questions about this sort of slide before we move on, commissioners? Hi, Judy. It's Eileen. Hey, how are you? I'm great. When it comes to bullet one, when you talk about any monies in the escrow account and any interest would remain in there, do you know or maybe Derek answers this question because I have a big memory about basically interest not necessarily staying in the escrow account, regardless of whether we escrow or not. I don't know if you understand my question. Basically it's creating an escrow account in any way changing how the interest in yours over the course of the account. I think I understand your question, but let me, oh Derek, do you want to go ahead before I jump in? Yeah, so the basic answer to that is yes because the statute requires that the licensees hold these purse monies into an interest bearing account. The race horse development fund when it was created in statute does not allow us to keep any of the interest. So having it sitting in the race horse development fund does not accrue any interest, which is one of the issues that came up beforehand when this request came to us, I think it was in 2013 or 14. And we did check with the Comptrolls back then to see if we could turn this into an interest to bearing account so that we wouldn't have to escrow money and they said no, statutorily you'd need to change for it to allow it to start increasing because it's not directing the commission to accrue interest, it's directing the purse holder account to have it in an account that bears interest. Does that make sense? It sort of, but you're going to have to help me in terms of the real impact in terms of the... So the real impact... So that currently stands the interest in yours to ultimately? To the Commonwealth. So the Commonwealth holds all that money with all of our trust funds. They keep all the interest on it. And if we put it into an interest of escrow account based on what the statute's asking for, then that escrow account would bear the interest. And would stay in that escrow account as opposed to ignoring to the general fund? Correct. Okay, thank you. Can I interject and elaborate on that if I may, or is it too soon? Chairman Sternbiller. Just real quick and that's one of the right requests is that, for example, if we did escrow that 22 million as designed in an interest bearing account, let's say at 4%, we're talking about $800,000 in interest that would stay in that fund to be used for purses. That could fund a couple of days of racing for the horsemen. That's why it's important that that helps. Thank you. Thank you. Questions, a follow-up question? Commissioner O'Brien? No, no, that answered it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'll keep moving if anybody... Oh, Commissioner Scanner. I can see that you've come off mute. Thank you. So Commissioner O'Brien asked a really good substantive question. And because I want to be able to follow along, I just need some help on the threshold question of, I guess, whether any HBPA meets the definition of an association that is eligible to make a request for escrow. Did I hear that correctly? That that's still a question and that we expect the organization to speak to that later in the presentation? From my understanding, yes. But just going back to the definitions a bit, those are set within the regulations in two places. And so to qualify as a horse racing association, excuse me, or a harness racing association, you have been licensed to conduct a horse racing meeting by the commission. So I would state, and then again, this is just my own opinion, that it's much more likely that the any HBPA would fall into the definition of a horseman's organization. However, I will note in reading and rereading and preparing for this presentation of this regulation, it's not as if one entity can make the request. It's more so that a certain circumstance has occurred and it's the association that's provided notice, or it's the commission that has learned that an association has ultimately done one of those, I think five things within 149.032A, or XPS2A, that they intend to discontinue racing in some capacity that kind of triggers this consideration for the commission. So it's ultimately the commission doing the determination. However, I think when this regulation was promulgated, and again, I would note that none of us currently in the legal department were here when this regulation was authored. So we do not have to benefit the historical understanding of those sort of discussions. But just from my understanding of the regulation, it's not necessarily who has standing to make the request, but more so the question of how the commission has received notice to make these sort of determinations. Commissioner. Okay, I think I'm beginning to understand it a little better. And so looking forward to NHBPA's response in due time. All right. So with that, we will keep going. We're still within 149.04 commissioners. I think we just wrapped up discussion of the requirements within 149.04 subsection three, in which case, after those three years, any monies remaining in the escrow account need to be transferred or distributed by the commission in accordance with the recommendations of the court's precinct committee. Next, moving back into subsection four, which discusses distribution. And again, it echoes the same models of the resource development fund, but as previously discussed, it does allow the commission in its sole discretion that if ultimately it decides that such distribution is beneficial or if a lesser amount from the escrow account requested is fine to make, it does allow the commission to certainly make that decision to give less. Any questions on that commissioners before we continue? And to the next slide. Oh, I'm sorry. I think I've gone one slide too far. I'm not sure why they're out of order, but bear with me. So next we have paragraphs five through seven in 145.04, the detailed distributions from escrow racing accounts. I feel like right now, and currently, given the request from the NEHBA, these five, six, and seven are somewhat relevant to our discussion. So I'll walk through them a bit slower. So with paragraphs five and six, essentially setting out the different treatments for standard bread and harness racing associations, but I've kind of amalgamated them into one bullet point on the slide, but ultimately kind of contemplating what could happen in the future. So if the commission awards a license to a harness racing association after placing funds in the escrow account pursuant to what we discussed in 149.03, subsection two, A1. Ultimately, the commission could take those escrow funds and transfer them to the newly awarded harness racing association or a thoroughbred racing association. So not to speak on behalf of the NEHBPA, but I do think they intend to kind of make that point later on in their remarks. And then lastly, within subsection seven or paragraph seven, the commission upon the recommendation of the horse racing committee may transfer all or a portion of the funds held in the race horse development escrow fund to any one or more harness racing associations or horse racing associations for distribution. So ultimately, again, going back to that requirement in number three or subsection three, it allows the commission, again, that discretion to move money placed in the escrow account to another association. So with that, I will kind of pause my portion for now of the presentation and allow representatives from the NEHBPA to offer some remarks. And then I'll kind of pick it back up and we can discuss some of the additional considerations that myself, CFAO Lennon and Director Lightbaum had kind of figured out and learned as we researched this process. So I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing and turn it over to the NEHBPA. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners. My name is Paul Ambralo. I think most of you know me, those that don't. I'm the executive director for the, and I will say the NEHBPA. We are the oldest horsemen's affiliate in the country with over 30,000 members nationally. And on the call today also with me is, as you mentioned, Matthew Clark and Kevin McCarthy both serve on the board. I think you have to take, you know, taking the time out today to listen to us and take our notes that we have sent to you. I think it's important after seeing some of that slide presentation, first and foremost, to understand that that split that was established. Myself, I did serve on the HRC with Mr. Goldberg who represented the standard birds at the time. And we did fail with the lack of spacing and someone going mute if they're not on mute, sorry. We did in fact work. It's all a blur close with COVID. Worked on trying to negotiate in fairness because we weren't racing on those individual splits you saw presented earlier. So we felt in trying to run numbers that the standard birds deserve rightfully so the 92% while we retained the 8%. The health and welfare we felt was equally and should always be equally at 50-50. And the thoroughbred industry, which we are still working on incentives, which I also serve on that board to revitalize the breeding industry without racing is at the 75-25. But the main crutch to all this and why we're asking for this is that receiving today the 8% of the fund that comes in roughly is about $100,000 a month. That would not be enough that if there was no funding available for us. So if there was that money grab 100,000 a month would not allow any investor of the horsemen to be able even to race a abbreviated weak enemy to offer purses for the horsemen to come in and race. So with that said, and you did go over it, thank you very much a lot of that language. I feel the language has been when it was initially written. It's in for interpretation. We always use the word broad authority. I think its intent was to include language to support or didn't include language to support our current state of racing. I feel I hope we have the commission has the authority to do what's right for the best for the horsemen in the industry and the horse itself. So as you showed earlier, and this is I guess the gray area I always look at under 205CMR3, harness racing or horse racing association shall provide the commission the 30 days notice. And the two factors are right. Horse races for the remaining harness racing meet discontinue, or we permanently discontinue harness racing altogether, right? Well, we know that's happened. And then upon receipt, as you mentioned again, it's interpretation of the intent or upon learning that harness racing association or horse racing association failed to timely notify the commission of that at any event, any event described in A through F, which again, there is no racing. The commission may take one or more of the following actions. So while, you know, and we do support obviously Suffolk Downs is racing today. You know, I mean, sorry, simulcasting today with no racing and we support that. Our challenges and question is just that while Suffolk Downs continues to simulcast without racing and as far as who is or has the authorization between, you know, the horsemen or the licensee, we know for a fact that there is no racing whatsoever and failure commission can by that act upon an escrow to funding. And more importantly, we need to secure that funding. Obviously for that, those purses to be available. So that not if, but when we do race, I believe executive director Wells has been made aware that there is another potential investor on the horizon. We hope to hear some information shortly. And we also need to protect those those fundings for an investor because that's the way the law was written in the attempt of it was with the gaming money coming in. We were instrumental of horsemen in that 2011 gaming act to protect the industry so that we receive proceeds from that, obviously to fund the purses for the races that licensee very difficult to run a racetrack could not afford. So it's why we're trying to make, I guess, our case, our argument of how important it is to secure it. And at the same time, when I always would read under 23 case section 60, and we talked about interest, you know, the first paragraph says 80% of the funds approved by the commission shall be deposited weekly into a separate separate interest bearing account to be established for the benefit of the horsemen. So we've challenged this for for many, many years. And of course, when racing ended in 19 and COVID hit, we kind of took a backseat. We have sent many letters and requests to the commission, but felt now is the time for us to come back, revisit it, hopefully with a racetrack on the horizon, and, you know, the commission will take into consideration and possibly pursue, you know, doing what's right and escalating that funding, funding, which again, if it wasn't an interest bearing account over the last five or six, seven years, they'd probably, I estimate, five or $6 million to the question earlier asked, that would also be compounded, you know, and co-mingled into that purse fund. So, you know, I mean, I think that makes the case of why we're looking for for the commission to consider it, by rescuing it. For us, we feel you protect the future of the farms, the breeders, a racetrack investor that our industry supports, as we know, hundreds to thousands of jobs. So I won't keep it. I know you have a lot to go. I'll pass it off to Matthew Clark then Kevin, but in closing, I hope the commission will take into consideration us approving to escrow it. If this is too important, I'm more than happy if I think it feels it needs further discussion to come in face-to-face and meet with the commissioners and staff to talk about this further. Thank you for your time. Matt, do you want to just? Good morning. There you go. Yes, good morning, Madam Chairman, Commissioners. Thank you so much time for giving us the time to discuss this important matter today. I think in many ways we've been described as being hopelessly optimistic. However, I would say that we are hopefully optimistic. One of the problems that we've had in the last few years is not a shortage of investors and not a shortage of locations in which to build a new racetrack in Massachusetts. The problem has been that we've been rebuffed in, I think, now nine different towns and cities throughout the Commonwealth who love the idea of a racetrack but not in their backyard. So it's not that we have a lack of interest. It's not that the industry doesn't regard the Commonwealth as a very lucrative and important source of gaming revenue for the industry. It's simply a fact that we've had very great difficulty in establishing those locations. Now, I would say that as Paul very succinctly explained, without having that all of money in the purse account, it makes it severely less attractive to an investor to go forward. And we are going to keep going until hopefully we find a location that will embrace the idea of having a racetrack in their community and the benefits it would bring in terms of jobs and agricultural support. But it's very, very important that we have that money safely looked after by the Gaming Commission. I did note Council's point that we needed a triggering event and I think that triggering event really came in 2019 because although we didn't have an extended thoroughbred racing meet after 2014, we did draw down on that purse account in 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 when we ran some abbreviated meets at Suffolk Downs pending their breaking of ground for the new projects there. I think when that happened that could be well defined as the triggering event but I hope the commission will look upon this favorably and just give some security to any potential investors that are going to be relying on that funding if and when we find a location for a new track. So that's it for me. Thank you very much for your time. If you have any questions I'll be very pleased to answer them. Commissioner's questions then I think we have Mr. McCartney correct you. Good morning. Good morning Madam Chairman, fellow commissioners Dr. Lightbound and Ms. Young and other participants in the call. I just wanted to key on the intended beneficiary of the Resource Development Fund. We're not trying to change that. We just know that we've dealt with multiple investors that were considered building a racetrack which is a sizable investment but without having that money escrow in a purse account to attract, multiply and solidify an investor it's going to be real difficult. I think almost impossible to get anybody to come build a racetrack if that money isn't in a protected account. We don't want to change how it's distributed. We don't want to change how it's the intended beneficiary but we want to use it to help the Commonwealth attract an investor. I could go into detail about the benefits to the Commonwealth of having a racetrack. First thing that comes to mind is Maryland. Maryland is very similar in Massachusetts and socioeconomics but they have a 2.4 billion dollar horse industry and when we were racing in Boston I built my life about becoming a horse trainer and then I had some small success and then when the track closed I was unable to relocate because one of my sons was battling cancer so he's fine now thank God but I didn't want to leave the hospitals we have here in Boston so here I am a kid that grew up in the housing projects in Boston became a horse trainer and then couldn't leave the state and follow my in a sense dream but the main thing horse racing is about hard work, persistence and patience and a lot of us experience that because it's it's somewhat it's required in the sport but I really want to key in that the intended beneficiary of the resource development fund is not being utilized right now by not as growing in my opinion and from people I've talked to it is in a sense scaring away future investors and we've talked to a few of them I personally have talked to some investors that are a wishy-washy about building a facility when the money that would satisfy purses is not certain to be there so not only the other thing I want to talk about just briefly is the fan base in Massachusetts for horse racing Saratoga for example they've gone seven years except for 2020 during the COVID they've went seven years with over a million in attendance paid attendance that averages about 29 26 to 27,000 people a day and if any have been there one of the things you're to experience a lot of Massachusetts plates so there's a fan base we just got to solidify an investor but it'd be difficult to do that and utilize it for the intended beneficiary without that money being escrow I thank you very much for your time specifically Ms. Young you're very informative yes Ken can I before we go into questions there was two things I meant to bring up as well I forgot is that okay sure thank you yeah so just real quick I think with the the 22 million in that rest racehorse development fund I think we have been fortunate enough because the state does have a surplus that there has been no money grab we've seen amendments to bills with individuals trying to go after it and I think with obviously having a team of lobbyists on staff for us to try to protect it that's always why we've been concerned but not as concerned but it's one of our concerns that that money is kind of the dangling carrot as we call it that could be scooped up you know taken away it isn't there obviously for the future use of a thoroughbred race track investor and then the other important piece was just that it goes back to and it's something again we've talked about even 128 A and C being antiquated and I've been trying to work even with the commission I know it one year we had 128 D I've been trying to work with Rep Chan who is one of the more subject matter experts on on that antiquated amended language notwithstanding as they put it in so many legal terms that I read it and read it and read it and still don't understand it it goes back to that gray area about the horse racing association that comes up so I think we might have to in the future consider again like is Suffolk Downs a racing licensee or their simulcast licensee and that's something I think not today but again we should have continued discussions but it kind of relates to this topic is Suffolk Downs can continue as a simulcast licensee but the criteria that was established which I believe again was to protect the horsemen says if there's no racing or you're notified or not properly notified that's why that money should be escrow and I think we have that gray area of that interpretation and maybe who's who and who represents what and why I think there should be or hopefully there could be some middle ground we could all agree on a work together that says Suffolk Downs can continue like the Rainham folks to simulcast and taking the signals but if we're going to have an investor come in and spend millions of dollars to build a racetrack then I think then that's why we're requesting that that money be escrow thank you for that sorry Judy thank you so just an addition or a couple more points of consideration for the commission before we kind of open up into a broader discussion for Q&A if commissioners have any questions is that after we receive this request from the NEHBPA both in the fall and again more recently in June myself CFA London and Dr. Lightbound began to kind of review these regulations and then also kind of think of the bigger picture in terms of how the commission as an independent agency would take this on would kind of review escrowing funds so we were able to kind of conduct some informal meetings with members and counsel from the treasurer's office from the comptroller's office as CFA London previously stated and also kind of reviewed some of our relevant statutes so it does appear that the commission would not necessarily be able to undergo the escrowing of funds independently not to say that the regulation is incorrect more so that it does appear with certain statutes in mind that the treasurer in effect shall manage all cash funds as to investments or funds under the control of a state agency so for example if the commission was to go ahead and place funds into escrow I think it would ultimately be within the purview and the advice of consent of the treasurer's office to allow us to do that so it doesn't necessarily appear that this is something that the commission would be able to instantaneously do without further discussion and I think some some more internal work to be done Derek do you want to add anything on to that or have I submitted that okay you've summed it up perfectly and we just received a memo on the 27th from the state treasurer's office regarding setting up an establishing of accounts and if they're not our typical banking types of situations so a sweep account a lock box or a depository then there could actually be costs associated with maintaining those counts and we would we would definitely need to work with the treasurer's office and if you'd like I can share that memo on the screen now but it is it's you know let me share right now and as you can see this came from the treasurer's office first deputy treasurer on June 27th and what Judy was talking to is right here we are a commission that falls under chapter 29 section 57 of 23k sets us up as a state finance as a state agency for state finance law purposes this goes right into how they shall manage all of the accounts and they have to combat the treasurer's office shall set them all up and agencies need to work with going further down agencies need to work with the treasurer's office to establish any account even a basic depository and going further down anything that outside of their basic things would actually cost us so we'd have to do an ISA with the treasury to reimburse them for these for these accounts so everything that we talked about earlier was just confirmed in a memo that the treasurer's office has not historically sent out so this is something this came as part of their year-end procedures because we work as the Commonwealth works on a modified cash basis of accounting so they tell us when we have to have everything into the bank to push it back and credit it to years and this is actually a new memo that came out this year as well as they even sent the forms that we have to send up to ask for a new bank account so it's not even before like we used to call up the CFO of the treasurer's office and I hey we're looking at banking we'd like to go with this bank because it's on your list of approved banks and it's close to this location now we actually have to send up a form send that through all their processes so the it's not an easy thing that I think that we can just decide to do we can make a policy discussion and so we'd like to do this then we have to go to our partners and say here's the rationale and I think there's good rationale for it if the commission decided to do to do that it's just we can't make any promises that it absolutely will happen so I'll stop sharing now Derek can I ask you in part of those conversations would they give you a sense of cost like a percentage or a flat like is there some sense of what they mean by cost to the agency under an ISA? So with any bank account there's a certain amount to maintain it especially if you're not writing checks out of it right they love to see direct deposits and then checks coming out of it because that's where they get their volume whichever bank the treasury would decide to do this with would be the cost and this is almost like investing so they would take a look at what's the best institute that they have to do this they would want to take a look at the terms of who's the who can sign off on any withdrawals from this so we'd have to come up with all those things that are typical with an escrow account send it over to them and then they would put it out to bid for all of their approved banks and see what the best one is with the best rates and then we'd pay that so no they didn't give us an idea of what it would cost and is there a treasury cost on top of that in terms of administrative costs on their end or is it purely the banking costs purely the banking costs purely banking costs okay thanks thank you Derek commissioners other questions Judy I'm sorry were you going to continue oh no I was just thanking Derek for showing or for screen sharing that memo I'm I'm all set this concludes my presentation commissioners if you have any additional questions for myself Dr. Lightbound or CFA Lenin we are here now I do recognize I've been prattling on for a little while can I can I just interrupt an interject sorry one more time sorry and I do have a question too okay go ahead Mr. Unbrella well doesn't this really go back and this was probably before my time and I don't have the details but again if we want to follow 23k it clearly states that 80% of the funds should be deposited directly into an interest bearing account so I don't know why or how that never happened whether it was the festival racing itself or the management between the money going into Suffolk Downs account and not in the defined horseman's account I think that's really one of the main questions and I'm hoping that if if the commission has grown 22 million dollars there'd be no fees associated with that kind of money going into an escrow account but that's that's for another subject so I'm Derek I'm a little bit confused because I thought I heard Judy say that 23k does not give us any direction it's all through the reg did I just understand that so that's correct Madam Chair so 23k does and section it's section 60c of 23k lays out those distributions that I spoke about previously the 80 the 16 and the 4% from the resource development fund but then escrowing itself and the process of power funds are moved from the RHDF into an escrow account is not contemplated in statute and so that's just purely in the regulation and so what 149.044a one through I think four does is it lays out the distribution of of funds from an escrow racing account but it also kind of mirrors that those distributions from excuse me from the resource development fund itself so it's almost this dual discussion and dual treatment of funds but I think what you're getting at and it's something I noticed as well is that this regulation kind of in so doing mentioning these two different accounts in the same sentence has created or mentioned something that isn't necessarily contemplated so these these interest-bearing accounts that Derek was discussing previously so we definitely do have a little bit more research to do on this issue but I'm happy to follow up with commissioners as we keep going I see Dr. Leipman also has our hand raised so 23k and the resource development fund does talk about it going into an interest-bearing account and that's basically the purse account at the racetrack so for instance at Lane Ridge we automatically Derek's team comes up with the amounts after we get the gross gaming revenue and they calculate what goes to the different pots and so for the five different areas of the health and welfare benefits the purse money and the breeders and then you do it for the two breeds so there's actually six pots five of those pots are going out every week basically from the commission to the people who receive those and the purse money that goes to Plain Ridge for the standard breads goes into their purse accounts an interest-bearing account and when Steve O'Toole does his tie out with Chad Bork and I on the purse review he'll see that money interest in there as part of the purse money with Suffolk Downs where they were not running a full meet and so they were not going to be able to use all of the purse money that they would have received from the resource development fund several times that came in front of the commission typically in a request from Chip Tuttle and Suffolk Downs and in conjunction with the HBPA they requested and they felt that the commission should put all of the money into the purse account and the commission had several different meetings over several different years and declined to and instead what we would do was when they're they had their festival weekend Mr. Tuttle would let me know approximately how much money in purses they were planning on giving out and we would get that money to them so they could give their purses out but we would not give them the entire amount of the money that was in the fund and that money right now is not that is not very interest correct is not it's it is not and it's not sitting with the association would be Suffolk Downs if they were running a full meet and it is not sitting with Suffolk Downs and it never it didn't sit with them the money that sat with them was just the money they were going to be using for those festival days and I heard and I'm sorry it might have been the gentleman Matt I didn't catch his last name I apologize I'll need that from notes perhaps he said it that his view is that it's in order for it to be safely booked it needs to be an escrow what is the risk I understand that there's not bearing interest what is the risk of other than you know that it not be a non-interest bearing account what risk is there why would he use the word safe I'm not sure if Derek may be able to answer that better than I I'm not sure if it being an escrow really protects it anymore or not if the and Derek may be able to speak to if the legislature decided that they did want that money to go somewhere else would they be able to legislate that any money in escrow from the racehorse development fund going to some other area that's exactly my question is it in order to avoid a legislative sweep Derek so that that's obviously part of the concern I think you heard the the enforcement association representatives say that that's part and we have seen many amendments annually we have to submit to both a and f and ways and means the balances and all of our trust funds as well as whether they're still active or not and this is one of the accounts where we constantly say these monies are active they are for the benefit of these individuals per the statute it would take a statutory change opening up 23k basically the scoop any of this money so we have successfully advocated on behalf of the horsemen's associations year after year whenever the amendments come up and whenever this exercise comes up you know the community mitigation fund is another one that we're constantly defending the greyhound stabilization fund is another one that we're constantly defending where there are balances sitting there that the that the people who deposit it or who it should have gone to were saying you know you you have to kind of pay attention to this before you even contemplate taking it so it's not a unique situation that this trust fund is facing but that into anti a question yes we we could be required because as that as that memo from the treasurer's office says they have to account for all money whether it's invested whether it's in a escrow account and that may be something that would be required to put on the escrow terms we'd have to walk through that with the treasure if the legislature wanted to scoop this is this something that we would have to put as a payment option because usually with escrow accounts it takes numerous people to sign off and where it could go to so you know that the only thing it's doing is requiring the statutory it would require the statutory change which we say you need any time you're thinking about scooping this account anyways so and then and then I'll turn to Mr. McCarthy unless my fellow commissioners have a question so then the is that the only risk is the scooping legislative scooping that you can think of Derek I just wanted to make sure that those funds are safe and secure that is the only risk I can think of we are tracking it on a monthly basis on our website to show the balance that's growing to show the deposits that are growing to show the payments to each group to show that what should have been paid out to the standard and the thoroughbred purse account actually doesn't get paid out so we show here's what should have been paid out here's what wasn't here's what wasn't here's the difference and there's always a zero in that column since I think 2019 of what should have been paid out to the thoroughbred purses and then one last question I just took coffee I heard and I forget if it was Mr maybe it was Mr umbrella forgive me if I'm attributing it to the wrong person but that's okay had had interest been assigned it would have been a certain amount would have accumulated did I also hear that it can only be an escort for three years and then what happens so that's per regulation and Judy can talk deeper to this because you know that very well but it basically says you have to then take it back out and distribute it based on how the racing horse committee has determined those percentages should be distributed so if we still don't have a race see or a licensee it would just go back into well under our current process it would just go back into the race horse development fund we keep tracking the balance there unless the commission determined that it should go to one of the horseman's associations which I would not get into the determination or the legal analysis that has gone into that in the past because it's well above my thought process or could it go back to another escrow but then we'd have to go through the permissions for the treasurer again that's a three year all right commissioners do you have any questions before we turn to Mr. McCarthy can I bring up one other question sorry Mr. McCarthy had his hand up first Mr. come on go ahead I'll let him go this time thank you go ahead thank you ma'am chair the only thing I just want to reiterate one more time is you know the investors are aware that that five out of the six designations for the money are going where they're supposed to and we're not trying to change the intended beneficiary only use it for price accounts you know that that the money has directed and we're not trying to change the distribution what we're trying to do is strengthen the chances of us getting either multiple investors or solidify an investor to build a race track we're not I just think it's it's it's pretty for a lack of legal term it's pretty wishy-washy what's happening with the money and so that that's all I I wanted to add thank you for acknowledging I think we think wishy-washy is pretty accurate terminology all right Mr. Umbrella yeah sorry I guess the and it's really the million dollar question is and it was an assumption is that while that money is sitting in that racehorse development fund and as we call it can be a money grab our assumption is is that if that's escrowed that money and I'm assuming is and would be under the oversight of the commission and in a I guess is it still a stated account or commissions account however that's defined would be protected I mean that's really the difference and why we're pushing for that right that it it can't be or as we keep saying that money grab the day dangling carrot those amendments come in that people always continue to go after it and I can share it was in Pennsylvania I believe they did something similar where the money was airmarked the state did come in to that fund take some funding that was needed because they didn't have a surplus like the state of Massachusetts however the caveat was is that the state would pay back that account over time so that the money still was guaranteed to the horsemen so I think it's important understand that as well because technically if that 22 million sit in there and let's say 10 million is taken we don't ever get that 10 million dollars back for future races and future purses and the other thing to remember you know by escrowing it that if nothing does transpire in the next three years you also are protecting I'm sure they're going to love that I'm saying this as the language says is that money could be transferred over to the standard breads and have their industry continue so technically we're helping the standard breads as well with this so it's you know it's why we're kind of seeing it as it being important to kind of just protect it obviously and again it's for the future purses of the future of racing thank you all again I'll stop talking thank you commissioners I know that Judy has indicated that there's still some internal work to do on this matter so where are we we have today is a chance to get a lot of questions answered I'm wondering if there are any other stakeholders that we haven't heard from that we need that you would like to hear from Judy or maybe you're reaching out to everybody anyway thank you for reaching out to the treasurer's office the comptroller's office all really helpful thank you Petter yeah I I give a lot of credit to CFA Lennon and director life out on this one this was a team effort you know kind of reviewing the regs was my my first indication but then realizing you know with the advice and experience of Derek that we probably need to think big picture on this one so I would say yes personally I think it's a bit too early for consideration by the commission I do think that we have given the issuance of that memo that Derek shared for you all a little bit more research to do on our end in consideration but I'm happy to return later with some follow-ups and some updates for the commissioners as well Judy and Derek can I ask a question also in terms of this money's right now that we're holding they're not occurring interest is that correct yeah so the other thing I would be curious they're accruing interest just not to our benefit so they are okay that was my question is it thing if they're not at a minimum it seems to me they should be accruing interest so that answers that question okay I had a concern that we were having these sit and not a newer any interest to the benefit that the taxpayers are counting well but it sounds like that's happening it's just the current structure has those go back to the general fund that's correct great thank you I guess I have one follow-up question if and maybe this one you can't answer this might be for benefit of further research if we were to move it into an escrow as requested by the association to the legislature override that so the legislature could always come in and scoop it even an escrow yeah because that's still the funds of Commonwealth right so it's the same as it's the same as an investment who would have to let them know here are the problems with it I mean they'd probably see be some sort of fine for breaking the terms of the escrow account so there may be a penalty to some of it but they they absolutely could come in and scoop it all they'd have to do is change the statute and say now this the balance is coming here it's no longer for the benefit of purses but if I made that would require statute change correct yeah because I know that's what I thought yeah okay not just they can scoop it correct okay because we don't we have wait we have the House and Senate support today so I was just curious I just want to make sure yeah I just want to make sure I was clear on that I wanted to make sure that expectations were correct so thanks for that it's a good follow-up question Mr. Unvello no thank you yeah and and of course none of their questions in any way imply anything with respect to legislative intent I know that but of course racing has been a long has a long-storied history in Massachusetts with a lot of legislative support and I'm sorry because I thought I was done but I have to because it was another misnomer so that account is because I was told I thought multiple times that it was not in an interest bearing account sitting there so that's not true is that what I heard it is collecting interest but going back to the state so you have to so that is remember the state works on fund accounting so the majority of our money sits in one depository a big Santander Dander Santander account for the whole Commonwealth all hundred and some odd agencies and then they give it back to separate funds and depending on what that what that major bank account earns is interest your piece of that unallocated balance or that your piece of what's sitting in there in the daily earnings you get on that interest would come back to your trust fund since legislatively we don't have language that allows us to keep that interest the Commonwealth keeps that interest and it stays with the general fund yeah okay because in the past I think I was misinformed doesn't matter by who that it was standalone in its own non-interest bearing account so as far as fund accounting goes yeah right but as far as banking you know true banking goes right it's an interest sharing account and then technically couldn't that interest just pay for the fees if it wasn't an escrow account not to split it to split it here absolutely could and that's something we'd try to work through with the treasure to make sure that we didn't have to pay for but you wouldn't be able to keep all of the money that would be being generated there yep no so those are all the terms we'd have to work through if the commission to decided to do this because you would whoever the commission determines is you know the owner of that would have to be part of the escrow as well every time we want to make a payment into that account we'd have to have the terms onto the escrow that allows us to do that every time the if there's a fee associated with it and we didn't do an ISA we'd have to have the terms of the escrow to allow that to happen so these are all the things that if the commission decided to go down this this path we'd have to work out with the treasure and whoever they determined is our partner in that escrowing then obviously if there's conversations future conversations needed or with the treasurer's department if obviously the commission needs the horseman's input support or what not I'm hoping obviously we would have continued conversations and you'd reach out to us appropriately thank you all right now I promise I'm done no more comments well it's very helpful to get all the information where we're here it's good to get it it's it's a lot it was it was a long time coming and I thank you all for at least hearing listening to us today and truly appreciate it thank you Mr. Unbrano okay commissioners are we ready to then move on and allow Judy and Derek and Alex to continue their work with the input from all critical stakeholders including the association anything we want further from them before we turn to the next item okay thank you excellent job thank you for making sure thanks commissioners thanks everyone great job everyone clear presentation thank you so much very very informative thank you thank you very much thank you okay then we're moving Dr. Light found two items for CND good morning chair morning madam chair and commissioners so as in your packet item CND is going to be for local aid aid again is payable to each city in town where racing activities are conducted the amount of aid is determined at a rate of 0.35 percent of the handle from the quarter that ended six months prior to the payable date today we're going to be doing the Q3 and Q4 for FY23 local aid payments so with that the first payment which is the quarter ending on March 31st using handles from July, August and September of last year the city of Boston is to receive $149,274.48 the town of Plainville $42,297.99 the town of Rainham $18,483.69 and the city of Revere receiving $74,659.64 I did provide a breakdown of each of the payments and this also does ask for a vote from the commission pause there if any questions clear memorandum any questions should we move separately Richard Hill you're nodding your head I was going to do the first Q the FY quarter three Madam Chair I would move that the commission authorized FY23 quarter three local aid payments to the city of Boston in the amount of $149,274.48 to the town of Plainville in the amount of $42,297.99 and to the town of Rainham in the amount of $18,483.69 and to the city of Revere in the amount of $74,659.64 Second Sorry I just got a notice from someone looking for something and hoping I'm not untimely caring so my apologies Dr. Lightbound thank you Trisha O'Brien Hi Trisha Hill Hi Mr. Skinner Trisha Maynard and I vote yes 5-0 thank you chat for that the next the next one please sure so the Q4 FY23 payment is quarter ending on June 30th which using handles from October November and December of last year the city of Boston is to receive $100,380.05 the town of Plainville $29,051.93 town of Rainham $16,482.33 and the city of Revere receiving $50,205.09 for a total amount of $196,119.40 again the breakdowns are included in your packet and this also will require asked for your vote I have a motion I move that the commission authorize the FY23 Q4 local aid payments to the city of Boston in the amount of $100,380.05 to the town of Plainville in the amount of $29,051.92 to the town of Rainham in the amount of $16,482.33 and to the city of Revere in the amount of $50,205.09 second any questions, edits? okay Commissioner O'Brien aye Commissioner Hill aye to Mr. Skinner aye Commissioner Maynard and aye vote yes excellent work any further anything further for you Chad and then I'll turn back to Dr. Lightbaugh I am that ends what I have for you guys okay thank you good to see you nice to see you good seeing you thank you Director Lightbaugh anything I just wanted to say thank you very much to Derek Lennon and Judith Young for their work on the escrow of the Racehorse Development Fund it's a has a lot of different angles to it and I really appreciate their hard work on it that's all the racing items for today okay I need thank you so much before we turn to the next item I am I just need to check one tech thing so I need just a two second break thanks so much Madam Chair yeah can I request a five-minute break sure thank you and I appreciate that thank you and then we're going to returning to item number five on our agenda I need to apparently get some some electricity to my computer for us thank you okay Dave I think they're all set also hoping that this outlet has a little bit more electricity running through it so we are back convening today's meeting which is meeting public meeting 462 of Massachusetts gaming commission we are holding this meeting won't maybe took a short break so I'll do a little call commissioner I'm buying good morning again I am here thank you good morning again commissioner Hill here so I'm commissioner Skinner good morning good morning and good morning commissioner Maynard good morning all right we'll get started we are turning to item number five after our racing update now we're turning to research and responsible gaming the morning director Vanda Linden good morning madam chair good morning commissioners we have a few things there for you today we're going to kick it off or start with long ban just done some excellent work pulling together a report outlining some numbers and characteristics of our enrollees and the voluntary self exclusion program long will then turn it over for a game since quarterly update and then we have a research item for you as well Dr. Bonnie Andrews will will introduce our presenters who will talk about using perspectives of Springfield Hispanic residents towards EMGM casino and this is this is our latest community based participatory research study before I turn it over too long though just quickly I wanted to to highlight the new and improved game sense website game sense ma dot com earlier this year we began working with a firm ASG a communication and marketing firm in the very first project we wanted them to do for us was updating the game sense website recognizing that sports wagering is here and that that was a top priority for us if you don't mind I'll just share my screen and again this will just take take one minute so as you can see this is the home page of the of the new and revised website our old website highlighted a character named Chip who was not who was supposed to represent the game sense advisor but was definitely now game sense advisor the game sense advisors are the heart he's all of our of the game sense program and this represents who they are including just the incredible wealth of information the diversity of the team in the passion that they have for the program so you can see this is Amy Aisha Ray and Lynn there's much more information about each of the the game sense advisors we will have photos of each of the game sense advisors but even clicking through for example Amy talks about their favorite parts of working at the at the mass console and gaming and health as a game sense advisor as well as their their favorite game sense and see that we added information about sports wagering if you it's very top of the list under know the game and like anything that we do related to any type of gambling we want to talk to people about rules of the game how to play but embedded in every single thing that we do is information about responsible gaming and providing responsible gaming tips we also wanted to really highlight the availability of live chat which connects individuals to a game sense advisor at any time 24 seven the voluntary self exclusion since remote enrollment and the voluntary self exclusion has become such as as as you'll see from long the fastest growing type of enrollment we wanted to make that quicker quicker and easier to connect with a game sense advisor in order to enroll in the program and especially with sports wagering we also added a Google Translate feature and so you'll see up here under languages that we have Arabic Chinese simple and traditional Haitian Japanese Khmer Portuguese Spanish Korean and Vietnamese translation for the website that is is available so that's it I think it's I love it I think kudos to ASG who who helped lead this but we also involved our game sense team we involved Bill Sherwood from the mass council and then of course Long and I were involved with with this every step of the way so that's it and there are no questions I will turn it over to Long Ban Mark thanks for that update questions for director Vandal and and on that new development that's it asked him to just bring us up to date real quick okay morning Long morning chair good morning commissioners so I'm going to share my screen I'm going to share the sorry good morning chair good morning commissioner so today I might be going to present the the BSC the voluntary self-exclusion update so the expended gaming act includes a number of key mandates to ensure the successful implementation of expended gaming including the prevention of and mitigation of social impacts and costs one such mandates is establishment of a list of self-excluded persons from game gaming establishments chapter 23k section 45f directs the commission to develop procedures for placement removal and transmittal of the self-excluded persons list to gaming establishments to fulfill this mandate the commission adapted voluntary self-exclusion or the BSC program where a person may request to be placed on the list by completing an enrollment agreement acknowledging the person as a problem gambler the BSC program commenced in June 2015 over the past eight years the program has evolved from the entirely paper-based enrollment system to a system enabling digital enrollment the system has also evolved to include the option to for patrons to enroll remotely as well as in person the transition included the developing development of a BSC app where gaming establishment connects access to self-excluded persons list in real-time and through a secure process today we present an update of the BSC program throughout the past eight years so the first thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to give an overview of the past eight years from June 2015 to May 2023 so here's the BSC enrollment and read statements looking at that duration for eight years and you know I did put some key dates just to sort of give a reference so if you look at in August 24, 2018 at GM... Long, I'm not sure if you're moving through the slides or at least it hasn't appeared that way Oh, sorry Has it updated? Okay, it's because there's two different screens I'm looking at so let me this is simple thank you Mark so this slide here it really shows the enrollment and the read statements and so the dark blue line it's focusing on the gaming enrollments and so I separated and there's a black line towards the end that's for sports wagering because we introduced sports wagering in 2023 but here you can sort of see the enrollments and the read statements and there is a spike and I will get more into it but I sort of just want to highlight and then there's a dip back in March 14, 2020 that's when the COVID shutter so we did see a drop and then slowly when it reopened we saw a surge or up to the level and one thing to note so the total active BSE enrollments is 1,430 and so I sort of broke it down to the gaming and sports wagering so the gaming enrollments at 1328 and the total sports weight wagering enrollments is 102 total read statements is 493 and so these numbers I'm going to sort of explain and sort of use it as a reference points when I do the other presentation so as I mentioned about sports wagering sports wagering was introduced 2023 and so we took the first enrollments on January 27 for the VSC for sports wagering and as we have two different lists one for the gaming and one for sports wagering but we combined a process for folks who are interested in VSC for both gaming and sports wagering so here we broke it down so in the first column you see the sports gaming and sports wagering VSC there were 92 patrons who were enrolled in both the gaming and sports wagering and there were 10 who just enrolled in the sports wagering and the question that came up a lot when presented the first number were that the folks who did sports wagering only how many of those previously had enrolled in gaming so the second the bar graph or the pie graph next to it shows that the breakdown so three out of the 10 were previously enrolled in the gaming VSC so we had seven who were specifically just gaming had never enrolled in gaming and so then because there's some duplication the total number that I had before is 1430 you'd have to subtract the duplication and so the total unique enrollments were 1335 so accounting for folks who would enroll in both we did not want to double count them but for this purposes for this exercise I actually looked at the whole enrollment and sort of see the terms and sort of break down of what we were seeing of the enrollment so the first stuff the first item we wanted to look at is the VSC enrollment terms so here's looking at all the folks who VSC at 1430 sort of break down of what people chose to VSC one note or a couple of notes to lifetime our requirement was that before you can do a lifetime you would have to previously enrolled in a shorter duration so the lifetime required someone to enroll either six months one year three year five year and the other note that I went to note also six months when we initially launched VSC we offered six months but due to the the low enrollment we sort of ceased the six months option and that ended on March 2020 so we discontinued the six month option so the number to six months hopefully in the next iteration you will see less and less of that because patrons had an option of one year three year five year or lifetime after they completed the short duration and then so the one item that we also wanted to look at is for those who did reinstate what terms did they complete and here we saw overwhelmingly about 75% of the folks completed a one year term before reinstating and the total reinstatement patrons were 493 so the next item we wanted to look at is gender composition looking at who are enrolling and who are reinstating would surprise us from this data where that most mostly male were enrolling into the VSC but a good chunk of a fairly even amount of male and female are reinstating and so that's something that we're sort of surprised by we were expecting the ratio for the enrollment and the reinstatement should be equal but this is showing us it's not the case the item the next item we looked at is the racial makeup so who are these folks who are enrolling into the VSC while the majority of the folks are white we were happy to see that there are other ethnic groups that are also VSC African-American 10% were enrolling Asian-American about 17% so it's kind of nice to see that there were some other ethnic groups so the next item we want to look again those who did enroll what are the makeup of those who reinstated again majority are white however we do see a representation from other groups as well and then the other last piece that we wanted to look at that you know sort of what looked at first was more of the age of enrollments so here's a side by side looking at the age of those who enrolled and those reinstated and it's a good good majority of the folks in the VSC range from 25 the age of 25 to 55 we do have folks 65 and over and folks 24 and younger 21 to 24 but a majority of the folks who are VSC and reinstating are from 25 to 64 and then before I go on I sort of want to talk about so in 2022 we introduced the VSC app so with the introduction of the VSC app we were able to expand our abilities to understand the locations of the VSC enrollments and patrons who sought follow-ups so the next slide I want to show is the VSC location so if those who are enrolling wherever they were enrolling in and so here we started with January 2022 that was when we introduced the VSC app so we were able to extract and one key date we wanted to put there was January 31st 2022 that was when sports wagering launched and you can see that you know the spike and the remote took off and we were sort of exploring more of what we were seeing and what we sort of surprised by so here's the the VSC requesting follow-ups so here's the breakdown of folks as part of the VSC we do offer folks who would like to speak to someone with the experience so Jody Nellie from the Council of Gambling and Health will reach out to folks who have requests to follow-up so here's the breakdown of folks who request a follow-up and we do see that there's a spike also around March and again we will drill down looking at what's what's going on in March and why do we see a spike and then here we looked at those who did ask for a follow-up where were there where were the enrollment completed and 83 or 36 percent completed remotely and again I think there's a lot of sort of questions that we had why there's a spike now I'm going to look at sort of the difference between sports wagering gaming and those who VSC for both gaming and sports wagering so it's just sort of breaking down and sort of looking at it and so this set of data we're looking from January 2023 to present so the first item we looked at is the enrollment location and again the breakdown the total number so there are a total of 132 for the gaming VSC 92 from gaming and sports wagering and 10 just sports wagering and then we can see that with the gaming it was pretty evenly split so there were remote but there were also going to the casinos however when you start looking at the gaming sports wagering and just sports wagering you see that remote was more of the the majority of where the VSC was being completed and then we wanted to look at the gender so for those folks who are VSCing in the different different options where were the makeup so we do see that males are mostly VSCing however with the gaming it's a closer split while the sport a gaming sports wagering and sports wagering were mostly who were completing the VSC and so we wanted to compare racially what are the demographics of folks who are completing the VSC sports wagering not surprisingly 100% were white but when you look at you know gaming and gaming and sports wagering we saw a little more diverse while white is majority there were other ethnic groups who were completing the VSC the age so now we want to compare the age and we see that the gaming again the majority is about 25 to 55 and gaming and sports kind of mirror that but sports wagering a good chunk of the folks are between the 35 to 44 age range so it's a younger demographic because if you look at the majority it's about 25 to 44 versus you know the other two categories 25 to 64 and the next one we wanted to look at the enrollment follow-up so there's one thing I do want to highlight if you look at the game initially those the game folks who VSC for the gaming sort of declined the follow-up but right around March we saw that the increase that actually changed it flipped and so it's kind of interesting to see sort of what changed from folks who declined a follow-up at the gaming and then in March we saw the spike and continue more folks are requesting follow-up in the gaming sports wagering and gaming sports wagering it's too early to sort of see so our guess is more of was there more excitement or more concerns that people had because of sports wagering coming alive people sort of sought more support but I think that's something to look at and sort of compare to see if the trend continues or if it goes stabilized and equals out but that's something sort of just to highlight that we did see a proliferation of folks who are enrolling in game requesting a follow-up and again we wanted to see those who are requesting follow-up where were they enrolled in and you see that you know again sports wagering majority of them are remote and gaming and sports wagering we saw a good chunk from remote and EVH but with the gaming it was pretty split and so you know we're excited because this is the first time looking at the data at the VSE and you know there's a lot of questions and I think you know like I mentioned there's a lot of things we want to look at with the first five months into you know sports wagering we want to sort of see the baseline and sort of compare and get an understanding of the patrons who are at VSE and one special you know thanks you know or I want to acknowledge the collaboration between our department and our IT so you know chief information officer Katrina group Gomes and her team we're instrumental in developing and to can you continual enhancement of the VSE app for us to pull the data and to get more information about the patrons who are at and rolling into the VSE any questions commissioners questions from Lauren this is really good data Michelle Bryan you may need yeah I thank you very much long it's what's it's not a question more is a comment that it's it's interesting for us to be able to take this data that backs up some of sort of the projected gender and age breakdowns that we've been getting heading into sports wagering and I'm not surprised but I'm glad that we actually have some hard data on the ground where we're packing up what they were saying and we're probably going to see so and the online response is fabulous I think that's fantastic that you guys really got that up and running thank you sure Brian most definitely and we're excited to see that as well because reverse it's looking at the literature and the literature suggests that there were more younger white men in sports wagering and here it's sort of mimic or mirror stat but I always think it's interesting when we say younger what do we mean here we actually have a good sense of what younger in Massachusetts mean Mr. is any other questions for mom okay thank you excellent report and a great baseline we'll look forward to the updates thank you chair so you know now I have the pleasure to introduce the game sense the FY 2023 third quarter report so again the expended gaming act includes a number of key mandates to ensure the successful implementation of the expended gaming including the prevention of and mitigation of social impact of cost and impacts and costs chapter 23 K section 21 16 requires casino operators to provide and on-site space for independent substance abuse and also gambling and mental health counseling service and establish a program to train gaming employees in the identification of an intervention with customers exhibiting from gambling behavior to build this mandate the commission adopted game sense an innovative response responsible gaming program that equips casino patrons who chose to gamble with information and tools to adopt to positive play behaviors and offers resources to individuals in distress from gambling related harm the commission has a contract with the Massachusetts council on gaming and health mgma g m a c g h to operate the gaming game sense information centers located on site at Massachusetts casinos and staff 16 to 24 hours daily by training game sense advisors today Chelsea Turner chief operations officer and Odessa Dorica chief programs officer of Massachusetts council on gaming and health will share with you the game sense activities and highlights from the third quarter of this year Chelsea good afternoon everybody if it's okay I'm just gonna share my screen and can everybody see that perfect we can good morning Chelsea good morning thank you for having us today hopefully the rain goes away soon and summer finally arrives anyhow excited to be here talk to you about what we've been up to this is just a cover slide this is Mark Leandro he's one of our game sense advisors at plain ridge park casino and he is definitely an expert on sports betting and I'm going to talk about highlight him a little bit later in the presentation today some of the things we want to talk about are just briefly touch on the interaction numbers how we're doing there talk to you about play my way especially since it's was rolled out at ebh in september and at mgm in the end of march of fiscal year 22 talk to you about sports betting what that's been like how our interactions have been going both on the floor at the brick and mortar casinos and also via mobile talk about some of our magic moments we haven't done magic moments in a while and I thought it would be nice to bring some of that back in these are really highlights of interactions the more quality interactions that we're having so specifically call out a few of the gsa's that have done those Odessa is going to talk to you about telephone recovery support which long alluded to earlier in his vsc presentation we'll talk to you about some of the capacity building within our own staff Odessa will focus on that of course the game sense excellence awards are always a highlight so we'll give you guys the winners of the third quarter the community event that was really cool that we were able to participate in with ppc talk to you about some staffing changes and enhancements at the council and for our game sense team and a little bit about what's on the horizon so first if you look at this slide it's and I apologize that the numbers are really small but what you're looking at are all of our different types of interactions including bsc's and rein statements which long touched on and I'll only briefly talk about those after I go through each of the properties but when I look at these interactions what you're looking at right now you can see fiscal year 21 simple interaction says 81 thousand then 2292 thousand 2369 thousand so at first glance you might think oh we're way way down that's not great that's a red flag hence the red but for me that's not really a concerning number because what simple interactions are are when somebody walks by the center and they ask where's the ATM machine where's the you know where's the cage how do I get can I get directions somewhere so they're really basic interactions we track them because they're important because we want them to lead to more substantive interactions but they're not the ones that are the needy and substantive interactions similarly casino related interactions are if you drop down to the sort of the fourth row casino related interactions are when folks are coming up to the game sense advisors and asking them questions about a particular promotion or event that might be happening at the casino so we track them again they're important because we know oftentimes it takes 1213 1520 touches until somebody that needs help actually feels comfortable asking for it but that's not where we focus our energy we focus our energy and the numbers in the middle the demonstrations and exchanges and those numbers are excellent so demonstrations are when we use something like a brochure some type of tool to explain something to a game sense advisor these are quality interactions and exchanges are similar they tend to happen more on the floor we might be going to a slot machine that's not being used or a table game that's not being used to explain how the house edge is built in or something like that but those are the media interactions and when you look at those numbers our totals for just through the end of May in comparison to last year are way way up so that's fantastic news similarly if you go to MGM you're going to see see similar results their numbers are a little bit down on demonstrations compared to last year again we still have one whole more month to even catch up to FY 22 but their numbers for exchanges are way way up so when you combine the two we're well ahead of where we were last year and lastly when you go to PPC again you're going to see a similar situation to MGM I have no doubt that by the end of June our numbers will be up year over year in those quality interactions which is where what we really want to see I thought long did an awesome job of going through the VSE data and giving you some specific information about that I just wanted to add that as of the end of May so we still have one month we were up year over year across all properties on VSEs by three so we'll probably end the year at about I'm guessing somewhere around 50 to 60 VSE more VSEs this year than last year and as long alluded to the remote option is huge 38 more remote option people opted for to do their VSEs via remote this year than last year and we still have another month worth of data we also had 16 more people do their VSEs during the overnight shift and then what was is a really pretty staggering because statistic to me is 66 more people connected to connected to us which led to a VSE via live chat so that's really really impressive I think and it's a I think a testament to our team for developing the remote option and also getting ahead on live chat way before sports betting was even launched in regards to play my way you know play my way had launched at PPC years ago that was sort of the flagship casino for play my way as I hope most of you know it's a voluntary budgeting tool that is embedded in all of the slot machines as well as electronic table games at PPC we've had over 30,000 people sign up since it launched and as I alluded to earlier at EPH we just launched this September and MGM the previous March so what we're seeing here when we launch play my way out of casino we see a spike initially that's probably similar to when you launch a game or a new product any new product right you're going to see a spike in the beginning and then it sort of trails down and then settles in so right now at EPH we're seeing about 390 new folks sign up for play my way each month at MGM it's at about 310 per month and at PPC it's at about 110 per month which makes sense for fiscal year 24 I think we're going to try some more internal and external marketing campaigns to see if we can boost this especially at EPH and MGM where they haven't had this tool as long I think we can maybe get some be nice to see if we can get some see some spikes in these numbers if in fact we do do do marketing campaigns around them and I'm optimistic that that would happen we definitely feel like it remains a very valuable tool it's something that folks that go from one casino to another ask for if they've already had it at one casino and it's very similar to what what betters may see on a mobile app as well so there's a lot of correlation between play my way and the limit setting tools in the mobile environment sports betting we have done tons and tons of training and preparation on sports training internal we've done self trainings where some folks who have sports betting expertise have led trainings for our staff we've watched videos we've attended webinars basically anything we can could have done ahead of time and still are continuing to learn about sports betting we're trying to take advantage of in addition we've done some external sports betting training so I just wanted to give a huge shout out to win bet bet mgm bet fanatics barstool fan dual draft kings and seizures who are all kind enough to put together a training for our mass council team they spent time talking about the different types of bets and the terminology which bets are safer which ones are riskier what's the user's perspective like as they go through the app what are they going to see so that if somebody is in the casino and they're looking at their sports betting mobile app we're familiar with it or if they're on the phone with us or on live chat with us we can visualize what they're seeing talked about of course their play management tools in each operator talked a little bit about how they're unique because while they are the same in many many ways there are also differences we have found that this information has been incredibly incredibly useful to us and we're very grateful for the time that they spent with us we're also hoping to set something up with better we've just been trying to spread them out and we've also offered to do some archery training for them if they wanted to during our gem and some of them have indicated that they're going to take us up on that inside the casinos what are some of the things that we're seeing we're finding that sports betters are more similar to poker and paramutual players than casino players what that means is they consider themselves more informed and more skilled more strategic and in order for us to talk to them we know that we need to meet them where they're at so by us becoming experts on sports betting it helps to to I guess establish a nice rapport with them out of the gate versus if we just went up to them and and approach them in the same that we might that was somebody that was playing slots it's completely different so you need to speak their language and meet them where they're at and I think we've been successful in doing that the referee shirt says we've talked about in the past we're a huge hit we continue to wear those pretty often our staff likes them as well and we've developed many many materials in regards to sports betting including activities etc now I want to spend a little bit of time talking about a few magic moments so I'm not going to give you eight I'm going to cut that in half but I wanted to highlight some of our game sense advisors and the great work they're doing so these magic moments are really sort of key interactions that our staff has they they report magic moments monthly and we include those in our in our written reports but I wanted to provide you with just a few highlights today so I'm going to begin with Mark the gentleman that was on the front cover slide today Mark in May took a phone call from a young patron who was in a lot of distress about sports betting the gentleman told him he was on a really bad losing streak and he wanted to know how he could take a break from the apps Mark explained the VSC process that game sense could provide but the gentleman really didn't feel like he was ready for that so and then the patron told him he actually just three different apps so Mark explained that there's the time out feature on each of the apps and then he walked the patron over the phone through how to basically do a timeout on each of these apps the patron said that he put in a six month timeout period for on each app and he obviously thank Mark for his patience and helping him out with the time he needed in April Amy had a really long phone conversation over our game line with a patron that had removed herself from the VSC list in October she was super distraught and wanted to be placed back on the list they talked for a long time and ended up completing a remote VSC to place her back on the list she was also hooked up with a Amy also hooked her up with a list of GA meetings and they spoke about possibly getting her a counselor from Gandera in Springfield which is a local public health agency I love this one because I think that this shows how we we establish relationships and then people feel back actually feel comfortable actually calling us back and saying that they still need help and how can we help them obviously we're not clinicians but we are oftentimes the liaison between the person in distress and the clinician and that was the case and I loved the magic moment about Mark because this is something we're seeing with sort of the younger generation of sports betters and also the challenges of sports betters who are gambling on more than one app so just two more at E.B.H. in April Winnie, one of our GSAs was walking the casino floor and she stopped by a gentleman who had previously talked to her he asked her what at that time the previous time that they had met he asked her what 421 had meant and she explained what the lower risk gambling guidelines were he wanted to let her know that he was so grateful that he took that she had taken the time to talk to her about the lower risk gambling guidelines and it's something that he continues to use when he returns to the casino and that it's important to him for him to remember sort of the game sense tips and how to keep his gambling in line this is just a common interaction that we have but it showcases one you know the usefulness of the 421 on the back of the referee shirts and the fact that again people continue to come back to game sense advisors once they learn about game sense and maybe have a little bit of fun as they learn about the games and the last magic moment I'll talk about is with our GSA Josh at EPH just this past month he was walking on the floor and a fellow approached him to ask him how the games work and this person was with a large group of folks so Josh spent about a half an hour talking to them about different games and you know how the house edge is built in and basically they were just all really grateful and said that you know they appreciated the opportunity to learn more about games and the tips before they started to play one of the things that we know from the positive play research is that gambling literacy is a little bit lower in Massachusetts than another jurisdiction so the more that we can have folks understand what they're doing before they actually start spending money the better decisions that are hopefully likely to make at this point I'm going to turn it over to Dessa to talk a little to you more a little bit about telephone recovery support urge surfing and the excellence awards Odessa Dwaraka chief chief program officer I'll let Chelsea pull up the slide so we took a graphic actually that we'd created for my presentation at the University of Nevada Las Vegas they had an international conference on gambling and risk-taking and I was able to present on some of the initiatives that recovery so this was I would really very much call it a pilot project telephone recovery support so telephone recovery support has historically been used in the substance use disorder substance misuse so we're having connectivity issues with those it's a low barrier way of offering people support offer oh no yeah I uh Commissioner O'Brien it's not you but now you've frozen or have I oh I don't know maybe I just have to move I can't even tell if I I haven't frozen apparently I don't think am I frozen you have not frozen Madam Chair and Commissioner O'Brien may have though yes I believe she has and then Odessa is breaking up so we're having definite connectivity issue we can hear you Eileen but you have your picture has froze yeah we gotta do that Odessa you want to try again yeah sure maybe I'll turn off my video to see if that helps I don't know okay why don't we try that it's nice to see your face but we'll try that thank you so much and the connectivity issues are on if you take your video off let's see able to hear me we can can you hear me oh yeah goodness okay just let me know if you can't hear me because I don't know when to stop because on my end it feels like it's working telephone recovery support tradition so Odessa we we aren't hearing you I don't thank commissioners so I think but we do still see your video I have wondered if you wanted to take your video off how is this is this helpful at all yes let's try this okay okay Mark I don't know how to help I don't know what what it is here okay so we wanted Chelsea do you can you guys hear me yeah we had no connection issues with you so Odessa I don't know it seems like maybe we need to turn it over to Chelsea or we okay kind of so I'll try my best to talk that this is definitely Odessa's realm but the I know that she presented this poster at UNLV at the UNLV conference this is you know we do a lot with telephone recovery support as long said you know it's important for us to provide this peer support service we are finding that people are taking advantage of it one of the things that we're looking to possibly implement in the future is asking folks who reinstate if they want to also do TRS so stay tuned on that more to come another thing I know that Odessa was going to talk about is there's something sort of new in the industry in the field called urge surfing and urge surfing is basically the data shows that most people who have a craving it can be about food you know ice cream maybe you're an ice cream lover or it can be about gambling right and that most of these urges don't last that long so if you can just get through the urge and this sort of speaks to like GA and stuff like that where you call somebody for support if you can get through the urge then you'll then you'll be able to sort of move on so you know we've kind of been thinking about how to integrate this into a game sense for quite some time we're not at a point where it's something where we have the resources to really do necessarily like over the phone all the time but we do have an automated number now where you can call when you call our game line if you want to listen to a recording for urge surfing you can listen to the recording and it is available on our website so we're going to track this see if it's useful see if it's not but if you don't try new things you don't ever know if they're going to work so more to come on that Chelsea, thank you for that Tom those are communication directors suggested to Odessa to call in so if you want to see if she can speak now Odessa do you want to try to call in? Maybe she hasn't called in yet okay all right I can keep going so this is basically the second part of her poster and if she wants to circle back and fill in more on TRS or urge surfing then that's great so one of the things we talked to you guys I think about in the past is mental health first aid we have two of our folks who are now trained to train people in mental health first aid which is fantastic our entire staff has been trained and we are in the process of talking with other folks outside of the council in terms of getting trained including the gaming commission and hoping to do some training for interested folks at the gaming commission come this fall as well as other sort of entities like other councils and other states etc and then most recently we had Mark again from the first slide be trained in QPR which is a suicide prevention training this is a little bit of a shorter training the mental health first aid is a full day training it requires some pre and post work versus the suicide prevention training is about two to three hours is my understanding he was literally just trained to become a trainer in this a couple weeks ago through DPH so that was a nice thing that they offered he applied and was accepted to be trained to be a trainer so we're looking forward to him training our staff on that and that's also something we can offer to other folks who are interested whether it's security staff or frontline staff at the casinos or community groups etc so just building our own capacity and our own skill sets game sense excellence awards Odessa are you on I am here all right excellence awards you're up okay if you can hear me that's amazing I'll start with EVH okay wonderful oh gosh so Kevin he's the training facilitator there and we just really appreciate him because he's really integral Odessa we've lost you again new hires at EVH up and running spreading the word on game sense I'm so sorry I don't know what's going on can you just call in with your phone yeah let me try I was trying to do that before let me try again okay I'm gonna skip over excellence awards because otherwise I have to look at my notes and I don't have the notes on every individual person for the excellence award so hopefully we can get Odessa back or I can take this down and then I can talk about the excellence awards so I'm gonna skip over that for now and I'm gonna talk about an event that we participated in at Plain Ridge Park Casino called Rolling Thunder this was a lot of fun it's an event that honors prisoners of wars and folks that are missing in action I believe this is the 10th year in a row that PPC sponsored this event and we actually had two of our game sense advisors ride in the event which was pretty cool so the picture on the right is our of Ray Fluet our director of play our health and Ronnie Shumway who is a game sense advisor at Plain Ridge Park on the motorcycle that they they rode in from Plain Ridge Park to Battleship Cove and in supportive veterans essentially it was really fun for them to do of course they wore helmets they just said they wouldn't look it on the picture and then on the left you see we had a table out at PPC for the day we had fun that this dog picked up one of our game sense swag items and we just thought it was a cute picture but a great way for us to collaborate with PPC be part of the community and also do outreach to a community that we know is more of a vulnerable population being veterans personnel so we've had some staff turnover at the council since we spoke and I'm going to talk just a little bit about Daniel who is one of our newest game sense advisor he comes to us from Kazakhstan he's fluent in Russian as well as one of his native local languages he has an MBA in finance and he has run sports books he is a big very much value added to our game sense team he's at E.B.H. and has hit the ground running from day one he has really been a wonderful addition to our team in addition we're making some a few changes in terms of our the structure of when our managers our game sense managers work at each of the properties so what we're doing is we used to have our managers work you know mostly nine to five and that was so that we could meet together etc and while that was great we want to be more we want to be there for the we want our managers to be there more for the game sense advisors and so what we're doing is we're shifting the hours that the game sense managers work so that we have one game sense manager who's working seven to three one that works more nine to five another one that will work 12 to 8 and another one that will work 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. and by doing this we get to a place where we're almost almost always have a game sense manager on of course you know Ray and myself and Marlene are always available to answer questions if need be but this is just going to reinforce things so that somebody is always there if somebody needs a quick answer or has a quick question additionally we I'm not going to talk about the new staff that we're hiring yet because they while we've made offers and they've accepted they still have to go through the gaming commission licensing process but I can tell you that we're super excited about the staff both in terms of the diversity of who they are the languages that they speak the gaming experience that they have and I really think this is going to help to fortify our team particularly our overnight shift so we're excited about these changes and hopefully it's going to help us to meet the needs of all the folks both at the casinos and in the mobile environment Chelsea I moved and I'm wondering if my internet connection is better here I can hear I can hear you better okay let me just do you want me to add a little more to the voluntary self-exclusion TRS or should I just jump straight to the staff awards sure why don't you talk a little bit about TRS and staff awards and then we can wrap it up with what's on the horizon okay great sorry about that everyone not sure what happened so this presenting on TRS was really exciting because nobody else in the United States that we could find is doing telephone recovery support for gambling actually I couldn't find it being done anywhere in the world at least with the Google search but we said you know there's so many it's been shown to be so effective with folks in early recovery from other types of addiction let's try it for gambling and the way it works how we get most of our referrals for telephone recovery support is when somebody does a voluntary self-exclusion we offer them a follow-up and if they do accept a follow-up they've been getting a call or email depending on their preference from Jodi Neely our director of recovery and when she contacts them this is something else that she offers them it's basically a weekly phone call it can go for about 10 weeks where she's checking in she's offering resources did you go to the meeting how did it go helping them problem solve it can be about a 10 to 15 minute check-in sometimes it's less sometimes people need a little more sometimes folks say actually will you just send me a text to check in with me and at the end of the time you know the hope is that just somebody feels like there's somebody who's been there who's following up with them that's staying in touch with them and we know that this intervention is most effective for people who aren't necessarily ready to go into treatment or be working with a clinician Chelsea can you go to the next slide you know we're calling this a pilot and so we sent out a survey link so it's a just a quick question three question survey to folks who had engaged in telephone recovery support and we got about 21 back even though we had a much higher number of folks who did engage in telephone recovery support but sometimes it's hard to get people to respond back from an email particularly if they'd finished it sometime before so this was anonymous and we just asked three simple questions did you find the calls helpful how much did it help you reduce problematic gambling behaviors and would you recommend this to a friend that was struggling with problem gambling and so every 100% of folks found it helpful and would recommend it to a friend and the range of how helpful it was from a little to somewhat to very much ranged as well with most folks being in the very m