Mass. General Laws c.23N § 11

Conflict of interest and corruption; requirements of operators

Updates

• Added by St.2022, c.173, § 5, effective August 10, 2022.

Section 11

(a) An operator shall employ commercially reasonable methods to: (i) prohibit the operator, directors, officers, owners and employees of the operator and any relative living in the same household as any such person from placing bets with the operator; (ii) prohibit athletes, coaches, referees, team owners, employees of a sports governing body or its member teams and player and referee union personnel from wagering on any sporting event of their sport’s governing body; provided, however, that the operator shall use lists of such persons that a sports governing body may provide to the commission to determine which persons are excluded from placing wagers under this subsection; and provided further, that the commission may use the list of barred employees from the operator and may work directly with a member team to determine the risk posed by certain employees for obtaining nonpublic confidential information on a sporting event and may remove an employee without knowledge of team strategy or game operations from such a list if the commission determines any such risk is de minimis; (iii) prohibit any individual with access to nonpublic confidential information held by the operator from placing wagers with the operator; (iv) prohibit persons from placing wagers as agents or proxies for others; and (v) maintain the security of wagering data, customer data and other confidential information from unauthorized access and dissemination; provided, however, that nothing in this chapter shall preclude the use of internet or cloud-based hosting of such data and information or disclosure as required by court order, other law or this chapter; and provided further, that such data and information shall be hosted in the United States.

(b)  A sports governing body or players association representing athletes who participate in sporting events of the sports governing body may submit to the commission, in writing, by providing notice in a form and manner as the commission may require, a request to restrict, limit or exclude a certain type, form or category of sports wagering with respect to sporting events of the sports governing body, if the sports governing body or players association believes that such type, form or category of sports wagering with respect to sporting events of the sports governing body: (i) is contrary to public policy; (ii) unfair to consumers; (iii) may undermine the perceived integrity of the sports governing body, sporting events of the sports governing body or the athletes participating therein; or (iv) affects the integrity of the sports governing body or sporting events of the sports governing body or the athletes participating therein.

The commission shall request comment from operators on all such requests. After giving due consideration to all comments received, the commission shall, upon a demonstration of good cause from the requestor, grant the request. The commission shall respond to a request concerning a particular event before the start of the event or, if it is not feasible to respond before the start of the event, not later than 7 days after the request is made; provided, however, that if the commission determines that the requestor is more likely than not to prevail in successfully demonstrating good cause for its request, the commission may provisionally grant the request until the commission makes a final determination as to whether the requestor has demonstrated good cause. Absent a provisional grant by the commission, an operator may continue to offer sports wagering on sporting events that are the subject of a request during the pendency of the consideration of the applicable request.

(c)  The commission shall designate a state law enforcement entity to have primary responsibility for conducting, or assisting the commission in conducting, investigations into abnormal betting activity, match fixing and other conduct that corrupts a betting outcome of a sporting event for purposes of financial gain.

(d)  The commission and operators shall use commercially reasonable efforts to cooperate with investigations conducted by sports governing bodies or law enforcement agencies, including, but not limited to, using commercially reasonable efforts to provide or facilitate the provision of anonymized account-level betting information and audio or video files relating to persons placing wagers. All disclosures under this section are subject to the obligation of an operator to comply with all federal, state and local laws and regulations, including, but not limited to, laws and regulations relating to privacy and personally identifiable information.

(e)  An operator shall immediately report to the commission any information relating to: (i) criminal or disciplinary proceedings commenced against the operator in connection with its operations; (ii) abnormal betting activity or patterns that may indicate a concern with the integrity of a sporting event; (iii) any potential breach of the internal rules and codes of conduct pertaining to sports wagering of a relevant sports governing body; (iv) any other conduct that corrupts a betting outcome of a sporting event for purposes of financial gain, including, but not limited to, match fixing; or (v) suspicious or illegal wagering activities, including, but not limited to: (A) use of funds derived from illegal activity; (B) wagers to conceal or launder funds derived from illegal activity; (C) use of agents to place wagers; and (D) use of false identification. An operator shall immediately report information relating to conduct described in clauses (ii), (iii) and (iv) of this subsection to the relevant sports governing body.

(f)  The commission and operators shall maintain the confidentiality of information provided by a sports governing body for purposes of investigating or preventing the conduct described in clauses (ii), (iii) and (iv) of subsection (e), unless disclosure is required by this chapter, the commission, other law or court order or unless the sports governing body consents to disclosure.

(g)  With respect to any information provided by an operator to a sports governing body relating to conduct described in clauses (ii), (iii) and (iv) of subsection (e), a sports governing body shall: (i) only use such information for integrity purposes and shall not use the information for any commercial or other purpose; and (ii) maintain the confidentiality of such information, unless disclosure is required by this chapter, the commission, other law or court order or unless the operator consents to disclosure; provided, however, that the sports governing body may make any disclosure necessary to conduct and resolve integrity-related investigations and may publicly disclose such information if required by its integrity policies or if deemed by the sports governing body in its reasonable judgment to be necessary to maintain the actual or perceived integrity of its sporting events, and subject in all cases to the sports governing body’s compliance with federal, state and local laws and regulations, including, but not limited to, laws and regulations relating to privacy and personally identifiable information; and provided further, that prior to any such public disclosure that would identify the operator by name, the sports governing body shall provide the operator with notice of such disclosure and an opportunity to object to such disclosure.

(h)  An operator shall maintain records of all wagers placed by its patrons, including: (i) personally identifiable information of a patron who places a sports wager through a mobile application or other digital platform or a patron who places an in-person sports wager that exceeds an amount determined by the commission; (ii) amount and type of the bet; (iii) the time the bet was placed; (iv) the location of the bet, including the Internet Protocol address if applicable; (v) the outcome of the bet; and (vi) records of abnormal betting activity for 3 years after a sporting event occurs and video camera recordings in the case of in-person wagers for at least 1 year after a sporting event occurs. An operator shall make these records available for inspection upon request of the commission or as required by court order.

(i)  An operator shall use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain, in real time and at the account level, anonymized information for each patron, including: (i) the amount and type of bet; (ii) the time the bet was placed; (iii) the location of the bet, including the Internet Protocol address if applicable; (iv) the outcome of the bet; and (v) records of abnormal betting activity. The commission may request the information in the form and manner as it requires. Nothing in this section shall require an operator to provide any information prohibited by federal, state or local laws or regulations, including, but not limited to, laws and regulations relating to privacy and personally identifiable information.

(j)  If a sports governing body has notified the commission and demonstrated a need for access to the information described in subsection (i) for wagers placed on sporting events of the sports governing body for integrity monitoring purposes and demonstrated the capability to use the data for the purpose of effectively monitoring the integrity of sporting events of the sports governing body, an operator shall share, in a commercially reasonable frequency, form and manner, with the sports governing body or its designee the same information the operator is required to maintain pursuant to said subsection (i) with respect to sports wagers on sporting events of the sports governing body. A sports governing body and its designee shall only use information received pursuant to this section for integrity-monitoring purposes and shall not use information received pursuant to this section for any commercial or other purpose. Nothing in this section shall require an operator to provide any information that is prohibited by federal, state or local law or regulation, including, but not limited to, laws and regulations relating to privacy and personally identifiable information.

(k)(1)  An operator shall conduct a background check on each newly hired employee. Background checks shall search for criminal history, charges or convictions involving corruption or manipulation of sporting events and association with organized crime.

(2)  An operator shall conduct a single background check on any employee hired before the operator was issued an operator license. Background checks shall search for criminal history, charges or convictions involving corruption or manipulation of sporting events and association with organized crime.

Last updated:	August 10, 2022