Am I Allowed To Bet March Madness In Massachusetts?

BOSTON - Mobile Massachusetts sports betting launched on March 10, just ahead of Selection Sunday and the NCAA Tournament. 

But can you bet on the NCAA Tournament in the Bay State? Yes, you can use Massachusetts betting apps to wager on March Madness in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts law and the gaming regulations allow for betting on most college sports – with a hitch. The Sports Wagering Act signed into law on August 10, 2022, prohibits wagering on in-state Massachusetts universities. 

It does allow for wagering on schools participating in a tournament with more than four teams that is not part of the regular season. The NCAA tournaments all fall into that category, which means wagering on March Madness is allowed in the Bay State.

Can You Bet on March Madness Props in Massachusetts?

Wagering on March Madness and college basketball futures markets is allowed in Massachusetts, but you can't bet on end-of-season awards for players and coaches. That's because Massachusetts sportsbooks aren't allowed to take college prop bets.

No Massachusetts-based men's teams made the Big Dance. Holy Cross in Worcester gets a taste of March Madness on the women's side. The men’s NCAA Frozen Four takes place in Tampa this year. The men’s and women’s NCAA hockey teams will be announced next Sunday. Schools from Massachusetts will be in both tournaments. 

Hearings This Week Will Discuss Illegal College Bets 

Confusion over which college teams are eligible for wagers in the Bay State is not limited to bettors. Sportsbooks and their vendors have seen problems since retail betting in Massachusetts began on January 31.

The operators of the WynnBET sportsbook at Encore Boston Harbor in Everett and the Barstool Sportsbook at Plainridge Park Casino face adjudicatory hearings on Tuesday in front of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission after accepting illegal wagers last month on in-state college teams. Illegal wagers were also accepted at the BetMGM book at MGM Springfield. A non-compliance hearing on that violation has not been scheduled.

Overall, 10 mobile sportsbooks have been approved for licenses in Massachusetts. The six live now are: Caesars Sportsbook, BetMGM Sportsbook, WynnBET, Barstool Sportsbook (Penn Interactive), FanDuel and DraftKings. Fanatics and Bally Bet are expected to go live in the spring. Betway won't launch until the Q1 of 2024. 

In the first three weeks of retail betting, four different instances of illegal wagering on regular-season in-state college games were self-reported by the betting operators. 

The MGC said Encore Boston Harbor accepted wagers on a Boston College women's basketball game played Feb. 19 against Louisville. Sports Wagering Director Bruce Band said the book's third-party provider (GAN) had a "glitch" in its system that failed to remove Massachusetts-based colleges from its list of women's college basketball games.

This was Encore's second such violation concerning Boston College women's basketball. The book also took one bet on a Boston College-Notre Dame women's basketball game on Feb. 2. On that occasion, wagering was allowed from about 12:45 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. 

The bet was placed on the game's outcome as part of a $70, 5-leg parlay. Once Encore became aware of the bet, it voided the BC-Notre Dame leg of the parlay. The lapse, according to Encore, was also caused by GAN's failure to lock out in-state women's basketball from the casino's catalog of markets.

Violations Of College Rules Self-Reported

WynnBET interactive president Ian Williams made it clear that the book is striving for perfection but both operators and regulators know that is impossible. 

"No one wants to make these mistakes," Williams said. "None of the operators, ourselves included, were trying to do anything that is against the rules." 

Williams said it is WynnBET policy to self-report once they are aware of any violation, regardless of the law, rule, or regulation. 

MGC Chair Cathy Judd-Stein stressed the importance of operators self-reporting. 

"We anticipated some non-compliance issues," Judd-Stein said. "We always really appreciate when operators self-report. That is an important component of the regulator-licensee relationship. They understand that. It is absolutely in their interests to be monitoring their own compliance. That is a really important factor." 

In terms of the actual violations, a WynnBET spokesman referred Bookies.com to the following statement: 

“We regret that illegal bets took place at Encore Boston Harbor on two separate occasions since retail sports betting began at the end of January. There was a failure in GAN's automated system to catch the programming error, and unfortunately the illegal wagering on in-state NCAA women’s college basketball teams was offered a second time. 

"We made the decision to shut off all women’s college basketball wagering to prevent this error from happening again and will only re-open the market when we have 100 percent confidence in a permanent fix."

The MGM Springfield book accepted wagers on the Harvard-Yale and Harvard-Brown men's basketball games played on Feb. 3-4. An MGC investigation found betting on both games was available for about 20 hours each. 

The games were offered because the third-party information provider used by the book inadvertently listed Harvard - which opened its doors in Cambridge in 1635 - as located in nearby Connecticut. 

A total of $1,150 was bet on the Harvard-Yale game (won by Yale 68-57) and $80 on the Harvard-Brown game (won by Brown 68-65). Bettors won $1,106 on 28 bets, the majority of which were parlays placed at kiosks.

MGM Springfield President Chris Kelley admits of all the schools in the Bay State, putting Harvard in Connecticut was somewhat unexpected.

Illegal wagering on a Merrimack College men's game against Long Island University on Feb. 2 was allowed for about seven hours at Plainridge Park (PPC), the casino reported. Thirty-three bets on 27 tickets were made, totaling $6,848. The casino said $4,720 was won by bettors. PPC reported to the Commission that gaming vendor Kambi mistakenly assigned Merrimack College (located in North Andover) as a Florida school. The error was flagged and reported by a PPC employee.

‘Mistakes That Happen’

The early mistakes made by the sportsbooks were both unfortunate and inevitable, said Bill Pascrell, partner at Princeton Public Affairs Group and a long-time lobbyist with the gaming industry. 

“By no means was it done intentionally. The operators are not stupid. But there are mistakes that happen. And you hire people who are not local, and they don't have that local knowledge. Most people know that Harvard is in Massachusetts. I went to the Kennedy School. I'm a graduate, so I certainly know where it is. But I think it's a mistake. If it happens again, then it's a serious problem, with the same institution. But I could see that happening,” Pascrell said. 

He cites the instance of Miami of Ohio and the University of Miami in Florida as an example of this potential confusion. 

“The question becomes, is it repetitive behavior? If it is, then the fines need to be escalated,” Pascrell added.