BOSTON – It’s been almost a 12 months since sports activities betting was legalized in Massachusetts. But whereas it is imagined to be an adults-only pastime, are giant numbers of underage children doing it anyway?

Betting by these beneath 21 is against the law. According to testimony at Monday’s assembly of the state Gaming Commission from the sports activities betting distributors doing enterprise right here, it isn’t occurring in vital numbers.

That declare left gaming Commissioner Jordan Maynard gobsmacked. “I just don’t believe it’s zero. No one’s gonna convince me it’s zero or even single digits,” he mentioned.

He’s proper to be skeptical, in response to an NCAA survey from final spring that discovered 58 % of 18- to 22-year-olds have guess on sports activities. More than six in 10 have seen these ubiquitous adverts for sports activities betting, and 58 % of them say it made them extra prone to guess.

“It is the segment of the gambling industry that has by far the greatest segment of growth,” famous Professor Richard McGowan, of Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, a distinguished knowledgeable on the playing trade. He says the college-age gambler is a profitable marketplace for them  and in addition one of the vital susceptible.

“I know students who got in trouble by trying to win money for spring break, and they thought they were going to do it by winning at sports gambling,” mentioned McGowan. “Needless to say, they did not.”

But whereas the distributors testifying earlier than the fee appeared considerably nonchalant concerning the concern, Commissioner Brad Hill was not. Asked if it was it honest to explain his message to the trade as, “Get your act together on this front or we might have to do it for you,” Hill replied, “The answer is yes.”

Hill says he desires to coach dad and mom on the potential dangers to their children of sports activities betting, organising a well-recognized cultural showdown between the considerations of oldsters and regulators and the potent attract of on-line betting, it is advertising and marketing come-ons, and its flashy tech packaging.