PHAI files lawsuit against MGC in relation to gambling data collection

The Commission has been subject to legal requirements to collect the data since its formation in 2011 but has yet to make any data available to researchers.

The Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) has filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC), asking the Massachusetts Supreme Court to issue a Mandamus Order to the Commission. 

The lawsuit cites the MGC’s failure to meet its gambling data collection requirements under Section 97 of the 2011 Expanded Gaming Act. 

Under Section 97 of the Expanded Gaming Act, the MGC is required to collect behavioral data from casino operators and share anonymized customer data with researchers. 

This data would then be used to analyze what casino practices are causing harm, who is being harmed and what the casinos and the Commission can do to reduce problem gambling.

Since being formed in 2011, the MGC has been subject to legal requirements that enforce the collection of this data. After over a decade, however, PHAI states that the Commission has “yet to collect a single piece of data from any licensee or make any data available to researchers.”

The Court order seeked by PHAI would then require the MGC to begin collecting the data needed by the Institute. 

Good to know: Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey named Jordan Maynard as MGC Chair and appointed former Melrose Mayor Paul Brodeur to serve as a Commissioner on October 29

“The requirement for the Gaming Commission to make this important research data available has been in place since the day the Commission was created more than a decade ago,” PHAI Executive Director Mark Gottlieb said. 

“All of our casinos have been operating for half a decade and only now, after two years of nudging from PHAI, the Commission finally claims to be getting closer to meeting its obligations.”

The court complaint filed by PHAI attorneys Andrew Rainer and Jacob Wolk states that the MGC’s data-collection requirement “represents a first-in-the-nation commitment to compile critical data about how gambling customers are put at-risk for harm” and charges that the Commission “has failed to comply with its unambiguous statutory obligation to collect this data from the casinos and provide it qualified researchers.”

The MGC will now have 20 days to file a response to the lawsuit, explaining why a Mandamus Order should not be issued.

Kirk Geller

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