An ESPN commentators off-hand remark about “risk-free” investments back in March of 2024 is still ringing in the ears of ESPN Bet executives, and Massachusetts gaming regulators. Late last week Penn Entertainment compliance officers got a grilling from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) about the overlap between ESPN’s on-air content and its responsibility to follow Massachusetts gaming regulations.
At the heart of the issue was a comment made on-air by Rece Davis in which he described picks from his colleague Erin Dolan as a “risk-free investment”. The comment caught the attention of the MGC, at least in part, because the ESPN Bet compliance team, led by Penn Chief Compliance Officer Chris Soriano, self-reported the incident.
The situation was compounded in a subsequent on-air comment by ESPN host Pat MCaffee to Davis about the comment saying, “there are some regulators that are gonna hold this against you.” To say that the MGC regulators took a bit of offense at the comment is something of an understatement.
Chairman Jordan Maynard pointedly asked Soriano if he agreed with the comment, which prompted Soriano to reply, “I won’t speak on behalf of Mr. McAfee, obviously, but I’ can’ll speak on behalf of myself. I think the comment called attention to the importance of compliance. The context to think about there is understanding that in the regulated gaming space that statements that result in a violation will be ‘used against you’ in that context will be evidence of a non-compliance situation. I think that’s actually an important concept,” according to SBC Americas.
An official judgement, and likely some form of punishment, from the MGC on the matter is forthcoming.