Gaming regulators are planning to get an update next week on the disappearance of poker from Massachusetts — whether the casinos have an obligation to offer the popular game, what authority the Gaming Commission has in that area and, possibly, why the casinos have chosen to fold on the game.
The state’s two casinos — Encore Boston Harbor and MGM Springfield — resumed mostly normal operations in late May without reintroducing poker and the Mass. Gaming Commission last week discussed the flood of complaints it has received about the game’s absence. On Wednesday, Chairwoman Cathy Judd-Stein said she had asked the commission’s legal and community affairs teams to pull together information on “legalities and the history of poker and other amenities under the [gaming license application] and then the legal authority that the commission has et cetera and report to us” at next Thursday’s commission meeting.
