Aidan Bennett is a student at Providence College.
As a college student, it’s not unusual for your roommate to ask you out for a quick bite while driving.
What was even more surprising was that I was invited for a drive to place some simple sports bets.
That happened to me last month when my roommate asked if I wanted to go to Attleboro. Thanks to its location outside of Rhode Island, Attleboro offers online gambling at popular sites like DraftKings and FanDuel. By contrast, Rhode Island restricts online sports betting to a much less attractive national website.
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We hopped in the car, drove up I-95, ate a spicy chicken sandwich at Chick-fil-A, and signed at DraftKings from the parking lot. We sat for about 15 minutes, placed our bets, and drove back to Providence.
We are not the only Rhode Islanders who travel to Massachusetts to gamble online.
Because of the Ocean State’s strict gambling laws, many students over the age of 21 regularly travel across the border to gamble, costing Rhode Island a valuable source of revenue. The state was one of the first in the nation to legalize sports betting in 2018, but all that changed a year ago when Massachusetts legalized sports betting.
“It’s about 10 minutes away by car. [to Massachusetts] And I received over $600 from every gambling site I registered with,” the student at Providence College in upstate New York told me.
What makes sites like DraftKings and FanDuel more popular than Rhode Island’s state-run site is their promotional deals for new customers. New DraftKings users can get $200 in free play bets, plus access to countless prop bets, including how many points will Flyers guard Devin Carter score in a game? You can bet. My biggest win was $150 on a college football, pro football, and pro basketball parlay.
Such transactions make it difficult for students to choose to cross state lines to gamble, especially when it seems like an easy way to pad their wallets.
“I’m broke, so I have to start using FanDuel,” a classmate said to me toward the end of last semester.
Jeff Zoshonde, a sports betting journalist at industry website Covers, said the phenomenon of people moving across state lines to use online sportsbooks is happening across the country. “That’s especially true when you have a state next to a state that doesn’t have online sports betting that doesn’t have online sports betting,” he told me. “This often comes up when state legislatures debate whether to legalize sports betting. Lawmakers present data and examples of people traveling out of state to gamble, and states that don’t have sports betting. This is because they argue that it is a loss of income for the company.
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There is clear evidence that Rhode Island has lost revenue. Massachusetts recently set a new record for sports betting revenue, with gamblers betting $654.4 million with online and retail players in November.
Despite these alarming numbers, change doesn’t seem to be coming soon in Rhode Island.
“Due to Rhode Island regulations, wagers can only be placed within Rhode Island through casinos based in RI,” Brian Coutu, the state’s deputy administrator for gaming and athletics, told me. said in an email in response to a question. “Electronic blocks are in place to ensure this happens. Based on these regulations, I don’t see that changing in the future.”
That means students like me will continue to bet across borders.
