Mass. Gaming Commission enables Super Bowl coin toss-related prop bets

While sports betting has been legal in Massachusetts for two years, certain types of bets have remained illegal according to state rules.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to allow prop bets on the Super Bowl coin toss.

Coin toss prop bets were previously banned under state rules, but a motion by commissioner Brad Hill brought the issue back up for consideration. Commissioners Eileen O’Brien and Nakisha Skinner voted against the measure, while Hill and commission chair Jordan Maynard voted in favor. The deciding vote was cast by ex-Melrose mayor Paul Brodeur, who joined the commission since the last vote on the matter.

While O’Brien expressed skepticism that the new betting option would significantly boost revenue, several commissioners noted the low stakes involved in the coin toss bet. Brodeur also pointed out that the even odds on the coin toss would make it difficult to manipulate the betting market.

“My sense is that it is very safe, not something that can be gamed,” Brodeur said.

Hill offered a more amusing anecdote in his reasoning for allowing the bets, explaining that he had been heckled on the subject during his part-time work as a basketball referee on the weekends.

“Usually when you’re running up and down the court, you’re getting yelled at because you made a bad call,” Hill said, according to a transcription from Colin A. Young of State House News Service. “Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was running up and down the court and someone yelled from the stands, ‘Are we going to be able to bet on the coin flip at the Super Bowl?’ So I stopped immediately, looked right at him, and he was as serious as serious could be.”

“I couldn’t believe that I would be in my referee clothes and they would recognize me as a commissioner,” Hill admitted. “And then only a few days later, I went to a local watering hole down in Ipswich, and I wasn’t even in there five minutes, and another patron came and asked the very same question, if they would be able to bet on the coin toss.”

The decision comes after the commission voted 3-2 against allowing coin toss-related prop bets in 2024. At the time, commissioners Skinner, O’Brien, and Judd-Stein voted against the measure, while commissioners Maynard and Hill voted in favor.

Sports betting in Massachusetts has continued to be a lucrative industry, with bettors wagering $788,340,996 in December of 2024 alone, according to MGC stats.