BOSTON (SHNS) - A report prepared for the Mass. Gaming Commission concluded that there is essentially no economic benefit to allowing people to bet on sports at kiosks in retail locations like restaurants and bars, and that the financial and societal costs for such an expansion could be significant. The 2022 law that legalized betting at sportsbooks and with state-approved apps also required the Gaming Commission to conduct a study of the feasibility of allowing retail locations to operate sports wagering kiosks. The results discussed Thursday likely spell an end to consideration of that specific gambling expansion and gave regulators more ammunition to oppose an expansion of slot machines that some lawmakers favor. The commission contracted with New Jersey-based Spectrum Gaming Group, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health, to conduct the study. Spectrum Gaming Group concluded that, "in the big picture, there is little to no economic upside for kiosk hosts and the Commonwealth itself while there is an increased risk of negative social impacts." "Although kiosks could provide modest economic benefits to some small businesses, given the de minimis results in Ohio (an average of less than $225 in direct kiosk revenue per retailer annually) it is uncertain whether kiosk program participants in Massachusetts – hosts, vendors and the Commonwealth – would experience the economic benefit needed to justify the costs and efforts that we believe would be required to support such a program and ensure its commercial viability," the company's report, which is dated May 2 but was presented publicly to the Gaming Commission on Thursday, said. Spectrum added in its report, "Furthermore, the implementation of kiosk sports wagering would require additional vigilance by the Commonwealth in terms of public health (such as underage and problem gambling), societal impacts (such as crime), and regulatory burden, which may not be rationalized by the expected low participation and minimal revenues associated with kiosk wagering." The company recommended that Massachusetts not implement a sports betting kiosk program for retail locations. The group's study focused on three jurisdictions that offer sports wagering kiosks in retail locations on a widespread basis – Montana, Ohio and Washington, D.C. Ohio's structure would be most similar to what Massachusetts has considered, the group said, but it costs more than twice as much for that state's regulators to oversee the kiosk program than the kiosks generate in revenue ($650,000 in annual regulatory costs compared to $305,000 in annual state revenue). Ohio launched its betting kiosks and mobile sports wagering on the same day, "and the kiosks there still barely register on the statewide performance scale," Spectrum noted. The group said it expects that "digital sports wagering will have been well entrenched in consumer behavior" before the first kiosk would be installed in Massachusetts, "perhaps further limiting the upside potential for kiosk hosts." Spectrum interviewed 123 people as part of its report and said many of them expressed a sentiment that it's "too late" for a sports betting kiosk expansion where the state's legal betting landscape has already largely taken shape. "Spectrum observed that the most prominent group advocating for kiosks are restaurant owners in western Massachusetts – i.e., in the area around the MGM Springfield casino – who felt overlooked during the initial efforts to expand gaming in the region," the report said. It was a group of Springfield-area restaurant owners who pushed in 2021 and 2022 for lawmakers to authorize the kiosks as part of the sports betting law, and then pressed for language to at least mandate that the idea be studied by the Gaming Commission. "We have some restaurants and bars that this would be perfect for. It’s not for every restaurant but some would greatly benefit from keeping our patrons in their seats a little longer to watch a Bruins game for example, that they just bet $25 on," Andy Yee, principal managing partner of the Bean Restaurant group that operates restaurants in Massachusetts and Connecticut, said in 2021 when Springfield's Sen. Adam Gomez and Rep. Orlando Ramos filed a sports betting bill that included retail kiosks. "I mean why not?" Almost all the money legally wagered on sports in Massachusetts gets put on the line via a mobile betting platform. In October, more than 98 percent of the $748 million wagered here was bet through a mobile app while less than 2 percent was bet at one of the three physical sportsbooks. A Spectrum Gaming Group representative told commissioners that mobile betting accounts for 97 to 99 percent of the activity in every state that has that option. "Ninety-nine percent of all the bets are done on a phone. I mean, a kiosk would just not make it for these restaurants, who initially -- and I was one of them, by the way -- would have thought that this would have been very helpful to the restaurant industry. But now that we see that it's all being done on the phone, we can see that it really isn't the panacea that some thought it might be," Hill said. Hill also saw an opportunity for regulators to apply the kiosks study's findings to the idea that some lawmakers on Beacon Hill favor to give veterans organizations the ability to host slot machines for their members' use. That idea has been passed a few times by the House, but has not gained traction in the Senate and has been scrapped in negotiations between the branches multiple times, including as recently as this summer. "I think it also is going to help us when we start looking at possibly allowing VFWs -- and it wouldn't be us, by the way, it would be the Legislature that would allow that to happen -- allowing VFWs to possibly have these kiosks to try and make money," he said. "It just isn't the moneymaker that people think that it is. I was surprised, as we have evolved over the last year and a half with sports wagering, and how much goes into the phone and not a kiosk."