EVERETT, MA —State Rep. Jerry Parisella (D-Beverly) heard the same things over and over again across the North Shore whenever it was time for a big game.

While Sports Gambling legislation sputtered and stalled in the Massachusetts state legislature year after year, the state’s residents were still betting on the games.

They just were driving over the border to do it.

“We were surrounded by Sports Betting,” Parisella told Patch at the Encore Boston Harbor Casino on the first day of legal sports gambling in the state on Tuesday. “New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York all have it. I had so many constituents saying:’Hey, I’m driving up to Seabrook (NH) to bet’ and so forth.

“To me, it made a lot of sense. Get that revenue back into our coffers.”

(Read on Patch: Place Your Bets: Stars Align On First Day Of MA Legal Sports Gambling)

So as some Beacon Hill leadership shrugged off sports gambling as a low priority amid the COVID-19 health crisis and other overriding pressing needs, Parisella met with groups both supportive and initially opposed to its expansion into the Commonwealth while holding informational sessions about the benefits — beyond the entertainment value — it could provide.

“Some of the money that is generated with this can help with those programs,” he argued, adding that estimates were that 30 percent of Super Bowl bets placed last year in New Hampshire came from Massachusetts residents. “Forty-five percent of the money is going back to the general fund so we can spend that on housing, transportation — things that people really care about. Twenty-seven-and-a-half percent is going back to the cities and towns so they can pay for roads, and teachers, pay for firefighters.

“So this will put that money to good use.”

Last year — four years after the Supreme Court declared sports betting legal across the country and three years after New Hampshire legalized it for residents willing to make the relatively short drive to parking lots and outposts right over the border to place their bets — momentum finally turned in favor of bringing it to Massachusetts.

“We made incremental progress thanks to Jerry meeting with all the groups that had concerns,” State House Speaker Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) said on Tuesday. “As we knocked down those concerns, we began to feel like this is going to happen. The Senate was reluctant. I don’t think you had as many folks familiar with the games and sports betting in the Senate as you had in the House. It was that simple.

“But I think our vote was 157-3 in the House. You don’t get much better than that in the House. I can’t get 160 votes on what day it is.”

Five months after sports gambling became legal in the state the first bets were placed at the Encore Boston Harbor Casino in Everett, MGM Springfield and Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville on Tuesday. By mid-March, nearly a dozen outlets are expected to get the go-ahead to launch their mobile wagering platforms.

Each will pay a $5 million licensing fee every five years with state tax revenues projected statewide at between $25 million and $65 million the first year.

“Four years ago I first filed sports betting legislation and I’m excited that (Tuesday) at 10 a.m. in-person betting will be up and running with mobile to follow in March,” State Sen. Brendan Crighton (D-Lynn) said on Tuesday. “Legalized sports betting in Massachusetts will bring people out of the shadows into a regulated market, while also creating significant revenue and the strongest consumer protections in the country.”

Parisella noted that the protections include the ability to “self-exclude” themselves from casinos and websites — essentially pre-registering to have themselves banned from betting — and that nine percent of revenue will go toward public health programs that deal with problem gambling.

Casino bettors must be at least 21 years old and must make their bets in cash — while mobile and online gamblers will have to have their bets tethered to a debit card — theoretically making it harder for people to bet money they do not have.

“People were going to bookies in an unregulated market,” Parisella said. “So now we have protections for them.

“The bottom line is that in Massachusetts we’re sports-crazy. We love our pro teams. People were clamoring to bet. This is going to provide them an opportunity to have some fun, have some entertainment, and do it in a safer manner than going to the illegal market.”

Parisella said North Shore bettors will also get a better deal than they did in those Seabrook parking lots with New Hampshire taxing wagers at 51 percent, while Massachusetts taxes at 15 percent for retail (casino) bets and will tax 20 percent for mobile/online.

“So we have better odds in Massachusetts,” he said. “They are going to like our odds more than in New Hampshire.

“This may be the first time people will be coming from New Hampshire to Massachusetts to spend their money — so that’s great.”

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)