EPISODE 182 | LSR Podcast

Will Congress Ban All Sports Betting Ads?

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36 min
Video preview

Will Congress Ban All Sports Betting Ads? | LSR Podcast 182

Join us today on the Legal Sports Report for the latest sports betting news and updates. What are the prospects for a new House bill that would ban sportsbook advertising as we know it? Also, FanDuel stock might become available in the US and the lessons to be learned from the Caesars/William Hill app crashes on Super Bowl Sunday in Nevada.

Full transcript

Matt Brown (00:11):

Hello, and welcome to episode number 182 of the LSR podcast. My name is Matt Brown, joined each and every week by the brightest minds in all of the gaming industry. With me, I have but one, but, boy, is that mind bright. It is Adam Candee. If you want to follow him on the Twitter machine, it’s @AdamCandee, two E’s, no Y, on there. If you hate yourself and you want to follow me, @MattBrownM2.

(00:33):

Going to talk what might go on with Flutter, which could be super interesting. There’s some stuff going on in Nevada that, boy, are we going to have some fun talking about. As well, what’s going on in Massachusetts. And, of course, guys, as always, everything we do, absolutely free. So go ahead, hit that subscribe button. Really do appreciate it. If you’re listening on the podcast, pause for just five seconds and hit the five-star rating, we do appreciate that as well. But, Adam, let’s kick things off here with a federal bill.

Update on sports betting ads ban bill

Adam Candee (01:01):

Well, Matt, this is something that I think the entire industry has to take a little bit of responsibility for when you see that the threat of legislation to curb sports betting advertising has now been dropped in the House of Representatives by Representative Paul Tonko, a Democrat from New York. His bill would ban all sports betting advertising through any medium that the FCC regulates. That, of course, covers TV, radio and the internet, so it would basically be, all sports betting advertising would go away.

(01:35):

We talked to Paul Tonko this week. Matthew Waters had an interview in which he made clear that he’s very serious about this. He said that he believes that the industry has been operating in a largely unregulated environment. I don’t know that I would necessarily agree with that statement, but I’ll give you a quote here: “I think that ever since sports betting became legalized in a widespread fashion, the industry has been operating in, I think, a Wild West, largely unregulated environment. I think you can clearly see this in the wall-to-wall advertising that you can catch any time you tune into a sporting event or you’re scrolling through social media.”

(02:09):

And if you go back on this podcast, and I like being right so I did, I went back about a month or so ago and said that if there was one thing that I thought was going to happen in 2023, it was going to be that federal legislation would be discussed. Now, I didn’t know what it would be about specifically, but here we are with this discussion of a ban on advertising.

(02:32):

We have a story coming out today at Legal Sports Report in which Sam McQuillan was on the AGA’s State of the Industry call, and they discussed wanting to have a conversation with Paul Tonko to talk about educating him, in their words, about the importance of advertising for the gambling industry, and the sports betting industry in particular. But the reason I said, Matt, at the beginning that everyone needs to take a measure of culpability when it comes to this is that we’ve essentially been yelling for years now, “Regulate yourself to some degree or else someone’s going to do it for you.”

(03:07):

Now, is this bill necessarily going to pass? I don’t think so. Paul Tonko has introduced a number of gambling and/or mental health related bills in the past that ultimately haven’t gone anywhere, but the fact that this is even a discussion at the congressional level shows that the industry has not done an effective enough job of regulating itself when it comes to sports betting advertising.

(03:28):

We have praised them on this podcast for not going as hog wild as they did during the 2015 DFS days. And I think that’s right. The advertising has had a different tack, and it has not been as pervasive as it was during that time. And yet, it is still notable enough that we’ve been having this discussion for more than a year. Remember, when we talked about Conan O’Brien tweeting that he was wondering, because he hadn’t seen a sports betting commercial for six seconds, if he was dead. So here we are in a situation where the federal government might ultimately step in on it, Matt. And even the idea that that is a possibility is something that should get a lot of heads snapping in the sports betting world.

Matt Brown (04:12):

Yeah, so I’m going to play devil’s advocate on this, because I got to thinking about this once I read this story and once I saw it come out. So, unlike the DFS days, there was only DraftKings and FanDuel. And so every ad was DraftKings and FanDuel going head-to-head, and it was basically a one-for-one, how many ads can we throw into every single sporting event? I think it feels like a lot, and it might actually still be a lot; however, it’s really not even, in my opinion, comparable to the DFS days because we have DraftKings, we have FanDuel, we have Caesars, we have MGM. If you live in a state like Nevada, you have Station that’s running ads. You have another local book that’s running ads. It’s probably the same in all the other states out there where there might be even more kind of localized advertising as well to go along with the big national ads.

(05:05):

And so, if you think about it, even if there’s only one commercial every other break and it’s not even the same book, it still feels like a lot. But, I mean, if you’re DraftKings, are you not going to advertise in a game in which all your competitors are? Same deal with FanDuel or MGM or Caesars or whatever it might be. And so it’s kind of one of those deals where I think it feels like a lot because there’s just a lot of books, but it’s not necessarily like the ads are being flooded by a singular entity or anything like that.

Adam Candee (05:35):

I don’t even know that you are necessarily playing devil’s advocate because I think we’re both drawing a contrast from the DFS days, but I also think that, compared to 2015, the methods of delivery for this advertising are more pervasive as well. This talks about TV, radio and internet. What about podcasts, right? What about the broadcast channels that you and I have been a part of in which we’ve been reading ads for various sportsbooks, even when we’re not on necessarily sports betting related spaces? So I agree that it’s not the same as it was, but at the same time it also hasn’t been right in a lot of steps.

(06:14):

We’ve talked about the fact that in Ohio, where some violations were settled today actually, our Matthew Waters has a story about that at Legal Sports Report, that there are fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars that are being paid for advertising being direct mailed to people under the age of 21. Essentially what it looks like, and I’m not quoting this directly from the settlement, but it looks like DraftKings used this DFS list instead of using a sports betting list, and that was allowed to be 18 and over as opposed to 21 and over, and that caused them to pick up a huge fine.

(06:49):

We’re going to talk about some things later on the podcast, about some violations that I think were also fairly obvious. And they’re not necessarily related to advertising, but they are clearly things that should have been self-regulated. The Barstool violation in Ohio is about having a college football show on a college campus in which a preregistration offer was discussed. That’s the simple stuff right there. And that might not be TV, radio, internet. It might not be necessarily what Representative Tonko is talking about. But in the idea of perception being reality, they’re going to go after it in the way that they can go after it, and he’s going to look at it and say, “Well, how can I get at this? I can get at this at the federal level through the FCC.”

Matt Brown (07:31):

Yeah, and the interesting thing, too, about this is well, if you feel like there’s a lot now or it’s too much … I mean, we know now Barstool is going to do traditional media, they’re going to do traditional advertising. At some point I’m imagining that Fanatics is also going to realize that just sending out stuff to their email list probably isn’t going to work either; they’re probably going to have to do traditional ads. Bet365 is ramping up and saying that they’re going to be a little more aggressive; they’re probably going to do ads as well.

(07:59):

And again, it’s one of those things where I don’t know if there’s a right answer for this other than the right answer being like you’re saying, don’t do it in the wrong way, right? But as far as running them back or tempering the stuff, putting the toothpaste back in the tube, I don’t really know if that’s necessarily the right answer. Because, Adam, at the end of the day, one of the things we keep advocating for in all of this is we actually want people, if they are sports betting, to be betting on one of these legal sites. Awareness is still a thing, and making sure that people know of these and that they’re available and all the various stuff like that.

(08:35):

So I don’t know. I don’t know what the right answer is here. I don’t know if there is a right answer other than doing it correctly, right? Not marketing to the wrong people, etc., etc., but as far as the frequency, and how often, and how many should be allowed, and this, that and the other, I don’t think banning all of it is the right answer, either.

Adam Candee (08:52):

Well, some of this discussion I think also has to come back to who is allowing the advertising on their airwaves. And I’m not talking about the stations, I’m talking about when you have NFL partnerships, when you have NBA partnerships. I’m talking about all of the integrations that are all through broadcasts, right? When we’re in the middle of a broadcast, when we’re talking about an NBA broadcast in which, before the game starts, you have the personalities like Jalen Rose talking about what their best bet is. That’s the kind of thing that’s also pervasive.

(09:22):

The activations aren’t necessarily just about, there are X number of ads on the show. So yeah, maybe … I guess I’ll go back on myself a little bit. Maybe some of it is targeted at the ESPNs and Foxes of the world in terms of how they try to include these activations, how far they’re willing to go with the sportsbooks. When it comes to the NFL and you’re talking about, “Is there an ad every other break?” Well, they have a certain amount of partnerships and the NFL is making money off this now, too.

(09:47):

So I think that’s why at the beginning of this I said it’s everyone’s responsibility. I don’t think you have to look directly at the sportsbooks and say, “Hey, get your house in order.” There are certain things, like you said, that need to be done properly that you can say to them, “Get their house in order.” But when you look at what Tonko said, you can say, this is a direct quote, “Even worse, I think these advertisements are largely predatory in nature with big gambling companies offering risk-free or no sweat bets while simultaneously offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in free bets. I think the tactics have one clear purpose, and that’s to hook and retain a new generation of customers.”

(10:23):

Some of that is true. Some of that absolutely is true. Of course, they’re trying to hook and retain new customers, like any business in the world, but he gets to a good point. And I think we’ve seen the sea change coming in the industry with the Ohio regulations that some of the nature of how this advertising is put out there in terms of free, in terms of ease, in terms of simplicity, this needs to be talked about in a different way. And I’ll be very honest, it’s something that I at Legal Sports Report, with a lot of the content that we do, I’m extremely vigilant when it comes to how we refer to these things. Because there are some of them that I think it’s very easy, when you’re talking about a business, you can talk about it in a manner that you talk about other businesses that gaming and gambling is not necessarily the form for.

Matt Brown (11:10):

Yeah, I honestly think we’re probably going to end up morphing towards more of just back via even the online poker days back in the day, just basic deposit bonuses, like you’re saying, not necessarily where you get these risk-free bets and things like that, where it feels like people are coming in and there’s nothing at risk whatsoever. No, it’s like, “Deposit this, then we’ll match it as you like over time,” and all the different stuff like that. And you don’t get this instant gratification either, because you kind of have to grind away to get that bonus and all the stuff. So I think that’s where we might evolve to in all of this because I do agree with even some of these sentiments, some of the language, some of the things like that.

(11:53):

And we have actually seen, I saw being down there … And when I say down there, I just got back from being down in Phoenix.

(11:59):

… The language had changed. So there has been that, where we saw in Ohio, where they’re like, “Hey, we don’t like this language.” And the rest of the states, well, at least the major players, have taken notice of that and their wording definitely has changed. It’s no longer free bet, it’s no longer risk-free, none of that stuff like that. So they did at least start to do that, so some self-policing even after a little slap on the wrist and stuff from another state. So we’ll see how it all plays out, but it’s certainly a super interesting deal.

(12:30):

And this always brings me back to the stuff where I used to … I’ve been making this argument for 20 years through all this, but it’s kind of like what we’re OK with and then what we’re not OK with, and it’s just because something has just become normal and then we are OK with it. There’s a beer ad every single commercial break, too, right? And, I mean, there’s a liquor ad every single whatever. We’re fine with that, and it’s just because it’s been happening for several decades, and this is the new shiny toy that we’re kind of like, “Ah, no.” So again, to me it’s something that I think certainly needs to be refined. Certainly, we need to make sure that there is no predatory stuff going on and, certainly, that it’s targeted towards the right humans on this planet, but I think banning it doesn’t really do all that much good in my opinion. In my opinion.

Adam Candee (13:16):

Yeah. I mean, to your point, Matt, think about the length of time that the alcohol industry has been regulated and the arc of what it has looked like in the United States, right? We are nowhere near getting to prohibition when it comes to sports betting advertising. We’ve only been doing it for five years, right?

Matt Brown (13:35):

Right.

Adam Candee (13:36):

We’ve been doing this for five years. We’re still kind of figuring out the right way for it to look, but we have lessons that we can learn from other places, like the UK, like in Europe, that have done this before, and we’ve seen what the mistakes have been, and you can learn from those mistakes. You don’t have to go through the same ups and downs that have happened. And, yes, to your point, there is beer advertising all over the place, but, my God, alcohol is an industry that is regulated in a much different way than, at least, sports betting advertising is. I do think people don’t understand just how heavily the gaming industry itself is regulated.

Matt Brown (14:12):

So this is a company that you and I have talked about several different times on this podcast because, mainly, if you don’t know what Flutter is, it could be confusing because, of course, it’s called Flutter. And so, if you don’t know what they own and what kind of entity they are, you really don’t really know a lot about all this company. So they are not currently on the US stock market; they are overseas, but not here. So whereas you can go get MGM stock or Caesar stock or DraftKings stock, etc., etc., Penn stock, whatever it might be, you could not get stock in FanDuel here in the United States. Now, again, available overseas. FanDuel, of course, widely the number one market leader in the majority of states out there, Adam, so this is at least some news that I’m sure a lot of people are kind of perking up about.

Adam Candee (15:04):

It kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and I was going to church on the big holidays and they would say like, “So-and-so begat so-and-so, who begat so-and-so, who begat so-and-so,” and they take you through the whole genealogy. So here we’re sitting and I’m like, “Hey, remember Paddy Power? Hey, remember Betfair? Hey, remember Paddy Power Betfair?”

Matt Brown (15:25):

Right.

Adam Candee (15:26):

Right? OK, that’s all Flutter, right? Here we are.

Matt Brown (15:27):

Yeah, I remember.

Adam Candee (15:28):

It’s all Flutter now.

Matt Brown (15:29):

That’s no longer — it’s just … Yeah, it’s Flutter.

Adam Candee (15:32):

And don’t worry about any of it, you’ve just got to know Flutter. If you know Flutter, you know FanDuel. And if you know FanDuel, well, you don’t know FOX Bet, but that’s just a separate situation.

FanDuel stock to trade in US?

(15:40):

No, here we are now with Flutter putting out an announcement that it’s going to talk with its shareholders about whether to do a larger Flutter listing in the US. Now, going back two years, we’ve been having the discussion of, will there be a FanDuel IPO? Would Flutter spin out a small amount of FanDuel for a public listing? And that, of course, came during a time when it was a much more favorable market environment to talk about trying to go into the stock market. 2022 was not a great time for anyone to be in the stock market and Flutter sat that out. It was also going through its CEO transition from Matt King to Amy Howe during that time.

(16:22):

So now, what we’re seeing is they’re going to talk to their shareholders and see how do they want to go about this. And naturally, listing in the US would give Flutter access to a lot deeper capital markets. They list that as one of five reasons in Matthew Water’s story about this as to why they would choose to do this listing. And another one that Matthew pointed out is the trading volume that would be available to them. I want to make sure I read this stat correctly because I found it to be just a remarkable stat in terms of the volume that Flutter does in any one given day in London versus what happens with DraftKings. Flutter stock currently does not see the volume on its London listing that it could in the US. The company’s average volume according to Yahoo Finance is 632,000 trades daily. That compares to the average daily volume of DraftKings, which sits at nearly 12.8 million. So, yeah, a little different.

Matt Brown (17:19):

A little different with all that one. It’s certainly something we’re going to follow pretty heavily because I would imagine that, should they come over to the states, there’ll probably be some decent interest, I would imagine, in Flutter over here. So we will keep you guys abreast of all of that.

(17:35):

Let’s head to Massachusetts, Adam. And Massachusetts, of course, another state that we have talked about a lot here over the last couple of months here on the pod. So what are we looking at from the old college wagering standpoint?

Adam Candee (17:51):

All right, Matt, quiz time. This isn’t even Geography Matt, this is just College Matt. Are you ready to be College Matt for a minute here?

Matt Brown (17:57):

Let’s do it.

Adam Candee (17:59):

OK, we’re going to start with the easiest and work our way to the hardest. OK—

Matt Brown (18:02):

LSU.

Adam Candee (18:04):

Is not in Massachusetts.

Matt Brown (18:06):

OK, OK. Yeah, yeah, yes, yep, yeah, yeah.

Adam Candee (18:07):

OK. So, good. You’re off to a great note. You’re off to a great start. You’re one for one. Is Boston College in the state of Massachusetts?

Matt Brown (18:15):

It is.

Adam Candee (18:17):

Oh, look at you, two for two, off to a flying start. Is Harvard University in Massachusetts?

Matt Brown (18:23):

It is. Right? Right? Can I do another one?

Adam Candee (18:24):

Oh, man. You got one more.

Matt Brown (18:26):

UMass.

Adam Candee (18:29):

UMass, you right, it is in Massachusetts.

Matt Brown (18:32):

Yes.

Adam Candee (18:33):

You nailed it. I’m going to go one deeper, is Merrimack in Massachusetts?

Matt Brown (18:39):

How about Tufts University?

Adam Candee (18:42):

Tufts. Tufts is. In fact, my cousin went to Tufts.

Matt Brown (18:45):

There you go. Look at that.

Adam Candee (18:47):

Merrimack as well. So all three of the in-person sportsbooks that opened just a couple of weeks ago in Massachusetts, they’ve all been either, well, let’s say, noticed of violations or self-reported violations for allowing in-state college wagers on those schools that I just mentioned. The Boston College women’s team, Harvard men’s team and Merrimack men’s team, each casino of the three allowed wagers on at least one of those and self-reported the violations to the state, and they blamed it largely on their vendors.

Matt Brown (19:30):

Right.

Adam Candee (19:31):

Kambi apparently had Merrimack listed as a Florida school and not a Massachusetts school. Look, let’s just talk real talk here for a second. If Merrimack slips, whatever, maybe somebody there didn’t realize that Merrimack out of the Northeast Conference was a Massachusetts school, all right, fine, whatever. You should have known, but you didn’t. BC and Harvard? BC and Harvard. Come on.

Matt Brown (20:02):

Yes, yes. Yeah. I’m with you.

Adam Candee (20:06):

Come on, Massachusetts, step it up.

Matt Brown (20:08):

I’m with you. I’m with you.

Adam Candee (20:08):

And it’s not just the New York in me. It’s not just the New York in me saying, “Get it together, Massachusetts.” I mean, it’s a little bit, but it’s really not that primarily.

Matt Brown (20:18):

I look at this, and, listen, we’ve said this 1,000 times on here, so we don’t have to go into it, we think the rule is ridiculous. I mean, you can wager on everything except colleges in states. We think it’s absolutely ridiculous, but, whatever, rules are rules are rules are rules, and so they all have to be followed no matter what we actually think about them.

Adam Candee (20:39):

Correct.

Matt Brown (20:40):

Yeah, it’s just one of those things. And by the way, legislators out there, I know some of you listen: This is the dumbest of the dumb rules. The prevention of the in-state college, it’s the dumbest of the dumb rules.

Adam Candee (20:54):

We know what you think you’re doing.

Matt Brown (20:56):

Yes.

Adam Candee (20:57):

We know what you think is happening, that you’re protecting the vulnerable college students in-state, but especially … Let’s talk about the Northeast. You want to talk about Massachusetts? Let’s talk about Massachusetts. Oh no, I can’t bet on Harvard in Boston? I guess I’ll drive over the border to Rhode Island or Connecticut or New Hampshire and I’ll bet on them there. It’s just silly.

Matt Brown (21:19):

Or, keep going with my bookie, or my offshore or my …

Adam Candee (21:24):

Yeah, or offshore.

Matt Brown (21:25):

Yeah, whatever. So there’s also that. So again, it’s just the dumbest of the dumb ones so get rid of that one. Whatever, we can deal with some of the other stuff, get rid of that one. That one’s the dumbest of the dumb ones.

(21:34):

So here’s my favorite story of the day.

Adam Candee (21:36):

Oh, I saved it for last for you.

Super Bowl toppled Caesars app

Matt Brown (21:38):

I actually had to. I actually did, right before we came on, just to make sure that it is still the case. And as we are sitting here recording this on a Wednesday at 12:43 local time, it is, in fact, still the case, Adam. So it is, in fact, still the case, cannot, in fact, log on to William Hill.

Adam Candee (22:03):

Or Caesars in Nevada, considering they are one and the same in the state of Nevada. I first got a text from one of my friends at about 3:00p, so about a half-hour before the Super Bowl broadcast was starting up, with just a screenshot of the William Hill app being down. I thought, “Oh, that seems like unfortunate timing,” but it would not be the first time that I’ve had someone tell me about William Hill issues at a big time. Basically, every NFL Sunday at about 9:45 a.m., you can bet that there’s going to be a minute or two of downtime with that app, but usually it comes right back and no big deal.

Matt Brown (22:42):

Yes.

Adam Candee (22:42):

It did not come back during the Super Bowl, or Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday. These apps, both the William Hill app and the Caesars Nevada app. And we need to be very clear, the Caesars Nevada app is a different app than the rest of the Caesars app throughout the United States. We confirmed, because it was the one question I had to have an answer to, were these apps still on the old technology, even though we had heard that everything was moving over to the Liberty platform in 2022?

Matt Brown (23:14):

Right.

Adam Candee (23:15):

It turns out, they didn’t. It’s all still on the old tech, and it crashed during the Super Bowl. And, Matt, as you know well, there are limited live betting options in the state of Nevada in the first place, and William Hill is one of the only semi-reliable ones that there is from the jump.

Matt Brown (23:31):

Yes.

Adam Candee (23:33):

So there is no timetable for these apps to restart. They apparently have retail back up at all of the William Hill-powered outlets throughout Nevada. All those were also down during the Super Bowl. So it’s basically a giant shrug emoji right now as to what’s going to happen moving forward with these apps. We don’t know if they’re currently migrating them to the new tech. We don’t know if they’re just trying to get the old tech working again. We don’t know if you bet on the Super Bowl in the two weeks leading up to it if you’re going to get paid out anytime soon. Are you sitting on a Chiefs future? Well, you might be sitting for a while.

Matt Brown (24:09):

It’s super, super interesting. It is super. And I think the one thing for us to point out as well is they are, by far, the market leader as far as handle in the state, as well. So it’s one of those other deals where you look and you go, “Oh, it’s not just that William Hill went down.” It’s that it’s like, by far, the market leader. I think the last thing I got from Eilers said they estimated them to have 44% of the handle in the state or something ridiculous like that, which is just unbelievable for a state like Nevada. And so, for them to be down this long, still as we sit here at 12:45 Pacific on a Wednesday, cannot log into your account, which means also can’t get your money out, can’t do all these different things like that.

(24:57):

It’s a fairly interesting situation, Adam. And this just really goes to us, as well, harping about this for a couple of years now on this, that the technology is so old and bad in Nevada, it is like light years behind the rest of country. If you are listening to this, rest of country, you really and truly don’t know how well you have it. I know you have complaints about this, that, and the other, but you really and truly don’t know how well you have it, because the technology that we have here is absolutely Stone Age. I mean, it is Stone Age. You would laugh if you opened some of these apps here. So the fact that this is happening, it’s funny. We’re even getting some shots fired, some friendly fire going on here in the state, got a Station’s promo that said “the most reliable app in Nevada,” it said. Which, by the way, I don’t know if that’s the case, Adam.

Adam Candee (25:48):

Oh, my God.

Matt Brown (25:49):

I don’t know if that’s the case, Adam.

Adam Candee (25:50):

I don’t know if that’s the case. But when you’re getting dragged by Steven Money, something has gone wrong in your life.

Matt Brown (26:00):

It is hilarious with all of that. But how did Nevada end up … Despite the app problems that were here, how did it end up from Super Bowl handle standpoint?

Adam Candee (26:09):

Well, maybe not despite. Nevada handle was down 14% from last year’s Super Bowl, not a number that is outside of the margin of error, I think. It’s not a number that I think will send anybody screaming into the streets saying, what we’ve been hearing for five years, “Nevada’s dead,” or, “Nevada’s going to be dead,” but it’s notable, because two of the numbers that you mentioned …

Matt Brown (26:30):

It is.

Adam Candee (26:30):

The last estimate we had from Caesars CEO Tom Reeg, he said on a 2021 earnings call that they had 50% of the market. And so that is obviously massive when it comes to the state of Nevada, where there is no FanDuel, there is no DraftKings, and the BetMGM and Caesars technology is light years behind what they have everywhere else. Oh, by the way, the bookmakers don’t mind it at all. They are very happy with the status quo of where things are with that, which is part of the reason we don’t get it fixed, quiet as it’s kept.

(27:01):

But in the end, I think there are multiple factors at play here. And I want to kind of set you up to talk a little bit about this, Matt, because we saw a tweet from Jimmy Vaccaro over at the South Point, who referenced the fact that Chris Andrews, who’s the sportsbook director, had said to him that he thought Arizona being live and having the Super Bowl, of course, was going to affect Nevada handle. And with both the Waste Management Open going on in Scottsdale and the Super Bowl, of course, going on in Glendale, and you were there for both of them, it does appear that there was some effect.

Matt Brown (27:34):

Yeah. I think that everything you’ve said, all is the reason for the decline because, again, when you have that much of a market share in Nevada and, as you mentioned, the live options, which we heard several books come out and say they expected 20% of the handle for the Super Bowl to be live bet and whatever. And so when you have one of the few apps that actually does have kind of live-ish betting and works at least semi-well within the state, and it’s not live and you can’t do any of that, that’s got to affect handle for the state for sure. And I certainly do believe … Listen, the other thing about this, and you know living over in Henderson whereas I’m way up in Summerlin, if you want to and if you’re a serious sports better, it is not that bad of a drive to the Arizona border if you need to go make some bets, specifically when there’s so many more markets available there, so many different ways to get it. I think all of that together certainly had something to do with this.

(28:32):

I’m not saying that this is a step towards, like you mentioned, the fall of Nevada or anything like that, or Vegas, or whatever it might be, but I think it is something that hopefully resonates, at least just a little bit, with some of these guys that like, “Hey, look, you are not the only game in town anymore. There are going to be a lot of people coming to town next year,” which, by the way, the Super Bowl is in Las Vegas next year, “There’s going to be a lot of people coming to town who are accustomed to being able to bet very easily on these very highly technical apps and have these menus that are so robust and all of that that you don’t have here in Nevada.”

(29:12):

And so I would like to think that maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here, but here’s the fact of the matter, Adam, I don’t think that there is. You mentioned it; they don’t really care. We were supposed to have the new MGM app here by December, wasn’t it, or something, or January they thought, or whatever it was? We still are on the old MGM app. There’s still that going on. So it is a lot of interesting stuff.

(29:37):

I will say, while I was down there, I did have a couple people come up within the industry and say that they enjoyed this here very podcast. So thanks to all of those people that did do that, that said, basically, there’s a lot of stuff going on each and every week. It’s hard to keep up with it coming in. And getting a 20-, 25-, 30-minute recap of everything throughout the course of the week is a big help on making sure that they stay abreast of everything that’s happening in the industry. So you, and your team, and everybody that can help make this podcast easy for us to do, certainly deserve a pat on the back for that.

Adam Candee (30:08):

Well, thank you, and thank you to those people who came out and reached out to you down there. And let me just dig into your experience a little bit more there, Matt, because you were on Radio Row, you were at the Waste Management. What did you see with the sports betting presence? What was the sort of feel of all of that?

Matt Brown (30:27):

So DraftKings and FanDuel, massive booths, like massive presence, like as big as you could find. Not anything from the smaller guys, as you would imagine. There was a Caesars presence. It was not prominent, and it was much smaller, kind of over in a not very highly trafficked area. That said, I mean, you had DraftKings and FanDuel taking full advantage of everything, right? I mean, they brought out all the big guns for both of them. DraftKings doing programming with Mike Golic Jr., and having all those guys come out. McAfee did his show from the FanDuel thing, so the Pat McAfee Show.

(31:08):

So they brought out the big guns and, honestly, they were the ones that had the biggest crowd around. Now, fans weren’t allowed in, but, still, even just media presence was around, really, those two stages when it came to the sports betting side of things. I saw nothing from PointsBet. I didn’t see anything from MGM either that was set up, at least on Radio Row. Now, of course, PointsBet doesn’t really have a dedicated production arm or any kind of anything like that, kind of the same thing for MGM, as to where Caesars does do at least a little bit of their own programming and stuff. So it was interesting.

(31:45):

I can only imagine, though, here in Vegas next year, even though none of them are here, I mean, I guess MGM and Caesars are here technically with the old versions of everything or something, but I imagine we see a much, much bigger and even more prominent presence for all of the sports betting stuff. Because, again, here, it’s not even new, right? It’s old hat. Everybody is used to gambling stuff being around. I can only imagine that we have everybody kind of set up and doing something down there.

Adam Candee (32:17):

No, without question. And then to add to what you said, FanDuel has the retail presence downtown, but obviously the app’s not there. And I think we’re going to hear a lot coming into next year with the Super Bowl as to why some of these companies are not in the state of Nevada.

Matt Brown (32:30):

Yeah.

Adam Candee (32:30):

And you talked about the ease that people are going to expect when they arrive for the Super Bowl. Just think back to the NFL Draft this past year and how many people were showing up on draft day and were unable to bet on the draft because of the arcane rule in Nevada that all betting ends 24 hours before the NFL and NBA draft.

Matt Brown (32:50):

Right.

Adam Candee (32:50):

So there’s just a lot that hopefully will be looked at. I don’t know that it’ll make any sort of major difference, but I do think there’s going to be a larger spotlight shined on it all.

Matt Brown (33:00):

Nevada regulators, if you are listening to this, Adam Candee is available to come down and talk to you. He will talk to you. He will not be condescending and he will not tell you anything that only benefits him. He just will tell you how it works in the rest of the country and why some of the laws in Nevada don’t really make sense as we move forward. I’m volunteering you, Adam. I’m telling you that this is something that the world needs you to do. So just send the guy an email, get in his DMs, whatever it is. He’ll come down, he’ll talk to everyone, and we can at least start to maybe move in the right direction in what is supposed to be the sports betting capital of the world. Which, let me tell you, I mean, being in Phoenix was pretty awesome. I’ll put it like … being in Phoenix was pretty awesome for the Waste Management and for the Super Bowl and being able to live bet that stuff and all that.

(33:49):

Adam, there’s live top 20 markets in the golf stuff. You can live bet as the tournament is happening top 20 markets on multiple apps down there. I was live betting, live betting, the MVP of the Super Bowl as the markets are shifting, as the game is progressing. It’s just so, so, so, so awesome.

Adam Candee (34:11):

We sound like pioneers who went farther west and you’re like, “There’s gold in them hills.”

Matt Brown (34:17):

I know. It’s true. It’s true. And there is. It felt like it. It felt like I struck gold. It really and truly did.

Adam Candee (34:23):

Right?

Matt Brown (34:23):

Guys, everything we do here, absolutely free. So again, please subscribe, rate, review. That’s the only thing we ask of you. Hit the little pause button, go down, hit the subscribe. If you could give us a rating, even a review, even better, because that’ll help us climb the charts. And, of course, if you’re watching this over on the YouTube, subscribe button down below. Of course, we will be doing a lot more stuff here on the YouTube. Adam and company, everything we talk about, over on LegalSportsReport.com, so it sure is nice of you to head over there and read the words of all the guys that are putting in the time to get these stories out. And if you want to follow Adam on the Twitter machine, @AdamCandee, that is two E’s, no Y. For Adam, I’m Matt. Talk to you guys next week.

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