EPISODE 204 | LSR Podcast

Will Sports Betting Ads Flood NFL Games Again This Year? | Sports Betting News

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30 min
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Will Sports Betting Ads Flood NFL Games Again This Year? | Sports Betting News | LSR Podcast 204

State regulators are already talking about what to do with the next wave of sports betting advertising ahead of the 2023 NFL season. Also, the crew talks about whether the NFL is doing enough to educate players about gambling rules, which sportsbooks will launch next week in Kentucky, and why a small player in the US is weighing in on the ESPN Bet deal.

Full transcript

Matt Brown (00:07):

Hello, and welcome to episode number 204 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 two of those, Adam Candee and Dustin Gouker. You can follow them on … Do we call it X now?

Adam Candee (00:23):

Nope. Absolutely not. No. The LSR style guide will never ever change.

Matt Brown (00:27):

It’s still the Twitter. All right. What’s even worse, have you started to see people go, “as posted on X” in parentheses “formerly known as Twitter?” It’s like, what are you doing?

Adam Candee (00:38):

That’s AP style now. That’s what the Associated Press has gone with, and they feel like they have to. And no, you know what? You don’t have to. I don’t work for the Associated Press.

Dustin Gouker (00:46):

The thing also, they haven’t redirected the website. It is still twitter.com. Tweets post as x.com. Anyway, it’s still Twitter. It’s Twitter until we all die. That’s fine.

Matt Brown (00:59):

I know. If you’re going to take the time to be formerly known as Twitter, just call it Twitter then or move to X, but don’t give me both. I don’t want both anymore. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Apple, Spotify, Google, all the places you get your podcasts, please go in, subscribe, rate, review. We really do appreciate that. And if you’re over on the video side, hey, how are you doing? Go ahead, hit that subscribe button over on the YouTube. We do appreciate it. Everything we do, absolutely free at legalsportsreport.com. Talk some Kentucky stuff. We will talk some NFL, how they are educating their players and whatnot. Betr is out there doing stuff in the public. But Adam, listen, let’s go ahead and kick things off here with something that we knew was going to be a thing. I guess the question now is just how big of a thing it is going to be.

Next wave of sports betting advertising ahead of 2023 NFL season

(01:46):

As everybody knows, we are in the final week of NFL preseason. There is an off week, and then we are getting into the NFL season for the next 18 weeks. For the regular season, of course, playoffs and Super Bowl to follow. So with that, we know the acquisition period is basically football. We know that is where they are going to get the majority of their new customers. It is the easiest time to reach people because even the most casual sports fan is still watching NFL games. They’re watching Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, and sitting in front of the TV on Sunday. So what kind of ads are we going to see as we head into the biggest time of the year for these sportsbooks?

Adam Candee (02:24):

I think the question that we’re dealing with this week is, how are state-level regulators going to look at this advertising? And that’s why we’re talking about it here right now, beyond the fact that it’s the beginning of NFL season, because this week, a group of gaming regulators from across North America got together, and one of the main topics of discussion was, how are we going to deal with sports betting advertising? Now, let’s set a little bit of backdrop here. According to iSpot, last year, sports betting commercials totaled up to $315 million of spend. A lot of companies that are involved in this space have said that they are going to reduce their marketing budgets this year. We’ll see if the deluge looks quite the same as it has been in the past.

(03:04):

Now, we don’t believe that it’s going away by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just a question of how much will there be. And for some of the regulators, the question is, are we getting it too soon? The folks in Maine are concerned that they’re already seeing a lot of ads that are leaking over state borders. The folks in Connecticut responded by saying, “You know what? We saw the exact same thing before we went live.” Folks in Kansas came in and said, “If you give these folks an inch,” talking about the sportsbooks and their advertisements, “they’ll take a mile.” Now, the folks in Connecticut came back and said, “Well, you know what? You have to push back on them. And when we’ve pushed back on them, they’ve responded with better disclaimers and clear information” and so on.

(03:45):

And I think the point that I wanted to make in talking about this is it shouldn’t be a situation where regulators are worried about these companies taking a mile when they’re given an inch, but there is good faith in the idea that when the regulators do what they’re there to do, which is say, “Hey, hey, no, stop, this is too much,” or, “Hey, you need to tweak this,” or, “Hey, you can’t do that,” then the sportsbooks generally have been responsive. We as an industry, I think, would love to see a little more proactive approach as opposed to a reactive approach. But I think it’s important that we have this discussion about how regulators are looking at advertising because obviously we’ve seen efforts from the federal level to regulate sports betting ads. We saw a bill dropped earlier this year in Congress to potentially limit severely the amount of advertising that could be on FCC-approved channels.

(04:33):

So getting ahead of the conversation continues to be where I think this industry needs to be. And right now is when the conversation is about to ramp up again. We’re going to hear all of the complaining. We’re going to see the think pieces about, oh my goodness, advertising with sports betting. The more the conversation can be had between regulators and sportsbooks ahead of time and not be reactive to these things, the better it is for everybody overall.

Matt Brown (04:56):

So Dustin, when we take a look at this, we have had a couple of the major operators out there say they were at least going to pull back a little bit on their ad spending, so we’ll see what that looks like as we head into the fall. We hadn’t heard much from DraftKings and FanDuel as to what their strategy is going to be. We know that bet365 we think is starting to get into the fold a little bit more. Will we start to see a bunch more of their ads in the states that they’re legal in? Fanatics is coming into the markets that they’re in. Will we start to see Fanatics commercials, as well?

(05:27):

And I think we hinted at this a little bit last year, and it feels like it’s a lot, but there’s just a lot of different sportsbooks. So if it’s one ad from all of them, it feels like, oh my god, we’re getting credit. But it’s not like the DFS days of the past where it was only DraftKings and FanDuel and literally every other commercial is DraftKings and FanDuel going on. It’s there’s a lot of sportsbooks, and so even if they’re only running one ad every 90 minutes, it still feels like you’re getting just a ridiculous amount of ads.

Dustin Gouker (05:57):

And I think we’ve been saying, “I feel like there’s this pullback on marketing,” but is this the time to stop marketing? This is the time to do your marketing. If you’re keeping your powder dry for week one of the NFL and just around that. So maybe we’ll see less ads, but if I’m DraftKings and FanDuel, this is when I’m still trying to acquire users and create brand awareness, get them betting on my app. So maybe MGM and Caesars are a little less than Fanatics come in there. Who knows? It’ll be fascinating to see. But we’re not going to see this drop to zero, either. It might be less. It might be still a lot, but I think you’re right. There’s just going to be always a lot of ads just because there are lots of sportsbooks.

(06:40):

I think the other thing I want to point out, and this is less of a TV ad regulatory thing than just in general, but there’s a lot of hand wringing about advertising with sportsbooks, and I’m going to get up on my soapbox again. And you know who doesn’t have to deal with all that nonsense? Daily fantasy sports sites offering prop parlays. They get none of this smoke. This is what makes me angry whenever we come and talk about regulation. Adam wants me to stop yacking.

Adam Candee (07:07):

I don’t want you to stop yacking. I’m actually impressed at the pivot.

Dustin Gouker (07:11):

I know.

Adam Candee (07:12):

I’m super, super impressed at where you took that. That was deft. I am proud of you.

Dustin Gouker (07:16):

I’m going to talk about this every chance I get. But when you talk about this, we’re getting a lot of smoke for regulated sports betting when, again, offshore isn’t doing TV, but they’re doing plenty of other advertising. You see the Underdogs and the PrizePicks doing lots. If PrizePicks start doing TV advertising, they have a lot of money and want to get a lot of users. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a PrizePicks commercial. And who’s not getting smoke from regulators or they have some DFS laws, but most of the places they’re not regulated as a sportsbook. So again, not a TV issue as much as just a hand wringing about advertising. These guys get left off on the side, and I think it’s not fair.

Matt Brown (07:58):

Adam, I’m going to take this on a tangent here, but I think it’s related to what we’re talking about as well. What we did see last year was when there was integration of any sports betting stuff into the traditional, more like the pregame shows and post-game, there wasn’t a ton of it in-game. But it did seem a little forced because they were asking guys that were not very familiar with the industry and certainly the terminology and what goes on with gambling to work it in. And I do wonder what that will look like a year later.

(08:32):

And we actually talked about this offline, the three of us, but I guess it’s worth bringing up, and you did point out that it had already been decided before the deal went through. But who knows how long this deal actually took to get going? But Scott Van Pelt is going to be doing Monday Night Countdown for ESPN. As we know, ESPN Bet to come in November. Scott Van Pelt, very familiar with the gambling side of things. And so that discussion on ESPN should be much easier than I think we’ve seen on some of the other networks who have really tried to get it in there. But then it’s just kind of like, I don’t know, man, square peg, round hole.

Adam Candee (09:06):

Really, when we talk about sports betting messengers in the mainstream media, there are very few that are credible, and Scott Van Pelt is one of them. Scott Van Pelt is a respected voice, not only in sports media in general, but I think both people who are new to sports betting and who are familiar with sports betting both can relate to the kind of content that he puts out there. If you listen to his podcast with Stanford Steve, it’s the same sort of thing. You can understand the way they’re relating it to people, and I think that will help ESPN when it does launch.

(09:37):

But let’s also look at the fact that one of the two major networks that carries NFL football during the middle of the day Sunday just shut down its sportsbook. And I think that’s going to change the impressions that some people have, as well. Maybe too many people won Terry’s money, and we can no longer have FOX Bet. I don’t know, but that’s one of the integrations that is going to be gone, and you’re not going to have FOX Bet being pushed because there’s no FOX Bet anymore. Over on the other side with CBS, their gambling content has never been out front. They’re probably the most reticent of all of the networks to put their gambling content out in front of people. Now it’ll be a little bit more prominent on Sunday Night Football with the deal they have with MGM. They no longer have to worry about PointsBet and will Drew Brees be killed live on air by a lightning strike.

(10:29):

What we have, I think overall, is a shifting landscape of how these ads are going to look and how the integrations, as you mentioned, Matt, are going to look. And I think we speak for everyone who’s even a little bit involved in this space when we say, easy on the integrations. I think everybody can learn to deal with the advertising and the fact that maybe it becomes as ubiquitous as the beer ads and the car ads. I don’t hear anybody saying, “Oh my god, another ad for Chevrolet.” No, we’re all used to all the car ads. Another Bud Light ad? Well, maybe I’m going down the wrong road there. But Bud Light, all the advertisements we see for Miller Lite, all these things, we’re used to it. We’re not used to it with sportsbooks. The integrations into the broadcast though, those are where I believe a lot of people start to feel that creep in a way that they’re uncomfortable with. And a lot of it goes back to the fact that I don’t think a lot of people really know how to do it in any deft way.

Matt Brown (11:21):

You’re right. It’s the delivery of it. I don’t think it’s crazy if, right before the game, if the announcer felt comfortable talking about, “Oh, and by the way, this is what we’re looking at as far as we had in the game tonight,” and you quickly hit what the spread is and the total is, and you move on. It’s not like you’re dragging it out. It doesn’t have to be 90 seconds. It can literally be 10 seconds. It’s just kind of like, “Hey, here’s what the spread is, here’s what the total is. Anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” and you move on, stuff like that. But most of the time it’s the delivery that really gets to us. And Dustin, one of the other things I want to hit on, again, I know I went way off here, but the other thing real quick is just we do have YouTube involved for the first time this year, as well.

(11:57):

Now Sunday Ticket is over on YouTube TV. What is that going to look like? What are they going to do, if anything? The question could be nothing. The answer could be nothing, but there is that as well. We do have a new player that is going to be a major, major player because trust me, I made the call to DirecTV yesterday to break up, and it was awkward. It’s like, “What? We’ve been together for 15 years. What did we do? What can we do?” And I’m like, “I’m sorry. It’s actually not me at issue. You don’t have what I need anymore, and so I’m leaving. You don’t have the only reason I had you anymore, so I am leaving you.” But what YouTube TV does is even something that I’m interested in as we head into NFL as well.

Dustin Gouker (12:34):

I’m with Adam. It continues to be slow and in the background. Again, SVP makes it accessible. That’s accessible. He’s the model. He brings it to the masses or people who are casual bettors. That’s what I would like to see in broadcast and not be hammered over the head with live reads for the end game odds. I watched the Phillies broadcast, and it feels so forced. It’s like the announcers obviously don’t know or don’t care about it, but they’re like, “Here are the odds at the start of the game. Here are the odds right now.” And they have no idea what they’re reading. It’s like the Phillies are now -10,000. Great.

(13:09):

It feels so worthless, and it’s interesting. And with ESPN, obviously not right away, but when that integration starts happening and how much it happens is going to be interesting. And probably because they’re not results-oriented on ESPN, it’s going to be a little more muted, I’d imagine, because they don’t get paid based on how many people they send to ESPN Bet. They’re just getting paid no matter what. So one last thing on advertising. Am I the only one? I got my BetUS NFL schedule in the mail.

Matt Brown (13:42):

I get it every year, yeah.

Dustin Gouker (13:42):

Every year?

Matt Brown (13:43):

Every year.

Dustin Gouker (13:44):

Like regular offshore sportsbook, I don’t even know how I got on that mailing list, but I have been for 20 years.

Matt Brown (13:50):

I have moved five states since I signed up for a BetUS account. When I signed up for a BetUS account, I was 19 years old. I have moved three different states, five different houses, where they find me every time. I don’t know how they do it. I get it every single time. Adam, I know you recently moved. I don’t know if they’ve tapped on your door yet or slid anything underneath. They’re going to find you though. They’ll find you. They’ll track you down.

Adam Candee (14:16):

I am very glad that there are multiple security doors to get to my place.

Matt Brown (14:24):

Whatever. We’ll get to it later. Dustin, let’s get to NFL, an interesting story you found just about the education effort going on and a little bit of applause going on.

Is NFL doing enough to educate players about gambling rules?

Dustin Gouker (14:35):

Associated Press did a good story this morning about NFL education efforts in the wake of all these suspensions and players either betting on NFL games or betting not on NFL games or betting in the wrong place. There’s been a lot, apparently, of effort in the wake of all that by the NFL to rectify that and make sure players are educated. And that’s good because it absolutely should be happening, but it’s also a wake-up call that this is not new. This is five years in. And AP has multiple players saying, “The NFL wasn’t really telling us what to do very well until just now.” We got Detroit linebacker Alex Anzalone say, “They made what has been broken very clear after the fact.” So leading to the fact that there’s been, “Oh, don’t bet,” but not exactly what you should do. And again, another good quote from another Detroit player, Jerry Jacobs, last year, “They didn’t give it to us like that. They just told us we can’t gamble, but they didn’t tell us where.”

(15:36):

And this is obviously, for a player, it’s like they say you can bet, but you can’t bet these certain places. You have all these integrations or sportsbooks either right on site or nearby. It’s got to be confusing. Obviously the safest thing is just not bet if you’re an NFL player, but they should be allowed to bet on what they want if it’s not on company time, not on team time or not on the NFL. So anyway, it was fascinating to me that we’re five years into this and there’s some players throwing shade at this saying, this is obviously some anecdotal evidence, but they’re saying that this hasn’t been really a huge holistic effort out of the NFL. And now everybody feels like, I guess they just did a better job. And to the NFL and the NFL PA’s credit, they’re being a little more clear.

(16:20):

And that’s why NFL’s always been an outlier. Either the education effort hasn’t been good, or we’re just finding out more about this. Because again, we haven’t had this in any of the other major team sports in North America. So what has been the outlier with the NFL? Is it the education effort hasn’t been as good, or are we just finding out? Apparently some of it at least you would think is this fact that there’s not been great education, obviously just more players in the NFL as well. So you have a bigger sample size.

Matt Brown (16:47):

Adam, I don’t want to sit here and pimp you out or anything over the podcast, but the NFL does 32 camps in 32 days. They go to 32 different training camps and whatever and all that. Can you not do the LSR 32 camps in 32 days and you go in and just tell guys exactly what they can and can’t do? This is a good side hustle for you in the slowest part of the year. You could just roll through, go in, give a little seminar, walk out of there, high five, everything, and then you will be the reason that you’re keeping their star player on the field. That is on you, Adam Candee.

Adam Candee (17:26):

You know what’s going to happen when I walk in. They’re all going to look at me, 6-foot-2, entirely built from sticks, twigs and duct tape, and be like, “That man knows about football. I should trust him. I absolutely am going to listen to what he says.” They would not do that. They absolutely would not.

Matt Brown (17:41):

Are you saying they instantly look down at the phone? They just instantly start playing Candy Crush.

Adam Candee (17:46):

Absolutely. Swipe, swipe, swipe. They’re not listening to me for a second. If I did have the chance to go in there and talk to them, what I would say is that I don’t necessarily agree with these rules any more than you do, but these are what the rules are. And I think in particular, hearing these comments coming from Detroit Lions players, they have every right to feel a bit sensitive about the way they were affected by this. They have multiple teammates who were popped for gambling who have been released, and then they have the Jameson Williams situation, which remains the Mona Lisa of ridiculous decisions by the NFL for suspending him for six games for not betting on professional football and not doing it when he was inside the team facility or at the practice grounds or anything like that. So that is the worst of all the decisions, and they have every right to feel the way they do.

(18:35):

Now, what you have to put on the other side of it though is that if you’ve been told forever that you can’t gamble and that you’re not allowed to bet, then at some level the personal responsibility is on you to go to someone and say, “Hey, can I or can’t I?” To go to someone in your organization, to go to your coach, to go to your GM, to go to someone and ask, “Hey, is this cool?” Because when you don’t, what you had happen happened because you put the decision in someone else’s hands. You put the decision at the hands of the league. And as we know from this situation and many others, when it comes to discipline in the NFL, you’re spinning the big “Price Is Right” wheel and seeing where it lands, and you have no idea where it’s going to be at any given time.

Matt Brown (19:22):

It’s one of those deals where it’s like you don’t want to have to say, “Maybe you should just not bet at all during the football season or not bet at all just in general.” Like you said, they want to bet lacrosse, if they want to bet beanbags on whatever, what does it matter? I don’t care. But you could do it in the wrong hot tub, and next thing you know you’re going to be suspended for six games. So there is all of that that’s going on. It’s not the sexiest of states when we’re talking about legalization, Adam. It’s not Texas. It’s not California. It’s not Florida. But what’s going on in Kentucky?

Which sportsbooks will launch next week in Kentucky

Adam Candee (19:57):

How dare you call Kentucky not sexy. Talk about body shaming. That’s not fair.

Matt Brown (20:02):

Hey, listen, I said not sexiest of states. Alright. It’s a weird shape. It’s a weird-shaped state.

Adam Candee (20:11):

Oh, listen to this body dysmorphia.

Matt Brown (20:12):

It doesn’t have as many people and all that.

Adam Candee (20:12):

Oh, oh, you’re not-

Matt Brown (20:12):

It has nothing to do with the people themselves.

Adam Candee (20:21):

You don’t have the curves that I like. You’re not California or Florida. You’re just not shaped the way I like.

Matt Brown (20:27):

Exactly.

Adam Candee (20:27):

Real nice to Kentucky.

Matt Brown (20:29):

You’re not long and slender.

Adam Candee (20:30):

Real nice to Kentucky, lying there in repose and trying to just live its life. Alright. so Kentucky, even though Matt doesn’t think you’re sexy, you’re about to get legal sports betting. And September 7th is your in-person launch date. September 28th is your online launch date, and actually as soon as August 28th, next week, you are going to be able to start registering for sports betting accounts in Kentucky. And if there is someone down there who is not aware of sports betting at this point, I would be very surprised because the news coverage has picked up in quite a large way, including with us at Legal Sports Report as we’ve discussed all of the new sportsbooks that will be available down there. The market looks remarkably like New Jersey in which you give certain places, in this case the horse racing tracks, the ability to license out to online sportsbooks.

(21:23):

And to this point, we know of nine brands that will be in the state. One of them in a big way that should be interesting is bet365 because we’ve seen the major push that they’ve done in Ohio as their US launch continues, and they plan to go pretty big into Kentucky, as well. So it should be an interesting market because not only do you have a lot of the major players in a tax-friendly environment that should encourage spending from the operators, but you have another one of these fast-launch states, much like Arizona, much like Kansas, where we see that they’re going to go from passing the law in April to launching the market in August.

(22:00):

We didn’t see any major issues when it came to the other places that did this. We don’t expect there to be any in Kentucky. It could be interesting in terms of the effect that horse racing has on these sportsbooks because you are going to have in-person sportsbooks the number of the horse racing tracks. So you have a built-in gaming consumer who might be interested in betting on sports the way you did in New Jersey as well. So a lot of interesting things to watch in the Kentucky market, which will be the only one that is launching brand new when it comes to football season. You are going to have places like Ohio that launched in January that didn’t have a week one NFL that will be ramping up at probably a similar volume as well.

Matt Brown (22:40):

And Dustin, we’ve talked about this a couple of different times when these states have lost and whatnot. This actually is going to be keeping money in the state. Louisville is located right on the Ohio River. It is a five-minute drive across the bridge to go to Indiana, and it’s right there. So this is actually one of those deals where you really are keeping money in the state now because a huge city in your state is literally a five-minute drive across the bridge for people to go and make bets. So it is a pretty big deal for Kentucky.

Dustin Gouker (23:11):

We have talked about that a lot in the past, and this is one of the examples. There’s a lot of population on the borders of Kentucky. I’m sure there’s some meaningful amount of money that has gone across bridges and bet in other states. So it’ll be interesting. Again, this is a broken record, but this is a good time to launch. Online’s going to be a little after the actual starting of the NFL season, but September is a great time to launch. If you’re going to do this, you want to get this critical mass of people in the door right away, so it’s a great time to launch from that standpoint. And for the record, I’m a big fan of rectangular states.

Matt Brown (23:46):

Oh, see, you had to come in. You’re trying to get the Kentucky vote. See, I see what you did right there. It’s fine. They’re against me. I’ll be on that island. It’s OK. It’s OK, Dustin, let’s talk a little bit about Betr. People might not even know what Betr is actually, but we’re going to talk about it here on the podcast.

Why a small player in the US is weighing in on the ESPN Bet deal

Dustin Gouker (24:02):

I don’t know. Betr, B-E-T-R, co-founded by Jake Paul, is very good at two things. They’re very good at raising money and, I don’t know, getting people to talk about them. What they’re not very good at is getting people to bet at their sportsbook. But Joey Levy, the CEO of the company, put out this thing about taking down ESPN and Barstool. It was weird to me. It was actually a pretty decent analysis, but they’re saying ESPN, they’re worried about how it’s going to work, taking apart Barstool’s approach to sports betting and why it didn’t work. I look at that, I’m like, your company is literally the smallest US online sports betting company in the United States, and that’s not an exaggeration. By market share, I don’t think there’s anybody with an online sportsbook who is taking less bets.

(24:49):

Maybe there’s one in Colorado, I guess possibly, or Michigan, I don’t know. But they’re in two states. They’re in Ohio and Massachusetts. They are 18th of 18 in Ohio. They’re eighth of eight in Massachusetts in terms of total rev handle every month. It’s a rounding error in both of those states. So it’s weird to me that we’re throwing shade at these giant deals like sure, Betr might succeed down the road. I don’t know. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but the CEO is spending all this time doing this analysis of these big deals. And maybe work on your own house and get some bettors in the door because we’re not seeing any examples of Betr really penetrating the market. And they’re supposed to be like, oh, we’re supposed to have this conversion funnel, we have influencers. And they’re not getting anybody in the door. So it’s super weird to see this really lengthy analysis about the media landscape and betting and maybe just prove it. Just prove it. Go out and prove it. I’d love to see that.

Matt Brown (25:50):

Adam, I do want to bring this up before we get out of here, and this is not necessarily business related, but it is certainly gambling industry related. Billy Walters’ book did hit the stands this week. Billy Walters, if you’re not familiar, one of the biggest gamblers of all time, ended up going to prison for insider trading and all of that. And he’s basically written a tell-all, I guess at this point, about everything that went on in his life and then also the people that he worked with, including the big name of Phil Mickelson that he worked with, where he claims in this book, other than himself, that Phil Mickelson is the second biggest bettor of all time in the entire history of sports betting, that Phil Mickelson is the second biggest bettor of all time.

Adam Candee (26:37):

And by volume of bets and size of bets, with what Billy Walters is saying, we get it. If Phil Mickelson was putting $110,000 a pop on -110 sides, then it’s going to add up pretty quickly. We don’t know if it’s true. I’ve learned from many years of being a reporter in Las Vegas that when Billy Walters speaks, you probably should be verifying it once and verifying it twice, because it’s not always exactly the way that it might be in reality when you hear it. And I’ll take the word of a convicted felon with two or three grains of salt. However, if you want some entertainment and you want to just look at it from the perspective of, hey, even if half these stories are true, it’s probably some pretty cool stories, then I think you probably could have a good time reading the Billy Walters’ book.

Matt Brown (27:25):

I would tell you, Dustin, that I’m going to read it, and that would be a lie because I don’t have time to read. So I have gotten the audio version of the book, and I will listen to the audio version. Give me two weeks. Give me two weeks, and by two weeks, I’ll have you guys a review of the book. Do you read for fun? I don’t have time to read for fun.

Dustin Gouker (27:42):

I read history.

Matt Brown (27:43):

For fun?

Dustin Gouker (27:44):

Yeah.

Matt Brown (27:44):

I don’t have time to read for fun. I can’t do it.

Adam Candee (27:47):

Dude, I find myself, every time I sit down and I’m done reading stories for Legal Sports Report and I start to think about watching television, I’m like, “Yeah, but the NFL kicks off in two weeks,” and then I go pick up the Warren Sharp guide or a podcast or something like that where it’s like, I’m going to get my pants shown to be down if I don’t do more research.

Matt Brown (28:07):

Yes, this will pull back the curtain as we always do here on the podcast. I’ll pull it back. I bought three physical books in the last two years of my life, and all three of the books I have started to read and then have gone on to buy the audio version of the same book and then listened to the audio version. So I’ve double bought the books. I have literally every intention to actually read the physical book, and then I’m like, it’s way easier to just listen to this. And then I just end up getting the audio version.

Adam Candee (28:33):

So Matt, tell me, would you have preferred to have read, or did you enjoy the audio version more of Sexiest State Shapes?

Matt Brown (28:42):

Listen, here’s the thing, the audio version, they go into more detail and can really paint the picture. They can really paint the picture.

Adam Candee (28:48):

I can imagine who’s doing the voiceover for that one.

Matt Brown (28:50):

Listen, when you get to that Florida chapter, let me tell you.

Adam Candee (28:54):

Careful, careful.

Matt Brown (28:55):

Light a couple of candles. Light a couple of candles is all I’m saying. Pour a glass of wine.

Everything we do, guys, absolutely free. So please go in, subscribe, rate, review. Go over to legalsportsreport.com and get all of the great work that Adam and company are doing over there. If this is on the video side, hello, nice to meet you, and please hit that subscribe button as well. A thumbs-up certainly helps people find this video as well. For Adam, for Dustin, I’m Matt. Talk to you guys next week.

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