Why One Of The Biggest Vegas Sportsbooks Flopped Outside Nevada | Sports Betting News
Superbook decided to end its US operations outside Las Vegas last week. Why couldn’t one of the most recognized names in Las Vegas make more of an impact? Plus, a new entrant in sports betting and iGaming comes to PA, what comes next for VSiN after DraftKings sold it back, and a recap of the NCLGS Summer Conference in Pittsburgh.
Full transcript
Matt Brown (00:14):
Hello, and welcome to episode number 242 of the LSR Podcast. My name is Matt Brown, joined each and every week with the brightest minds in all of the gaming industry with me. I’m back in the saddle with my main man here, Adam Candee. You can find him on the Twitter machine, Adam Candee, two E’s, no Y. Hate yourself, you can follow me @MattBrownM2 if you haven’t done so already.
(00:32):
We are on all of your favorite podcasting platforms, so please go ahead and subscribe, rate, review. We do appreciate all of those little five stars. Helps us climb that chart and helps more people find this very podcast. We will talk about what went on over in Pennsylvania. We have something exciting for you people over there. We have a sale in the industry we’ll talk about.
(00:55):
Adam just got back from a conference. We will talk to him about that. But Adam, let’s kick things off here. It’s kind of something, it’s been a theme here for us over the last two months, it seems like, of the podcast of sportsbooks kind of assessing where they are and whether they need to continue on in the position that they have at least tried to take, and maybe that wasn’t exactly where this all panned out as we sit here in July of 2024.
Adam Candee (01:23):
Matt, we spend so much time on this podcast talking about the moneymaking opportunity of NFL and college football betting. That is the prime season for customer acquisition. It is the prime season for trying to take those customers and get more and more betting volume from them as you go along.
(01:42):
What we don’t spend as much time talking about is how much it costs to do that, because it’s not like you just turn the spigot on at the beginning of football season and everyone comes running in the door to bet with you when there’s a lot of competition. Right now, here we stand in late July, as a number of companies have said, “Do we want to go another football season? Do we want to incur the marketing expenses? Do we want to go through this again and not know that we can really compete?”
(02:12):
This time we’re talking about SuperBook, and that is interesting to me because of the brand that SuperBook started with. There were very few, Matt, very few established brands in sports betting that tried to make a go of this. When I talk about sports betting, I mean sports betting in particular, not casino, like MGM and Caesars. Not DFS, like DraftKings and FanDuel.
(02:37):
But a company like SuperBook, where everyone knows the Westgate SuperBook, and before that, the Hilton SuperBook, and everyone knows about the SuperContest. It’s one of those things that gets talked about in mainstream media and has been for a number of years.
(02:51):
When you go to Las Vegas, the discussion is always like, “Oh, where are you going to hit if you’re a sports bettor?” SuperBook is generally one of your stops if you are someone who cares about sports betting if only to see the setup that they have down there.
(03:04):
Well, we know that first under SuperBook USA, and then later just under the SuperBook brand, they tried to go big. They were near double digits in states, and they never really made much of an impact. The SuperBook brand did not resonate outside of Nevada. It was not marketed all that strongly.
(03:26):
Matt, I think there was also something that the Wire Act really did to shut them down more than other sportsbooks. We talk all about exchanges and liquidity and the ability to work across state lines. Well, the SuperContest doesn’t work if you have to run it in each state.
(03:41):
It’s not the same. You don’t have the same buzz running the Tennessee SuperBook SuperContest that you do from being in the Vegas-based one. Could they have tried to do it? Potentially. I think it would have been interesting to see if they could have done some state-based ones, but I just don’t think it would have had the juice that others did.
(03:59):
What we got was basically an announcement on July 19 like, “Hey, outside of Nevada, we’re done. You can come get your money. That’s going to be the end of it.” SuperBook never cracked anything above half a percent in market share anywhere, and even that would have been on the high end for them.
(04:16):
Took them a while to get their New Jersey licensing situation squared away. They tried to compete in a number of other states and never really got any sort of attention for it. They will continue to be in Nevada. They’ll continue to run the SuperContest in Las Vegas.
(04:32):
I’m sure Jay Kornegay and company will still have the loyal following that they do in Las Vegas. But in terms of trying to make it farther than that across the country, they’re done there. Specific to Ohio, Betfred decided to pull out from there. It’s the second Betfred pullout that we’ve seen recently.
(04:49):
Another brand that we’re not really sure what the future looks like for them in the US market. But Matt, it’s the SuperBook one that I thought was really interesting in terms of the idea that you could just take what worked in Las Vegas and transport it to the rest of the country, and that did not work.
Matt Brown (05:06):
Yeah. Having gone to a couple of different states in which SuperBook was active, and going in and taking a look at what they had going on there, Adam, it’s kind of the deal where we’ve talked about what differentiates you from everybody else. The thing is I think they were trying to play in both sandboxes, and I just don’t think that works.
(05:26):
Whereas you’ve got Circa who comes in and is just like, “Hey, we ain’t giving you no bonuses and we’re not whatever, but we’ll take your big bets and we’re going to probably have a better line than everybody else out there. That is our shtick and that is what we’re doing and that is what our brand is, and that is how we’re going to get a following and that is how we’re going to get customers.”
(05:46):
SuperBook, if you know, in Vegas will take bigger bets. Not as big as Circa, but they will take some bigger. But Adam, they also wanted to play in the deposit bonus stuff, and they also wanted to play in the boost market, and they wanted to play in that as well, which is a little confusing, I think, to a bettor from a brand identity standpoint.
(06:05):
It’s like, “Well, it’s a boost, but it’s not as good as I can get at FanDuel and DraftKings. It’s a deposit bonus, but it’s not as good as I can get it MGM or get at whatever.” I just don’t know. I think that maybe they should have just come in maybe more with the Derek Stevens and Jeff Benson approach over there at Circa, and just be like, “Hey, you’re not going to get all the bells and whistles that you get at these other places, but we’ll take bigger bets. We’re going to try to give you better lines. We’re going to do the best we can to come in and give you some options that maybe you don’t get at other places and stuff like that.”
(06:36):
But I just don’t think it ever really panned out. Again, right or wrong, you and I have talked about that approach with Circa. The no bonus approach, the no boost approach, the no whatever, and is that sustainable long term, but at least they have a strategy.
(06:53):
That is what they’re doing and that is their strategy and that’s how they’re going to approach these markets. I don’t know if SuperBook really came in with an established, “This is what we’re going to be, and this is how we’re going to get a customer base.” It was kind of like one toe in here and then one toe in here and then one toe in here, and as we well know, that’s kind of tough.
Adam Candee (07:11):
Well, I want to take your last point first and then get back to the idea of brand identity for SuperBook. You can do what Circa does if you have a very rich guy who doesn’t care behind it, and that’s what you have with Derek Stevens. You have a very wealthy man who wants to do it this way.
(07:32):
Derek Stevens cares a lot about his sportsbook and how that fits into his operation, and how that has begat the Stadium Swim experience from which we know that Circa prints money from people being able to go to the dayclub, nightclub experience centered around sports. It has been a very good gateway for them, but that is something that you can only do if you have ownership that is willing to ride the wave of what goes along with that.
(08:00):
If you’re taking big bets and you’re taking respected action, you’re probably not clearing huge margins month after month, or you’re having a really good month and then a really bad month. It’s the sort of thing that doesn’t work as well with the public markets as it does with an owner who’s willing to go along with that.
Matt Brown (08:18):
Adam, one quick thing I forgot to mention that I want your opinion on as well in this. You mentioned the SuperContest where that’s another thing Circa did. It came in and they marketed the hell out of their contest and the things that they were doing, and it kind of made the SuperContest the second tier. It was like the JV. The thing that SuperBook had became kind of the second tier one. It was like, “No, everyone is playing Circa Millions. Everyone is playing the Circa Survivor.”
Adam Candee (08:47):
You think it was second tier? I don’t know that that was the vibe I got that it was second tier, but I do think …
Matt Brown (08:51):
Well you could see the numbers. I’ll just put it that way. There was thousands and thousands of less entrants, so I guess that’s where I’m going-
Adam Candee (08:58):
Well, I think the point of that also goes along with this. Circa Survivor was its own thing, too. Coming in with Circa Survivor was brand new, and I think you probably saw that there is a limited pool of people who are willing to play at the dollar level that goes along with that.
(09:14):
I also believe if you’re talking about the fact that you have to play at a certain dollar level, and you’re talking about $1,000, $2,000 entries into these contests, that those bettors who are willing to play at that level are probably the bettors who were going to be open to the idea of going to Circa in the first place when you start playing at that level. They’re kind of people who would be courted away from a place like Westgate.
(09:36):
Now, beyond that, I think what you saw is that they didn’t use, Westgate, their number one asset. The SuperContest was their number one asset, is still their number one asset when it comes to marketing that sportsbook. It’s the thing everybody knows. You could have gone to these other states and tried to re-create it in some way.
(09:58):
Now, because of the Wire Act and the inability to play essentially across state lines, it would have been impossible for them to do it in a way that put that liquidity for the entire country together. But when it comes to brand identity and the failure to do that, and the deposit bonuses as you talked about, and so on, the folks that I talked to early on were a bit concerned about what the voices were in their ears on the SuperBook side in terms of taking the Vegas approach. Were they going to use a more national approach?
(10:31):
You’re talking about guys, Jay Kornegay, John Murray, and so on. They know how to run a book. You’re not going to tell them anything about how to run a book, but they’ve never had to do the part of going to compete nationally against these brands throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into their marketing, into tech products that are far and away ahead of what anything SuperBook or any other Nevada-based book had to offer.
Matt Brown (10:56):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. I hate it. I hate to see it. Obviously, we always preach that the more competition out there, the better. The more options for the bettor, the better, all of that. But it’s tough. It’s going to be hard, and this won’t be the last one. We’ll continue talking about these guys that decide that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze as we continue on.
(11:17):
But one is actually going the other direction here in this second story, Adam. We knew if we’re talking about money in the coffers, we know the money is in the coffers here. It was just a little bit of a delayed reaction as to how they wanted to roll it out, what the strategy was going to be.
A new entrant in sports betting, iGaming comes to PA
(11:33):
I think that maybe at the end of the day, maybe they went about it the right way for what they’re trying to do, is let everybody else fight and fight and fight and fight. They’re going to sit there and blow through tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, and then we come in and do our thing in wave number two. I’m talking about bet365.
Adam Candee (11:53):
The question with 365 is this. What is the goal? What do they really want? Part of the answer to that question goes back to what we just talked about with Circa. If you have ownership wealthy enough to just ride it out, you can play it any way you want.
(12:09):
It doesn’t ultimately matter whether you decide to jump in, throw a bunch of money at it, or decide to wait until later. But what comes with that is what are you willing to accept as success? Because it’s going to be very difficult at this point for 365 to get to a DraftKings or FanDuel level of where they are right now.
(12:27):
That being said, could 365 end up as the number three operator in this country? Without question. We’ve seen it in their early results in Ohio, when they came in and were offering some big bonuses, that they were charting up at the top in the first year in Ohio.
(12:43):
What we see now is that they’re launching both their sports betting and their iGaming product in Pennsylvania, and that is of course, one of the more lucrative markets in the country if you can get it going, especially because of the fact that you have iGaming to offer. That is the big differentiator for a number of companies in terms of their ability to ride this out long term.
(13:03):
Now, 365 is in that state. We will see what they do in terms of promotional strategy if they decide to go about it similar to the way they went about things in Ohio. But in an environment where we keep talking so much about who’s not going to be doing this anymore, slowly and steadily, we see 365 approaching its rollout in the United States.
(13:26):
Again, it’s a company that was not in any way dependent upon success in the United States for it to survive, for it to thrive. That’s not what they need. They’re one of the most successful gaming operators in the world at this point. They can take whatever approach they want with the US market, and slow and steady appears to be the way they’re going.
Matt Brown (13:47):
Yeah. I look at bet365 and, like I said, if they want to kind of just slowly roll it into whatever, will there ever be widespread online poker in the United States? Who knows? But if there is, they’ve got a poker product. Will there ever be widespread iCasino in the United States? We think there will be at some point, Adam, but we can’t say for certain. But if there is, they can roll that out.
(14:11):
We know they have a really good sports betting product. There’s a lot going on with them that it’s much easier for them to just turn something on than it is for a lot of the other people out there. You’ve mentioned not only the money, but look, the experience.
(14:26):
This is a company that has been around for 25 years now. I think it was ’99, if I remember, when 365 really got going and everything. They got 25 years of experience, 25 years of figuring out how to do this. If they wanted to do poker down the line, they could. If they want to do iCasino, they could. It’s almost possibilities endless.
Adam Candee (14:53):
True. The one thing I would keep an eye on when it comes to watching, I’m not going to say parallel paths, but certainly paths that could have an effect on each other. Just keep an eye on what happens with gambling reform in the UK. It’s still an ongoing discussion as to what ultimately happens.
(15:12):
There that could have some effect on what we see 365 do rest-of-world. It’s not just about the United States, of course. There are hot new markets like Brazil. There’s a lot that’s happening worldwide right now when it comes to gambling, and because 365 has such an enormous reach, that you will see interconnected parts have effects on the other. But for now, brand new state in Pennsylvania, and what is likely not to be a cheap launch to have to go out there and compete in an established market in Pennsylvania.
What comes next for VSiN after DraftKings sold it back
Matt Brown (15:43):
Quick note here of stuff going on in the industry, Adam. DraftKings acquired VSiN about three and a half, four years ago. The Vegas Stat & Information Network was founded by Brent Musburger and his family. That was looked at as a marketing arm for the company, and then they decided to go a different direction with the DraftKings Network.
(16:05):
They cut deals with the Le Batard group, they cut deals with the Golics, all the smoke, all the things like that. Not really what it seemed like was sports betting based content. More just general sports entertainment type stuff, and it seems like that was the model they wanted to move with forward.
(16:24):
Press release said kind of as much, which was they’re going to move forward with the DraftKings Network, but it’s going to be focused more on how their vision is of moving forward with programming and things like that. Just kind of reading into things, Adam.
(16:38):
Seems to me like they prefer the more general sports approach and thinking that they’re going to turn the general guy who stumbles onto sports programming XYZ, that they have bought rights to, and turn those guys into sports bets as to people who are listening to really hardcore sports betting talk. I don’t know what the right approach is one way or another. I’m sure they will find out as the years go by with all of that, but VSiN sold back to the original owners.
Adam Candee (17:09):
Full disclosure as we get into this story. Matt has been for a number of years, a prominent voice on VSiN. I’ve done some work for VSiN in the past as well, so we know a little bit about the history here and where this has gone. When this came down that DraftKings was selling VSiN back to its original owners, I wasn’t terribly surprised, because of the fact that you look elsewhere with the idea of, we’ll put this in air quotes, the media model for making sports betting work.
(17:42):
It’s not happening right now, and it hasn’t happened very well for a number of companies. We’ve seen it tried in a couple of places where you put some branding of a media company and you hope to be able to attach to sports fans and be able to bring them along, and it just hasn’t worked out that way.
(17:58):
Now, VSiN is a little bit different, because you had a different type of audience. You had a more betting-focused audience that was already part of that. But I think part of the deal, when you look into that, if you’re DraftKings as a sportsbook buying into that, my question to DraftKings would have been this.
(18:15):
Who is it that is watching or listening to VSiN who isn’t already aware of your product and who hasn’t already considered your product alongside all of the other legal and illegal betting market options? The VSiN customer is a savvy customer. You have to really want to listen to that product.
(18:38):
It’s not something that is out there doing what a DraftKings Network is doing. There is no “Pablo Torre Finds Out” on VSiN. Frankly, we can both tell you from the inside, if you ever got too far toward that entertainment type content on VSiN, in my experience, the powers that be would reign you in and say, “Hey, we need to know who we’re talking to here. We need to be focused on the bettor. We need to be focused on actionable information.”
(19:06):
That to me always struck me a little bit strangely in terms of that deal. We know that DraftKings originally paid $70 million to acquire VSiN. We do not have the terms on the sale back as of yet, but be interesting to see which way VSiN decides to go with this, because even when it was part of DraftKings, they were taking advertising from some other sportsbooks.
(19:29):
DraftKings said it will continue to advertise with VSiN. We know that at the time VSiN’s operations first were out of the South Point, then they were kind of split between South Point and Circa. They’ve now moved everything down towards Circa.
(19:42):
Matt, I’ve always wondered, with as much investment as Derek Stevens has put into building a studio for VSiN, wanting to cater to the very savvy and smart sports bettor. Always wondered whether or not Derek Stevens would have an interest in owning it at some point, and that becomes even more of a question for me now that Brian Musburger and Bill Adee are back in charge.
Matt Brown (20:07):
Yeah. I have no inside information on anything with any of it. Listen, I had a good time under the DraftKings umbrella. I thought it was a pretty good company with everything all said and done. I will say this. I always thought that what they used VSiN for, for me personally, if I took a step back and I was just an advisor as opposed to someone who was actually within the umbrella.
(20:33):
VSiN to me should have been an action driver, a retention company, a re-up company, not an acquisition company for all the reasons that you mentioned. If you’re listening to VSiN stuff, you’re listening to me talk for an hour about NFL stuff and everything like that. You probably got a sportsbook account already. You probably got most sportsbooks’ accounts already.
(20:56):
I thought VSiN should have been used for, “Hey, check out this specific bet. You should bet this bet now. Or hey, you busted your account unfortunately last football season. Here’s a re-up bonus. Here’s a redeposit bonus type deal.”
(21:13):
I always thought VSiN should have been used for that. You’re talking to sports bettors as it is anyway, so give sports bettors who are already betting sports what they want. Give them a bet to make like, “Here’s whatever.” Give them even a re-up bonus.
(21:28):
It’s not even like you had to have your account busted. Who cares if you still have $2,000 in your account? “Here’s a code. If you want to put in $100 more, we’ll give you $100.” Things like that. I always thought it should have been used more like that.
(21:42):
A bet driver, a re-up, a retention, all kinds of stuff like that as far as that goes. But again, above my pay grade. Stuff that was way out of everything for me. VSiN just kind of gets back to its roots as just a content company about all things sports betting. I imagine, like you mentioned, Adam, there will be relationships with companies that you probably hadn’t seen in a while and all that. I can only imagine, because I assume that’s going to be in the vision and the grand plan with everything.
Adam Candee (22:15):
Hey, you did get to go to some cool places though, didn’t you?
Matt Brown (22:18):
Yeah.
Adam Candee (22:21):
You got to see some cool DK properties over time. Actually, believe it or not, we’re going to talk about NCLGS in a moment here. The back of that trip, I was in Chicago, got to go to Wrigley Field for the first time and got to see the DraftKings sportsbook facility at Wrigley Field. That thing is massive. I was surprised. It looks beautiful on the inside, but the size of it was really what got me. Literally built into Wrigley Field.
Matt Brown (22:51):
You and I missed each other by mere hours over in Chicago.
Adam Candee (22:55):
Mere hours.
Matt Brown (22:56):
By the way, just as an aside, it’ll only take 30 seconds. Shout out to everybody that had to travel over the last week. Anyone working behind the counter at the airports, I feel very sorry for you. I know you have nothing. There’s nothing you can do. I know.
(23:09):
Everyone wants to scream at you and be mad at you and all that. I feel so bad for all of you out there having to deal with people who can’t rationally process that you can’t fix a computer. It’s not your job. You’re not an IT person and whatever. Shout out to all those people.
Adam Candee (23:25):
Oh, absolutely. Let me just toot my own horn here for a second. You ready for this? Oh, Southwest, you remember when you stranded me in the Vegas airport over Christmas a couple years back? You remember that? I’m sure you do. You remember when your whole system melted down? Well, guess what, baby? I was on Southwest this time, and because they’re working off an old Commodore 64, none of us got stranded. We all made our flights. Good on you, Southwest.
A recap of the NCLGS Summer Conference in Pittsburgh
Matt Brown (23:53):
There you go. You’re just flying on through there, Adam. All right buddy, you just mentioned it. You just got back from conference over there on the East Coast. Tell us what you found over at NCLGS.
Adam Candee (24:04):
Yeah. Very interesting conference this time. We know that the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, NCLGS, hosts two conferences a year. This one was in Pittsburgh, so we were of course, in a legal sports betting state being in Pennsylvania, and I thought the content was interesting from this perspective.
(24:28):
There was talk of the new verticals of sweeps and casino and a little bit of DFS plus flex 2.0, whatever you want to call it. The PrizePicks and Underdog folks were out in force at this conference, but one of the notable panels that got a lot of attention was Billy Walters and the guy known on Twitter as Spanky, professional bettor.
(24:53):
They were kind of soft launching something that came out this week called American Bettors’ Voice, where they’re attempting to, as they say, get a seat at the table for the voice of the bettor. Now, you could bring up some reasonable discussion as to who the bettor is that they’re representing.
(25:09):
You’re talking about a couple of guys with some significant coin where if you go to their website for the American Bettors’ Voice, they want you to pay $100 a year to join the organization. I might say they’ve got plenty of money to just sign people up and let them be a part of it without having to pay $100 a year.
(25:27):
But the idea was they had a sit-down with Billy, with Spanky, with Richard Schuetz, the veteran casino executive at the conference, and some very interesting discussion about what the life of someone who operates at the level of a Billy Walters is like. Now, we know that Billy Walters ran into some trouble legally, did some time in prison. We know that Spanky is currently tied up in the lawsuit situation involving bearding that we talked about extensively on this podcast.
(26:00):
But to me, the fact that Shawn Fluharty, the delegate from West Virginia who is currently the president of NCLGS, is someone who understands the industry a bit, was involved in getting those industries of sports betting and iGaming going in West Virginia. Bringing those guys in, I thought, showed that we’re entering a level of sophistication with the discussions around sports betting when it comes to legislators that I thought was intriguing to see.
(26:31):
Now, keep in mind with NCLGS, you have a lot of new legislators coming in. You’re kind of constantly churning through folks who want to come and learn about do they want to work on gaming legislation in their state, and that’s what this conference is really there to do, to build networking, to give them education, to let them learn from some people who’ve done it before.
(26:51):
That being said, there was that level of, I would say more 101 discussion, but it’s more 303 and 404 when you start getting into talking to professional bettors. That was one thing. I’ll pause there and let you weigh in on that part, because the second part that I want to bring up is a little more related to iGaming and I thought it was an interesting discussion brought up by a legislator from Maryland.
Matt Brown (27:14):
Yeah. It’s kind of one of those things, Adam, where I’ve seen this happen in the other fields, too. There was the Poker Players Alliance back in the day for poker players, and then I know they tried to do something with the DFS. I think it’s fine.
(27:33):
Listen, people want to be a part of groups, and honestly at the end of the day it ends up being more of just a social thing anyway. It’s a reason for everyone to get together once a year. I’m sure there’ll be some in-person meeting or something.
(27:45):
I don’t know how strong the voice really will be specifically in sports betting. It’s different in poker, and maybe it’s different even in DFS, because the high-volume guys really do put in a massive amount of the fuel into the fire for those sites.
(28:05):
High volume poker players, high volume DFS players are super coveted, because those dudes are really and truly a bigger portion of the pie than most people realize. In sports betting we already know this. We already know the 1% is just not … They’re making the big bets, but as we always talk about, they’re probably winning the big bets more often, too.
(28:28):
It’s just we know the 99% is going to get catered to. I hate it. You hate it. We want to see it equalized a little bit more, and we want everyone to have a fair shake in all of this, but I just don’t know from a business perspective specifically with a lot of these tax rates that they’re paying in other places.
(28:47):
As much as it costs to get going, you’ve talked about the marketing expenses that it takes to keep these things going. How about the initial rate to get going in a lot of these states? You’re paying $10 million to get going in Pennsylvania whenever this thing all started. You’re $10 million in the hole from day one. I just don’t know how you don’t cater to the 99% when it all comes down to it.
Adam Candee (29:10):
A lot of the talk, Matt, was about 1% issues. They want transparency in pricing. They want transparency in limits. We have spent a lot of podcast breath talking about both of those issues. We don’t need to get into it now more. You know where we stand on all of those things.
(29:26):
It’s not simple to solve that stuff. If they want to have part of the discussion, that’s fine. But I also think it’s important to understand who’s talking to you, and I think it’s important to understand that Billy Walters is one of the most successful gamblers of all time, but we have to talk about people in totality, correct?
(29:48):
We have to talk about the fact that Billy Walters is a convicted felon for insider trading. There is a level there at which you have to understand not only the message, but the messenger. Now, a guy like Richard who is working with them is a highly respected regulator, a guy that I enjoy talking to at the conference.
(30:11):
Spanky, I don’t think there are a lot of folks who have neutral opinions on Spanky. You kind of either fall on the side where you’re in his camp or you’re against him, and a lot of that is fostered online by the discussion that happens there. Just another interesting nuance to that part of how we talk about this.
(30:29):
Now, I thought that Ron Watson from Maryland talking about iGaming, only did it for about 15 minutes. Shawn Fluharty brought him up at the end of a panel to have this discussion about, “What did you learn from trying to get an iGaming discussion going in Maryland, and what will you try to apply next year?”
(30:47):
Man, he gave one of the most succinct, intelligent, nuanced sets of thoughts on this that I’ve heard. I thought the really interesting part that what Mr. Watson talked about was you have to have a team. You can’t just drop a bill and think that it’s all going to come together.
(31:10):
You have to do education. You have to have all of your people lined up before you do this. When I say all of your people, I mean all of the people who would have an interest in where this goes, including the land-based casinos, including which operators would be coming in to run the iGaming product.
(31:27):
Most importantly maybe when it comes to the legislative process, you have to have your legislators and your executive branch people singing from the same songbook on not only what the tax rate is, but where the money is going to go, because it doesn’t take much to derail it. We saw it in Maryland this time where not the small casinos, not the major players, but right there kind of in the middle with Live, where they brought in the unions.
(31:54):
The unions bused in people and talked about how they were all going to lose their jobs if iGaming came around, because of people not playing in the casino anymore. Whether that is true or not, we’ve been on record talking about how cannibalization fears are overstated, but that’s something that legislators are going to listen to.
(32:12):
They’ve got constituents standing right in front of them telling them, “Don’t do this.” A lot of them, and that union presence was a big reason why that bill ultimately didn’t get as far as they needed it to go. I thought that was very, very savvy discussion from Mr. Watson about what he learned and how he’ll bring iGaming back next time.
(32:35):
It was great information, I thought, for anybody who’s going to try to drop that bill in their own state to say, “Listen, this is not something that you can throw out there without having all of your ducks in a row before you do it.” You can’t just throw the bill out there and say, “Well, let’s start a discussion,” because that discussion will be started for you and likely ended for you by other people.
Matt Brown (32:59):
Adam, we’ve got to put a bow on this. What was the best beer you had while you were there?
Adam Candee (33:03):
Oh, boy. Well, at the game, at the Pittsburgh Pirates game, which we were able to attend. That’s IC Light territory. You’re supposed to do that. Now, I don’t get to go to the East Coast very often, so I don’t see Yuengling very often. When I get a chance to get my hands on a Yuengling, I get kind of excited. I enjoy that.
Matt Brown (33:25):
Wrigley is Old Style, right?
Adam Candee (33:27):
Well, that’s the thing. You beat me to the punch there. I was just going to say, first time at Wrigley, an absolutely perfect summer night, I lucked out and was able to get a really good ticket, 10th row behind home plate for far, far less than what you would think I would have paid for this ticket.
Matt Brown (33:44):
Look at that humble brag right there. I love it. I love that.
Adam Candee (33:47):
I’ll tell you straight out, 150 bucks. The ticket was 100% worth it.
Matt Brown (33:52):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Adam Candee (33:54):
But when I sat down with my Old Style and my hot dog at Wrigley Field on a perfect summer night, that instantly became the best beer just because of where I was.
Matt Brown (34:04):
I like hearing that. I’m not a beer guy myself, but I had me an Old Style whenever I was in Chicago.
Adam Candee (34:11):
You have to.
Matt Brown (34:12):
It was one of those things. Yeah. I just did. I can’t help it. Guys, everything we talk about, you can go over to LegalSportsReport.com and you can find all the written words Adam and team are putting together over there. If you found us on YouTube, hello, and if you haven’t gone to that yet, head on over to our YouTube page and give us a follow over there as well. For Adam. I’m Matt. Talk to you guys next week.