Is ESPN Sportsbook Coming? | LSR 160
Welcome back to the Legal Sports Report Podcast, Ep.#160! We break down the dynamic of legal sports betting in New York for its first full NFL season alongside New Jersey. The CEO of Disney again talks about grand plans for sports betting, but the path forward for ESPN getting more involved is not entirely clear. We also talk about the end of PredictIt and its election trading markets in the US.
Full transcript
Matt Brown (00:11):
Hello, and welcome to episode number 160 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 Dustin Gouker, I have Adam Candee. You can follow them on the Twitter machine for free, and you should just smash the button @dustingouker, @adamcandee, two E’s, no Y. If you hate yourself, you can follow me @mattbrownm2. We’re going to do the whole subscribe, rate and review thing here, because guess what? You guys are important. So please go in, hit those five-star reviews, leave a little comment, that helps. And if you’re watching us on YouTube, you can help grow this channel, hit that subscribe button down below, as well.
(00:46):
That is highly, highly appreciated. Adam’s going to run us through the state updates at the end as always. We’ll talk about some numbers coming out of Ontario, or will we? We will also talk about what’s going on over at ESPN. And first, let’s kick things off here, Adam, with New Jersey, New York, football season is heading our way. New Jersey numbers at least have some people buzzing just a little bit. What are we looking at here as Jersey and New York come into the 2022 football season with at least a little bit more mature market there in New York?
Are Covid changes to blame for NJ sports betting handle declines?
Adam Candee (01:20):
Yeah. Keep in mind, we didn’t have sports betting in New York until the playoffs last year when it came to football. So we really don’t have an apples-to-apples comparison for football season yet. And as we get closer to football season, and admittedly, as we work through a drier time in our news cycle here, something that we’ve been looking at comes out of the New Jersey results that came out yesterday. And we saw that handle in New Jersey for last month was down to about $530 million. Now, that is, for most states, a pretty good haul for a month. For New Jersey, a state that was seeing routinely over a billion dollars throughout the fall and winter last year, it does raise some eyebrows. Now, there are some obvious things you can look at. You can look at the fact that the COVID shutdowns of 2020 push the calendar in 2021 in such a way, that you had far more NBA action to bet on during July of 2021 than you did in July of 2022.
(02:19):
That’s the simplest explanation. But those who like to dig a little deeper are asking, could this be where we start to see the cannibalization effect from New York come in? I think there are a lot of people who have been wanting this narrative to come true, to confirm their prior thoughts. And this is maybe where they start to fit that evidence into some confirmation bias. But I don’t think we have enough evidence yet, quite frankly. We don’t have any apples-to-apples comparison. And so there’s really no good way to pull out, was it New York? Was it the calendar? How much of either really was it in the end?
(02:52):
But I think as we get toward NFL season starting in about a month, this is maybe the single biggest storyline in terms of sports betting in the United States that we’re going to be looking at, which is, how is New Jersey going to be affected? How is New York going to continue to perform? And, with all of these operators who have been moaning about the tax rate that they agreed to in New York, are we going to see that promotional spend go back up after they very publicly and loudly pulled back on it after football season and after the end of the playoffs in hockey and basketball this year?
Matt Brown (03:27):
Dustin, one of the things that we just threw out there a year ago, right? We were saying, I wonder what happens when football season rolls around next year? Are we going to get the guys who are already betting in Jersey, who like getting all of the promos, who like getting all of these deals? Are they still going to hop on the train and go across the border and make their bets? Are they still going to get in their car, drive over there? Are they going to go spend the weekend over in Jersey sometimes every now and then because there’s a big sports betting weekend? That is still to be determined here. The other thing to be determined is, hey look, do the sportsbooks offer up some packages to get people over into Jersey, to make some bets? I mean, listen, offer up a limo service, you got some champagne in the back, we’ll put you up in a hotel or whatever it might be just to get some of these big spenders across the border where the tax rate is significantly lower.
(04:17):
I don’t know if we’ll ever know for sure if any of this is happening. I guess we could get anecdotal evidence, and maybe if any of these whales want to come out and say that this is happening to them or for them or whatever it might be, we might be able to get some evidence here. But it’s at least a question, and it’s fun for us to just throw out there because again, a lot of these guys were getting catered to very heavily as it was already anyway, because they lived across the border in New York, and they were already getting the VIP treatment. Will that continue? And maybe even to a greater extent to try to get them across the border.
Dustin Gouker (04:47):
Yeah. I mean, let’s start here. Sportsbooks would rather people place bets in New Jersey than New York. If they can effect that change, I’m sure they will because they will pay far less tax on any revenue they get out of those players. So I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not. Yeah. I also don’t think a sports bettor is just going to go to Jersey for grins and giggles just to place a bet either. But yeah, sure. If I’m a sportsbook who has a lot of action coming in and it’s a meaningful amount of revenue for them, sure. Get them over there, get them over there. Or if you don’t have the sportsbook that you like, if it happens to be one of the ones that’s in New Jersey, but not in New York, you have something there. Obviously, most of the big ones are in New York, but there are some that are not.
(05:27):
So I don’t know. And back to the marketing spend part of all this, I know we’ve heard all this … There’s been a lot of, we’re pulling back. I don’t think there’s going to be that much pullback, quite honestly. I think it’s going to be hard for us to discern the pullback. I think there’s going to be a lot of advertising because it is too … Football season is too big for FanDuel, DraftKings, et cetera. Just pull back and sit on the sidelines and say, we’re happy with our customer base. We don’t really need to grow that. I think you’re going to see a lot. It may not be quite as much as last year, but this first year of New York, for sure, you’ll have some other … There’s more to it than just, oh, we’re going to sit back. I don’t think you can afford to sit back. So maybe there will be a little bit of pullback, but I think it’s going to be hard for us to discern that.
(06:14):
Again, with just how much is out there. Now you’re spending in the Mid-Atlantic area, you’re getting a three-for-one for New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. So I don’t see that being … Maybe they push it more regional than national, but I think there’s going to be a lot of spend and a lot of marketing going on this football season. And I’ll be happy to be cold taked if I’m wrong, but I think that’s going to be the case. We’re going to see a lot of marketing later this summer, early fall.
Matt Brown (06:42):
And Adam, I think Dustin brings up at least an interesting point here. We have Caesars, FanDuel, MGM, PointsBet, BetRivers, DraftKings, Bally, Wynn and Resorts World that are live in New York. So we have nine different sportsbooks for people to choose from. That being said, we know just across the border over there in New Jersey, there are other options that are not available for everybody to bet on in New York. So you’ve got some of these others where you could look and say, Unibet is available over in Jersey. We’ve got some of these others that are available over in Jersey if we wanted to go over there. So I wonder, and again, we’ll see. We’re going to be at football season here in about five weeks, in the heart of it.
(07:31):
Do some of these books that know that they’re not available over in New York, that they are available in Jersey, is there a way to entice the person to come over and make a bet in your book? Is there a way to get that whale to say, oh man, it is nice that I can sit on my couch and make this bet, but if I get on the train and go across over there, I’m getting X, Y, Z from this book, that book or whatever. So maybe there is some, at least a little bit, of some competition from the Jersey side, with these books that aren’t available in New York.
Adam Candee (08:01):
I think it’s a limited pool, to be honest. And I don’t know that it stretches as far down into the decimal market share of a Unibet. But I do look at, let’s say, a Barstool and say, this might be your chance to actually crack in a little bit in a way that you haven’t, right? Barstool very notably did not get a license in New York, and so they’re not going to be in the market. Does 365 want to actually be noisier at some point in New Jersey than it has been, right? We know that they’re in Jersey, but not in New York, their standalone bid wasn’t approved, either. So you can look at, I think it’s some of those players and say, maybe they’re the ones who try to make more of an impact in New Jersey.
(08:41):
I just think to Dustin’s point, the promotional spend, if you are choosing not to spend, if you’re going to be Caesars and stick to the hard line of, we’ve done what we came here to do, then I think you’re giving a handwritten invitation to FanDuel and Flutter who are leading the market, who have made very clear, once the promos are over, we see customers coming back to us. If you don’t have a superior user experience or a superior VIP experience, and you’re a book that is choosing not to market right now, I think you are opening yourself up to massive potential injury to come this football season.
Matt Brown (09:19):
Yeah. I mean, Dustin, I think that Adam brings up, the one that we continue to lob out there, is 365 ever going to make their move? Is 365 ever going to make their move? Are they really going to take a massive push here in the US? And here is that opportunity, in air quotes, where, hey, they’re in Jersey, they’re not in New York. Can they get people from New York to come over, place bets in Jersey? Are they going to be aggressive trying to do that or not? I mean, think we can learn at least a little bit here because this is the first full football season that we’re going to get the state of New York. And so, do you aggressively market to try to get people to cross across that border and use your product? I mean, again, we’ll find out here in a month, month and a half.
Dustin Gouker (10:04):
Yeah. I mean 365 remains interesting. I mean, they wanted to be aggressive in New York, going back in the history, they bought a share of a casino thinking that was going to be their path in. Unfortunately for them, that was not the case. They kind of opened up for bids, and they were not one of them. But yeah, who knows what it is. I think, you’ll see evidence of it. If 365 really thinks there’s a chance to make a meaningful move, this is what we’ve been saying pretty much all along. What we’ve surmised is, they’re going to wait it out. But I don’t think quite their moment to just go out and spend a lot. Because, like I said, I think they’re going to be going up against a lot, but this becomes an easier sell for them. If everybody else is going to sit back and just be, and rest on their laurels, then there’s a chance. So depending on whether they believe this intel out there or not, they may be more aggressive in trying to market to the US customer this year.
Matt Brown (10:57):
And Adam, I think it’s, I’m glad you did bring up Barstool, right? Because there is a couple of different things that do differentiate them from other books out there. Of course, the marketing promoting angle just from the website itself and all that, there is the availability in Jersey and not in New York and all that. I mean, they’ve got an office in New York. I’m sure there is … I am near positive, and I, again, can be proven wrong. As Dustin said earlier, I will be proven wrong. This going to be cold taked a little bit later. But my guess is Barstool’s going to be super aggressive in New York to try to get customers over into Jersey. That’s just my prediction. I can’t say for certain.
Adam Candee (11:36):
Well, I think the differentiator that we need to mention when it comes to Barstool, and it’s not necessarily a differentiator from all of the New York sports betting brands, but its iCasino, we know that Barstool has the ability to market to iCasino as well, and to try to cross some of their sports bettors into casino and maybe back the other direction, although we tend to see … We talk more, I should say, about one direction versus the other. We have heard from some of the operators and their recent earnings calls that it can go both ways in terms of selling casino into sports betting as well. So I think that’s something that you can look at with all of these brands and ask, do they have a robust iCasino offering? Because that offers more opportunity.
ESPN sports betting remains possible but stuck in neutral
Matt Brown (12:16):
Dustin, we have talked ESPN multiple times on this podcast. Were they going to open their own book? Were they going to get an exclusive partner? What was it going to cost if that was going to be the case? Et cetera, et cetera. ESPN, if you follow the business side of things, if you were on the Twitter machine this past week, ESPN kind of came back up again as to what their future plans exactly are going to be.
Dustin Gouker (12:40):
Yeah. Q3 earnings call, CEO brings it up again. Like you said, we have talked about this, we have written about it a lot. Pat Evans broke it down, says they’re fully committed to jumping into sports betting. They’ve been … CEO Bob Chapek says they’ve been in conversations quite a long time with multiple sportsbook platforms, and they say they’re going to be there, but we are now almost what will be five years in next year into legal online sports betting in the United States. And ESPN is obviously profiting from that, from relationships and advertising and things like that. But there’s still, if you’re going to do this, if you’re going to be more involved in the sports betting ecosystem, you probably need to get off the sidelines pretty soon. Whether that’s buying or partnering with somebody, I maintain that, just the branding play of somebody paying for the ESPN brand probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
(13:35):
That’s a lot of money to pay for a brand name. If that comes with some partnership and some exposure, maybe it makes sense, but I’ll sit here and say, I think ESPN should just be a sportsbook. They should just own their own sportsbook. Take all that revenue themselves. They have more eyeballs on sports than any other property in the United States. So we’ll see. Again, they keep saying that they’re going to do things, but who knows? We’re still there waiting, again, four years after the fall of PASPA to see what ESPN’s going to do other than take the ancillary advertising money via ESPN. But we’ll see what’s going to happen soon. It doesn’t mean soon either, this flirtation with sports betting could continue on for some time.
Matt Brown (14:22):
Adam, we do wonder. OK, there was the talk where we had when theScore was going to go live, and we’re like, OK, listen, they’ve got this super popular app. Is that going to be enough? People are going in there looking for scores, looking for sports betting, looking for sports news, et cetera, et cetera. Is that going to be enough to convert a customer? We found out somewhere along the way that that was not going to be enough. Now, ESPN holds an exponentially higher brand awareness, much more cache, certainly much more respect with the US customer than theScore does.
(14:52):
And so I do believe that ESPN could really be a disruptor here, in whatever form that they choose to finally end up taking. Because you look, I mean, they’re running … If you flipped on the channel this past week, as we record this on August the 17th. If you had flipped on the channel, they were running their fantasy football marathon, and you’re seeing millions and millions and millions of teams getting drafted while they’re on television promoting, hey, go draft a team, and they had a goal of, let’s get to X million number of teams drafted by the end of programming and stuff.
(15:28):
And they were surpassing this number. And so the reach, the voice to the casual person, the voice to someone who is at least invested in a gaming aspect of sports. I understand you don’t have to play fantasy football for money, but it is at least a gaming aspect of sports? Even if you do it for free, you’re still playing a game that involves sports, and so you are probably more likely to be a sports bettor somewhere down the line to place a sports bet somewhere. So I might just be fooled here because I’m just so in the weeds here, watch ESPN constantly, lived ESPN since I was a child. Maybe I’m not the right person to talk about this, but I’ve tried to take a step back and look at this from a macro perspective. And every single time, I do look, and it just seems like ESPN could be the real, real, real disruptor here.
Adam Candee (16:24):
Oh, of course. And I think we’ve had a number of discussions that go that direction. And I think it’s important to understand that Disney’s CEO said that ESPN has figured out that this is an offering that its customers want. They want some sort of integrated option. So that being the case, if they’re saying that publicly to investors, I don’t think that that’s just blowing smoke to the investors to make them happy and say, no, no, we’re going to get something done eventually. Don’t worry, trust us. They’re saying, we’ve actually researched this, and this is something that people are asking for. So I think, you don’t set that up to then, later, come back and say, oh, well we couldn’t find a way to do it. So when you look at ESPN’s situation right now, it brings me back to something that a very smart executive told me late last year. Which is that, he said in their markets, what he sees is that 90% of revenue comes from 10% of players. Goes back to the discussion we’ve had of VIPs and whales when it came to New York and New Jersey.
(17:23):
So what’s ESPN’s ability to get to that person? I don’t know that they have that path. I don’t know that they’re experienced enough, whether it’s the VIP experience, whether it’s the user experience, to build this completely on their own. Because even at DraftKings or FanDuel, who you look at and say, oh, well, they don’t have the experience of doing VIP that the established brick and mortars like BetMGM and Caesars do. Yeah, but they were doing VIP the whole time DFS existed, so they have plenty of experience in doing that. What’s ESPN going to be able to do to get that person? Or does ESPN believe that its grip on casuals is so strong that it’s going to be able to tap this sort of untapped resource when it comes to casual players? Eyeballs that have not been brought in otherwise by the major operators, by the media plays like theScore, what are they going to be able to do to bring that person in and keep that person there?
(18:18):
Are they going to be willing to spend on promotional? Are they going to be willing to put in a lot of resources to a great UX and build something from the bottom? And so I think the more and more you look at it, I ultimately think, for them, a branding place still makes more sense than trying to go into this themselves. I know that probably doesn’t maximize the revenue potential for them, but maybe you make it a shorter-term deal. Maybe it’s a five-year deal where ESPN could reevaluate the market once things have settled down a little bit. We’ve seen the market economics of course settle down when it comes to M&A, and maybe the prices are becoming more reasonable, but I don’t know that companies that are seriously leveraged right now are looking at it and saying, oh well, the market economics have calmed down so we’ll ask for a lower price. No, I mean, they have plenty of reason to still trade both on the potential that they have and maybe even the debt they’re trying to deal with.
Matt Brown (19:09):
And Dustin, we look at this and I think from, what is the desire here outside of just hearing this from their customers or something? Is, again, if you look at the landscape, five of the 10 most populous states in the United States still do not have online sports betting, right? So there are still a lot of people still to come here. I mean, we could be talking about this in 10 years, and we’ll make the evaluation whether, OK, this was a bust for all these companies or not, or whatever it might be.
(19:41):
But I mean, we’re talking 40 million people in California, 30 million people in Texas, another 22 million people in Florida, 11, 12 in Georgia, another 10 in North Carolina, where you can only bet over the counter. I mean, there are five of the 10 most populous states still to come online. So for a company like ESPN, yeah, we can look at the numbers coming out of New York and Pennsylvania and Arizona and Michigan, all these crazy numbers. And then now, add in five of the most populous states still to come.
Dustin Gouker (20:13):
Yeah. I mean, we always talk about it like, oh, maybe it’s over. But yeah, you’re always right with that kind of calculation, is that we have some amount of chance that California and Texas come online in the next couple of years here. I mean, that’s up for another podcast of us handicapping that. But yeah, that makes a huge … You come in cold and you have California and you have something. I think the only thing that concerns me is, OK, if they’re going to build their own product, that’s not a fast process. That’s integrated. We’re still talking a long process here, no matter what ESPN decides to do.
(20:48):
Whether it buys, builds its own product, the integration part of it into content, there’s a lot to be done, and we’re still just hearing drips and drabs of this in earnings calls. Is ESPN going to get off the sidelines? Is the big question. And I agree with you, it’s a needle mover. I think we caution on some of the media plays, but I think ESPN is its own ball of wax. It owns so much of the sports media landscape and inventory and TV, that it would absolutely make sense. So yeah, we’ll see. But it is premature probably to just say it’s over if they don’t get going soon, but they still need to get going in some regard. You have to start before you can stop.
Matt Brown (21:33):
Right.
Adam Candee (21:33):
What I think the other piece we need to consider here is, does Disney want to get into the licensure business or do they spin ESPN out potentially into its own entity, back into its own entity in order to facilitate that? Because when you talk about sports betting licensure, there’s a whole set of questions for Disney in terms of its investments that come up, right? We got into this earlier when we talked about the Disney-DraftKings stock deal years ago, right? There are questions that come up out of this that are a lot bigger than, can they get a good same-game parlay product?
The end of PredictIt election betting is around the corner
Matt Brown (22:12):
Yes, no. Absolutely. Chris Grove of course, very smart guy, industry analyst, said he felt like DraftKings had the upper hand here for some sort of deal getting done. But again, he said, there’s a long way to go, lots of stuff still to shake out here with all of ESPN. Adam, what do we know about PredictIt?
Adam Candee (22:32):
You can safely predict it will not be here next year. If you don’t know the name PredictIt, then you are probably not someone trying to bet on future elections in the United States. Well, Adam, you can’t bet on elections in the United States legally. This was the only place that you could, and this was really, essentially, a free market. You were not going to bet on elections for serious money. In fact, the CFTC had essentially issued a charter to a couple of universities, and I’m going to direct you to John Holden’s legal explanation of all of this at legalsportsreport.com before I butcher all of the actual terminology that’s in these letters. But essentially, the CFTC sent a letter saying that PredictIt is no longer going to be allowed to operate, kind of vaguely said that some of the operation had gone against the initial intent and terms of this being more of an educational research tool than a business model.
(23:32):
So if you are betting on elections, if you are hearing anything from someone trying to pitch election betting to you, betting on presidential future odds, who’s going to control Congress, et cetera, that’s the easiest indication you can get that you are talking to an offshore, because there is no legal election betting in the United States. Those of us who are old enough to remember the West Virginia fiasco a couple of years ago, know that for sure. So PredictIt is going away as of February 2023. That doesn’t really mean a lot to a lot of people, but it’s going to bring the discussion up. And we’re going to have, of course, you know this is going to be a major discussion before 2024, when we have a presidential election again, that, should we be betting on elections? I will use my little soap box to, once again, say, no. No. Hell no, we should not be doing this. And we can get into the discussion of why at another time.
Matt Brown (24:25):
I like this. I’m glad that you did that because I’m on the complete opposite side of you on that because I am on the no harm, no foul type …
Adam Candee (24:32):
Steven versus Steven. Save it for another day.
Matt Brown (24:34):
Type train there with all of that. So that’ll be a good one for us to bring up come election time. Hey, stick around for two years from now.
Adam Candee (24:42):
No, just this November, we’ll be all over it.
Operator earnings calls largely quiet about Ontario sports betting
Matt Brown (24:44):
All right. We’ll be all over it here in November as well. Dustin, so listen, we love talking numbers here. We were talking about how some of the numbers went down a little bit in New Jersey. So let’s talk about those numbers up in Ontario.
Dustin Gouker (24:57):
Or the lack thereof. I think we lament this. So until we see numbers, we’re going to continue calling this out. Ontario, again, four months-plus after launch has not released any kind of revenue numbers. We have heard several times when they thought they … It was supposed to be in July. And obviously it’s now August. We have not heard diddly poo about Ontario numbers from the province itself. We listened to all of the earnings calls from the major sportsbook operators, and there’s been very little information there even. PointsBet did say what it did, 11.2 million wagers between the start and into the quarter, the second quarter when it reports. But there was not very much else that we heard. We got things like DraftKings saying, was on pace, quote unquote, to have between a 10% and 20% market share. What does that mean? I don’t know. Means it has 1% now and it thinks it’s going to get 10% a few years? Maybe.
(25:55):
What we think is that the gray market operators that were licensed and are allowed to continue serving their user base are the ones that are winning all of this. But that’s just guesswork. It’s becoming almost mind-boggling that there’s no transparency into what Ontario’s doing. And again, I was in Ontario and Toronto for some conferences, and everybody, this is such a great success, online legal sports betting and online casino. I’m like, OK, great. What is our proof that that’s been a success? You have to have some sort of numbers. And so we have no idea whether there’s … Yes, that transition of a gray market into a white market is arguably a good thing, but we have no idea. We’re not going to be able to pace this against growth until we have any kind of numbers, any kind of transparency. So there’s a lot to unpack in Ontario, a lot of operators there, both new and old, and for the sake of everyone, please just release your numbers. That’d be great. Thanks.
Matt Brown (26:55):
That’s all we’re asking here. We like to talk numbers on the podcast, all right? So please give us some numbers. Adam, as always my friend, take us home with our state roundup.
Adam Candee (27:05):
I will do that momentarily. Just to add to Dustin’s point there, the article that Pat Evans put together, a great example of what you can get at legalsportsreport.com, where we are listening to these earnings calls so you don’t have to. And then he’s taking that information, what everyone had to say about Ontario, every operator that mentioned Ontario or Canada is listed in this article that we put together. So we can give you a one-stop shop, it’ll take you 10 minutes to read the article. Not even, maybe. If you’re a fast reader, you’re a speed reader. You can be done in 30 seconds.
Matt Brown (27:05):
Done.
Adam Candee (27:36):
Thirty seconds or less, or it’s free. How about that? Yeah. So …
Matt Brown (27:40):
We should get audio versions of the articles where you just read them in your sultry tones, so that people can go in and it’s the audio version of Adam reading the article.
Adam Candee (27:51):
I think on the LSR++ subscription, they might offer that, but it’s still in development.
Matt Brown (27:56):
Yeah. We’re a year away from that. Sounds good.
Adam Candee (28:00):
And next year we’ll still be a year away from that, so don’t anticipate that. But we heard within that, Pat talked to a number of people who said that 365 was crushing it in Canada, which should not be a surprise to anyone because they were already in the gray market, they already have a huge database built up. And if that’s any reason … This is total speculation. If that’s any reason why there’s been a delay in the numbers coming out as how to break that news to everybody, it’s not bad news. It really isn’t. The ability to transition a company from the gray market into the regulated market would actually be a huge success if we were talking about that in Canada. It might be something that encourages other gray market companies to consider coming into the regulated market in Canada. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you hear that.
State roundup: Kansas sports betting launch set for September 1
(28:47):
All right, let me take you around the Southern neighbor to Canada for a moment. Shout out to our friends in Kansas, the actual center of the United States, Topeka, Kansas. Kansas approved its sports betting rules. They sent those onto the attorney general for sign-off. Pretty certain we’re not going to have launched by September 8th for the kickoff of NFL, but it sounds like it might not be too far after that. In fact, it might still be within the month of September, that mobile sports betting is available in Kansas. So keep an eye on that. In Maryland, remember that timeline we just gave you for when the LSR++ subscription would be available? You could pretty much put Maryland sports betting, at least the mobile version, on that timeline as well.
(29:33):
Another meeting of their advisory committee today, another meeting that did not produce a timeline for Maryland sports betting. Although, those who were watching the meeting, including Pat Evans, kind of parsed out that they might be shooting for the Super Bowl. Until then, this is a total cool story, bro, situation. When you have something to tell me, go ahead and tell me. Down in Georgia, the governor’s race … Hey, we’re still talking elections. Stacey Abrams. Who …
Matt Brown (30:02):
Can I bet on who’s going to win? Oh no, I can’t. I can’t. No, no, I can’t.
Adam Candee (30:07):
You, sir, are clearly an offshore player. We’ll leave it there.
Matt Brown (30:07):
I can’t. All right. Gotcha.
Adam Candee (30:13):
Yeah. Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor, who, of course, ran last time in 2018, lost narrowly to Brian Kemp, who is the governor of Georgia now, wholeheartedly embraced sports betting as a candidate for governor. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything in terms of it being implemented, but that election is coming up in November, and Georgia is a state where the Legislature has failed a couple of times here in recent years to legalize, keep in mind, Georgia would have to pass something and then go to the ballot with a constitutional amendment in order to legalize sports betting. As much as we look at the south and see conservative states, we also know that Atlanta is a city with multiple major professional sports and they have organized to have those professional sports to lobby for sports betting. So there might be those down there who are looking for that one issue to find just a little bit of daylight between Stacey Abrams and Kemp down in Georgia, maybe sports betting is it for you.
Matt Brown (31:09):
We can only hope, right? Because, hey look, we want sports betting legalized everywhere so it’s safe for all consumers. You can do your part with your vote out there. It’s way too early, it’s only August. People don’t care about voting until late October. That’s when people care about … Guys, as always, everything we talk about here on the podcast, you can head over to legalsportsreport.com and you can take in all the awesome words Adam and team are putting together over there. If you’re joining us over on the video side of things, hello, I know, much more handsome than you thought. You can go ahead and hit that subscribe button down below, we really do appreciate that. We’re growing this channel out, going to get some really exciting, fun things going on here on the channel, as well. And if it’s on the audio side, we do appreciate your …
Adam Candee (31:50):
We love you too.
Matt Brown (31:51):
Subscription. Yes. Your ratings and your reviews. Just drop us a couple of words down there. Say, hey, I really like listening to those guys. It’ll help us climb the charts, and more people can find this here very podcast. If you want to follow Dustin, @dustingouker, you want to follow Adam, @adamcandee, two E’s, no Y. For Dustin, for Adam, I’m Matt. Talk to you guys next week.