Rock Chalk Sports Bet! | LSR 161
Welcome back to the Legal Sports Report Podcast, Ep.#161! Kansas launches legal sports betting this week and we break down what you need to know. (1:30) We also take a look at the first numbers out of legal online gambling in Ontario (6:22) and update you on potential progress in Maryland (12:00) and Oregon sports betting. (17:30)
Full transcript
Matt Brown (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to episode number 161 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. With me, I have Pat Evans. Get out of here Adam Candee, we don’t need you this week. And of course I am Matt Brown. You should follow these guys on the Twitter machine. It’s free. Just punch the button @dustingouker. And Pat, where can they find you over on the Twitter machine?
Pat Evans (00:38):
It’s really simple. I was on super early. It’s @patevans.
Matt Brown (00:41):
No way. No way.
Dustin Gouker (00:44):
Matt Brown is so jealous.
Matt Brown (00:46):
As in Matt Brown. That is offensive to me that you got Pat Evans. Are you serious? Man.
Pat Evans (00:52):
My favorite part though is if I search Pat Evans on Google, it’s mostly some older lady real estate agent, so I don’t have very good domain dominance there.
Matt Brown (01:05):
I am so jealous though. That is unbelievable. All right. We’re going to talk Ontario, we’re going to talk Maryland, we’re going to talk Massachusetts, we’re going to talk Oregon as well. But let’s kick things off here Pat with some news that is pretty fun for us because anytime we can get some new players going here in the States, we always are really excited about that. And we do have some new players as of today.
Live updates: Kansas sports betting launches today
Pat Evans (01:30):
Yeah, literally pretty much just now as we’re coming on to record this, Kansas is live. And there’s six operators: Barstool, BetMGM, Caesars, DraftKings, FanDuel, PointsBet. And yeah, it’s all go. That was a very quick path from the governor’s signature back in May to launch now. But that’s credit to the regulators, the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission that works closely with the Kansas Lottery, which actually owns the casinos that are the partners. So I think everything was kind of really easy to streamline over there. And they’re ready to roll right in time for the NFL season.
Matt Brown (02:08):
Dustin, for people who are in states out there that have some sort of legislation done or are really close to legislation, yet we’re always predicting that, hey, it’s going to take a long time. Maybe by football — we’ve said this for the last couple of years — maybe by football season for state X, Y, Z, maybe probably closer to the Super Bowl for state X, Y, Z. How do we look at Kansas and see them launching already?
Dustin Gouker (02:34):
Here’s the thing at this point in the history of in the evolution of US sports, is you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. These companies are licensed everywhere else. Really it’s just a function of the fact that we have a state-by-state regime where you have to legalize it on a state-by-state basis. These are obviously good actors that don’t need a ton of vetting. I don’t know if you need to go as fast as Kansas, but there’s certainly a middle ground between what Kansas did and what what’s going on in a Maryland or in Ohio that’s taking a fairly long time in both. Obviously in Maryland, we don’t even know what a launch date is.
(03:13):
But you can do this. You can do this now. You have this critical mass of states. Again, we should just have US sports betting everywhere. That’s not going to happen, though. We’re not going to get federal regulation. In place of that, though, you can use what’s going on in the rest of the states as a proxy for moving forward and getting everything right.
(03:32):
So Kansas, they thought it was important to start realizing the revenue now. If you’re going to launch sports betting, and you’re just not doing it at a random time, this is when you need to launch. Other than that, you should launch it in front of the Super Bowl, which is, again, the single biggest day of customer acquisition in any US sports betting market. So for that it’s important. I think it’s really good to launch into the busiest time of year so that you get customers readily accepting and getting into a regulated legal sportsbook.
Matt Brown (04:05):
Pat, you mentioned the ones that are going live. Is there possibility for additional sportsbooks to come into play down the line?
Pat Evans (04:12):
Yeah. So each of the four state-owned casinos are able to have three skins. So Bally Bet’s also in there, Golden Nugget, I think FOX Bet has access now. Bally Bet’s been kind of slowly rolling out their new product across the country. Not even across the country, I think they’re live in one market, maybe two. So who knows when the rest of them will launch. But they’ve got the big, I guess the big six. I guess depending on how you kind of view PointsBet and Barstool.
Matt Brown (04:44):
Yeah, absolutely. Dustin, we make predictions here on this podcast. We’ve done it for a long time. Where do you think in the pecking order we’re kind of going to see Kansas? Is there a comparable market that’s already going right now that you think is where we can kind of look for the upside to be?
Dustin Gouker (05:03):
I think Mr. Evans put it in his story this morning that you can read in Legal Sports Report. Connecticut’s a decent comp, at least from what the market’s like. You have fairly small population. The thing that Kansas has going for it, though, is it’s going to have more operators than Connecticut. Connecticut is pretty small in terms of how many operators. It’s only three sports betting operators. So I think there’s upside for Kansas.
(05:28):
The other part is going to get the drive-in from Kansas City for sure. Not everybody knows this, but Kansas City, the beacon city, is in Missouri. You cross over from Missouri. Missouri does not yet have legal sports betting, so you come over. So that drive-in, we’ve seen in markets with big cities nearby, we’ve seen real evidence of that, going back to people coming from New York and going into New Jersey just to bet. And that is a meaningful amount of handle. Chicago, early days, people were going to Indiana to bet. Or they lived in Indiana and worked in Chicago. Who knows.
(05:58):
But there’s some serious upside for Kansas right now. And especially we’ve had, there was this, quote unquote, race between Missouri and Kansas. We thought Missouri was actually probably more of a favorite to get done than Kansas this year, and then Missouri stayed on the sideline. So there’s that. It’s not going to be a huge market. Again, pretty small population, but it has a chance for the short term at least to punch above its weight.
Ontario online gambling numbers finally here: $162 Million in revenue in Q2
Matt Brown (06:22):
We have been waiting and we have been waiting anxiously for the numbers to come out in Ontario. Listen, we love numbers here on the pod and certainly for markets that are fairly recently open because we want to kind of see, hey, how did they come out of the gate? How did they progress since they’ve been going on here? So we finally got some numbers, Dustin, out of Ontario. And after you’ve taken a look at them, what do you think?
Dustin Gouker (06:44):
The numbers that we got are fairly useless, I think is the takeaway. It’s funny. We waited all of this time, like you said, the market opened in April and then we get this barely, I don’t know. I’m not even sure I would’ve put it out if I was Ontario because it’s just not much data. It sounds like they’re working on something that’s more comprehensive. But right now, we just basically got, we don’t even have a breakdown of what sports, again, Ontario launched casino and sports betting at the same time in April, but they don’t even break down sports betting.
(07:23):
We have a total number handle for casino, which is around 4 billion Canadian, which is USD 3 billion-ish revenue, 162 million. Again, this is all online gambling. But with some caveats; that we don’t know what happens, what’s the numbers for the lottery. Lottery has its own product for sports betting. PROLINE+ do online gambling themselves, so that’s not in here.
(07:47):
We also had the staggered rollout of sportsbooks and casinos into the market as people got vetted and new market entrants like our US brands, DraftKings, FanDuel, et cetera. And Bet365, Sports Interactions, which we just got last week approved. So we have not captured all of that.
(08:08):
That being said, I looked at the numbers, and I’m underwhelmed. Again, with all these caveats, so they handled $4 billion online gambling in the entire universe. New York in that same period did more than that in just sports betting. Now, yes, more people in New York. New York has things going for it. But handling $4 billion in both casino and sports betting is not that much. Do all of those caveats add up to an exciting market once we have all of that, when we get the next quarter’s result or next month’s result? I don’t know.
(08:42):
But right now this is not anywhere close to what a regulated US market with both casino and sports looks like. That number, those top line numbers for revenue and handle for both casino and sports, are so much smaller than New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which have both these products, casino and sports. And again, this is not from a standstill start, this is from, in theory, a running start where you have all these customers already. Again, Bet365, I forget, Pat, if you remember, when did they get in?
Pat Evans (09:17):
They were pretty early.
Dustin Gouker (09:18):
Yeah. Bet365, from all accounts, number one operator. They brought their database, put it into the Ontario market. So I don’t know. There’s a lot of unknown still here. We got numbers, we like numbers, and it’s like it’s good to see something, but I’m underwhelmed. There’s a chance that we become not underwhelmed by these numbers, but I look at them and I’m like, that’s it, really? That’s all we’ve got? Now again, with all those caveats, things could be not as gloomy as I say, but I think there’s arguably room for Ontario to grow. And I’m just borderline shocked this was the number for both casino and sports.
Matt Brown (09:57):
And Pat, as we look at this, one thing that we get from the states here where we’re able to see, OK, sportsbook X is a market leader in this state, sportsbook Y is solidly number two. These are the kind of three, four, five, stuff like that. We don’t really get that, don’t have that breakdown here either. We’re kind of just having to piece stuff together maybe by what we’ve heard or anecdotally as to who is the market leader, and where people are falling.
Pat Evans (10:21):
Yeah. As Dustin said, they don’t even break out sports betting separately of online casino. So it’s hard to even know. The one number we have was PointsBet, I think it was about $12 million bet on sports, and that was from their quarterly earnings. And I tried to parse out what that might mean and even tried to listen to every other earnings call there was, and literally no one said anything. So everybody was like, we’re on track for what we thought. And it’s like, how do you know?
Dustin Gouker (10:53):
Everyone’s on track for 10% to 20% of the market.
Pat Evans (10:57):
Yeah, all 30 operators. So I don’t know how that’s going to add up. We got a 300% situation going on up there. Yeah. And I’m hopeful someday we get a breakdown. I don’t know that they’ll ever break down operators judging by this first report. But even the next one’s not going to be full since, like Dustin said, Sports Interaction, which has been live since like 1998 or something like that, just went live. So even this next quarter that they report won’t be full.
(11:21):
And so maybe the third report we get with the NFL season and hopefully all the, because they also just said they’re starting to look at when they’re shutting down the gray market, which I don’t even know what really that means. But once they start enforcing the rules, again, don’t know what that means, but at Halloween time. So maybe the third report we get we’ll have more information,
Matt Brown (11:44):
Dustin, if everybody’s getting 10% to 20% market share, we need to open that book of Dustin, book of Gouker. We have got to get that going up there. Because if we can get 20%, we need to figure out how to get that backed and going.
Dustin Gouker (11:56):
I’m in. Let’s do it. Let’s build it right now.
Maryland online sports betting takes a step toward launch
Matt Brown (12:00):
All right. So Pat, let’s take a look at Maryland here. This is an ongoing saga that we have been talking about here on the podcast for what seems like five years. It has not been that long, but it feels like it’s been that long. Where can my friends, and I do have friends that are over in Maryland, where and when can they start to bet, man?
Pat Evans (12:21):
Well, they can go to the casinos in Maryland, still, for retail. But yeah, it is the polar opposite for mobile launch as Kansas. Voters approved it in 2020, and the Legislature got it done last year, and our friends at the Sports Wagering Application Review Commission have just kind of dragged their feet. Then earlier this summer, Governor Larry Hogan came out and said, “Hey, let’s get this done. My people want to bet by the football season.”
(12:58):
So since then we’ve seen SWARC speed up a little bit. And they got their regulations done, they got their draft applications done, now they’re waiting for legislative review. And Thomas Brandt, the chair of the SWARC, came out and said he’d sent a letter to the legislative review committee and said, “Hey, we want to get this done by football season. We want to get stuff launched.”
(13:18):
Previously, the Lottery Control Agency said, even if everything goes according to plan, a Super Bowl launch seems maybe possible. So the fact that this legislative review commission’s kind of dragging on a little bit, the Super Bowl seems like a stretch. But Thomas Brandt seems to think that maybe giving the casinos and their bigger partners kind of a clear pathway, maybe they can get something launched during the football season. Kind of like they did with the five retail books last December. Just kind of a little expedited situation. And kind of like Dustin said, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel with those established operators.
Matt Brown (14:01):
Exactly. Dustin, this is basically the case point for what you’re talking about. Where you’re dealing with all these big guys that are licensed and proven entities in multiple other states, states that are bigger than you, Maryland out there. And yet we are still sitting here over a year later and don’t have anything going. This is just basically the case study of what not to do.
Dustin Gouker (14:26):
Yeah. Again, overly complicated it for sure with what’s going on in Maryland. The fact that we’re this far from the ballot measure and what the Legislature did, and we still don’t even have a launch date. I don’t know, are we still a coin flip for the Super Bowl? They say that it’s going to be live for the Super Bowl, but who trusts that? And they haven’t committed to that even. It’s like, if everything goes right, we’ll will be launched by the Super Bowl. Congratulations, I guess. It’s crazy. Again, I give deference to regulators in most cases. Do your job, make sure you’re comfortable with the product that you’re launching. It’s new to your state. But there’s absolutely no reason that this process should be so complicated in Maryland.
Dozens of new entities interested in Massachusetts sports betting licenses
Matt Brown (15:14):
All right, Dustin. Let’s look at Massachusetts here. And it looks as if, I think this is something that we probably would’ve guessed anyway, but it looks like Massachusetts might be drawing a lot of interest from people that are in the industry.
Dustin Gouker (15:29):
Yeah, we weren’t exactly sure how many people were going to apply or wanted to be in Massachusetts sports betting. There’s a possibility of 15 online licenses in the state. And we’ll have a story up in a bit here at LSR about, there’s now 42 entities that have submitted a notice of intent. So this might kind of complicate things, I think, the fact that there are this many entities.
(15:53):
This is going to be a competitive bidding process to see who gets in. Seven of those 15 online licenses come from competitive bidding. So that’s a lot of licenses to go through and bids to consider. This is going to make it pretty difficult.
(16:13):
I’m looking through the list. Our colleague, Mike Mazzeo, wrote the story for us. There’s some interesting stuff in here. BarberTime Media Network, which I have never heard of, which some quick Googling is, I still don’t know what it is, but they want to operate sports betting. You’ve got the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe of South Dakota wants to do some Massachusetts sports betting. Who knew? There’s some other interesting things in here.
(16:40):
Some other things that are not endemic to, not part of really the state as it is. Who knows, we’ll see. But you have a chance to get in here. It’s not all locked up on casino skin. So you can get in just by saying, here, I want to be a part of this market and offering something that’s attractive to the commonwealth of Massachusetts. So we’ll see.
(17:04):
Another one where we’re still waiting on a launch date. We are hopeful we’ll know a launch date here perhaps this month. It sounds like that’s a possibility. But I’d say the sheer number of these operators is probably going to make this a little more complicated than we thought. The fact that we basically have three times as many operators and people who want to be a part of this. As we do open licenses, it’s going to be interesting.
Matt Brown (17:30):
Pat, I’m kicking this story to you because I want an unbiased reporting of this. I don’t want people jumping through the screen with joy, and I don’t want somebody on the podcast, this guy over here or whatever, getting a little too excited. Oregon, as we know, has currently, listen, we at least have sports betting, we at least have online sports betting, so there is that. However, not a lot of options. It’s a monopoly right now. But there are some pretty powerful people within the state that are trying to make a compelling case that it would be much better if there were more options.
Pat Evans (18:05):
So last week there was a legislative, an informative legislative meeting, where this committee was just trying to gather more information about their sports betting ecosystem. And DraftKings did this whole presentation about their monopoly situation and how much money they’ve made or maybe haven’t made. So then Sports — is it Sports Oregon or Sport Oregon, Dustin, I can’t remember.
Dustin Gouker (18:30):
It’s singular as a group.
Group that includes Nike, Trail Blazers pushes for Oregon sports betting expansion
Pat Evans (18:31):
Yes. Sport Oregon, which is an economic group made up of sports entities in Oregon, including the MLS team, the Portland Trailblazers, Nike, Adidas, so yeah, heavy movers who know a thing or two about money. And they came out and they said, this just doesn’t make sense for us to have a monopoly on sports betting. This is how much money, they commissioned a study to say this is how much more money the sportsbooks can make. And then by that, how much more money the state can make from the sportsbooks.
(19:07):
So they basically made their case to say, we need an open competitive market. It’ll be better for everybody, whether it’s the sports teams, whether it’s the state, whether it’s the sportsbooks. I don’t know if DraftKings will like it or not, but we’ll see. So then from here, I don’t really know where it goes. Dustin might, being a local. I guess it’s up to the legislators to see if they want to do more.
Dustin Gouker (19:32):
Let’s go, Phil Knight, get this done for me tomorrow. Just kidding. I love that. I love DraftKings at least, but obviously I’d love to have the experience of some other people and have more apps. This is the best thing for consumers. There’s been whispers that there’s going to be a legislative effort next year for sure to open up the market. I don’t think DraftKings has been a failure. It’s certainly better than the old thing that we had, which was Oregon Scoreboard, the SBTech product that DraftKings acquired SBTech. Compared to that product — it was garbage. I hated it. They moved on to DraftKings. That has been good, certainly. But you’d argue this is not still the best thing for consumers or even for the state of Oregon.
Matt Brown (20:16):
You have a good functioning product, it’s just you’d only have that product. That is at least a step in the right direction as you mentioned, because you were talking about the app didn’t even basically work before. But you would much rather have the choice of four or five, six different places to bet.
Dustin Gouker (20:31):
Yeah, absolutely. And this is just more of this evidence of major players in the space of the sports industry getting involved. This is a step removed, but this is a group that … I’m pretty sure if Nike’s aware that this is going on. Somebody at Nike headquarters knows that Sport Oregon is doing this, headquartered in Eugene. Trailblazers are involved. In California, we have Major League Baseball getting involved with.
(21:01):
We’ve seen really pushing, again, and pushing for the open competitive market of online sports betting. That’s certainly a good thing. As much as I like to call out the hypocrisy of the leagues, they’re now being a force for change and the teams that are associated with them and doing it in the best way that should be for the future of US online sports betting.
Matt Brown (21:22):
Dustin, let’s close things out here with a name that we continue to toss around. And I’m sure people listening to the podcast are like, OK, well, that’s cool and all that you keep talking about these people. When are they actually going to do something? But I think that this is, listen, this starts to explain maybe what their approach is to all of this and how they plan on going about it.
(21:42):
It is Fanatics that we’re talking about. We know massive database, been collecting email addresses and all the things like that of actual people who have spent money on sports products. Now, does that mean that they’re going to be sports gamblers? That’s a completely different story. But we know there’s got to be at least some crossover from somebody who’s willing to buy a jersey or an autographed piece of memorabilia to being interested enough to probably bet on their favorite team or favorite player. So we think that there is a path to success for them for sure, yet they haven’t really made a move quite yet. Their CEO went on Colin Cowherd’s podcast and at least kind of laid out why that is.
Dustin Gouker (22:19):
Yeah. There’s been a lot of virtual ink spilled and written about old Fanatics for not even having a sportsbook. And we’re still sitting here waiting to see exactly what we have. We had a story last week too. Fanatics is currently hiring more than 60 people for its sports betting operation. Again, no sports betting yet, but they’re one of the people who’s expressed interest in Massachusetts. They are spending a lot of money for California access, and we don’t have a product yet. It is interesting.
Fanatics CEO preaches patience as sports betting operation slowly takes shape
(22:49):
But yeah, we got CEO Michael Rubin appearing on the Cowherd podcast. Obviously, we all know Mr. Cowherd; pretty into betting. So it’s interesting. Rubin is basically preaching patience; that sports betting is not over. That there’s plenty of room for them to come in and get a meaningful market share. Is that true? Who knows? But that’s the story they’re telling and that they believe. Again, you have Matt King of FanDuel also involved in their betting operation.
(23:17):
So like you said, Fanatics thinks that database. Rubin also talked about the fact that they see the app, the app of the future is not just a betting app or just a sports app, or just a sports viewing app. That all of that somehow gets mushed together and is just one experience. That’s all so great to say. It’s hard to sit here today and say that’s really going to happen or that’s a compelling product. But there’s an avenue that that happens. And Fanatics certainly is as much as anyone positioned to do that and make that happen. So we’ll see. Time will tell.
(23:54):
Obviously have got to get a sportsbook product live somewhere first. They would obviously like to make their splash I think in California. Again, spending heavily on the effort for the proposition there to get that passed in November. But we’ll see. There’s a lot still to be done.
(24:11):
I think they’re right, that we don’t talk a lot about other entities that don’t even have a license yet in the United States. We do talk a lot about Fanatics, but that’s because I think they’re a needle mover. I think they have this opportunity to get into the US market and gain meaningful market share. They also have a chance to crash and burn. But there’s a lot of outcomes in between there, as well.
Matt Brown (24:33):
And Pat, Rubin, he said, “We’re just starting to quote Fanatics in the first quarter of the game. I think we have so much potential and room for improvement.” We know that they brought in some big players, Matt King, formerly of FanDuel over there. Ari Borod is formerly of Action Networks. They’ve got in some guys that have been within the space and certainly some major players within the space.
(24:55):
I guess one of the things we have talked about previously here, and this is you taking off your reporter hat and more just kind of editorializing here and giving your opinion, which is just, I think that if there is any differentiating factor here with Fanatics, it’s that with having all these licenses, with all of these teams and having all these products and memorabilia, and all this different stuff that they can give away that they already have in inventory that they’re already buying in bulk as it is anyway.
(25:22):
The spiffs, the bonuses, the different things that they can give players that aren’t necessarily monetary, that aren’t necessarily just the free bet type of stuff. Which maybe works on some people but maybe doesn’t work on other people. Maybe someone would rather get a hat. Maybe someone would rather get an autographed basketball of their favorite player than get these free bets and things like that. That they at least have that avenue to maybe reach a different customer, possibly?
Pat Evans (25:48):
Yeah, I could see it hitting a less serious sports fan. Somebody who doesn’t watch a ton of sports or somebody who is casually a Detroit Tigers fan and just bought a hat and said, maybe I’ll bet $5 on the future. What does that do for a market share? Who knows. I will say I’m jealous, envious of Michael Rubin’s confidence because he’s saying this could help make them the number one technology company in the world. Wow, let’s slow your roll guy. I don’t know.
(26:24):
The other thing is, we talk a lot about them for not having a sportsbook yet. We do the same with ESPN. I would love to see them launch at the exact same time and see which one does better, and if either of them secure market share. Because we’ve seen a few operators come out with similar ideas of integrating different parts of the business and not do super well. I won’t name names, but.
Matt Brown (26:54):
Absolutely. Dustin, I think that’s a good point here. We’re recording this on September the 1st, 2022. What is this conversation that we’re having on September the 1st, 2024? Is this a world in which Fanatics has launched and their database did actually propel them into being one of the major players? Did ESPN finally decide to either do something on their own or whatever, get an absolutely exclusive partner? Did that rocketship somebody into the overall number one spot?
(27:24):
I understand if you’re in the bubble like we are, it seems like this has been around forever. It seems like this is kind of like, it’s kind of established and stuff. But we really do have some things that can happen here. Including three of the most populous states in the country that don’t have online sports betting currently that over the next two, three years, could really and truly just flip this whole industry on its head. It’s like we think we have a good idea of how everything is when really, I kind of think we don’t.
Dustin Gouker (27:53):
We don’t record these. I can give all the hot takes we want because nobody listens to these and remembers what we say, I’m pretty sure. I’ve been wrong about a million times either in the virtual pages of LSR or on this podcast. It boils down to this, all of this other stuff, it boils down to if that database is valuable. Are the people who buy hats and shirts, if they can convert a small, again, they toss around 100 million people, can that be converted to sports betting?
(28:23):
Does that list? Or somebody sees Fanatics, come back to them and say, hey, do you want to try out our sportsbook? Does that work? I think that’s what it boils down to. There’s other things certainly, but for day one, if we’re talking in two years, does that database instantly give them that market share? I don’t know.
(28:43):
Barstool, again, the comp is — Barstool and Penn like to throw out that there’s 65 million users of Barstool Sports. I got news for you, 65 million people, or not even close to that, are not using Barstool Sportsbook. So they’re converting a very small percentage of that. That’s a different market, different database for sure, but that’s the crux of it. Is that database ready or is that a compelling offer to those people?
(29:10):
Again, some or a lot of those people already bet on sports, some of them want nothing to do with sports betting. Do they want Fanatics to be their sportsbook or do they go to their spam when they’re like, another sale from Fanatics, I don’t care. There’s a lot. There’s a lot.
(29:24):
Fanatics is a huge company and very smart, lots of smart people. But does that just instantly put you into the sports betting conversation? That’s the question. If I’m going to give a hot take, I’m going to say no. I don’t think this is immediately. Now, again, 10 years, you give them time. Yes, I don’t think they’re immediately just turning into a powerhouse day one.
Matt Brown (29:46):
Yeah. I guess I just look back, you were an online poker player back in the day. I was an online poker player back in the day. And I just remember being on Ultimate Bet or Paradise Poker, and it’d be like, hey, you’ve folded 10 hands in a row, you must be bored. You want to play blackjack? And they would just pop up the little blackjack thing in the upper right-hand corner or whatever. And I’m like, you know what, I am kind of bored, and you end up playing 10 hands of blackjack.
(30:12):
Pat brings up, you buy a Detroit Tigers hat and then they follow up with you three days later and say, hey, we saw you got a hat, would you like a jersey as well? Deposit 50 bucks or deposit 100 bucks and you get this jersey as well, or something or whatever. And I just wonder how well that will kind of translate to some people out there or whatever. Because the impulse stuff, man, I don’t know. Maybe that’s just me and my personality, but it sure as hell worked on me back in the day. They got a lot of my blackjack money. They got a lot of my poker money back in blackjack back in the day. So I don’t know. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.
Dustin Gouker (30:45):
Yeah, it’s an open question. Which is again, why we like talking about this. It’s interesting. It is a far better starting point than just launching a sports betting brand with no endemic value in the US that nobody knows. We say a lot: Product will win in the end. If they’re working on a product, whatever that is, they’re working on that very hard. So there’s much to be known.
(31:09):
But it is funny to me. Everybody falls over themselves about, what’s going on with Fanatics? What’s going on with ESPN? And we have no idea really with either of them. But lots of people, Fanatics hired a trader, somebody we know, I think some of us know from DraftKings. But they’re not trading anything yet, but they’re getting ready to, I guess. So there’s a lot to —
Matt Brown (31:30):
We know it’s coming at least. Yeah. It’s not like ESPN where we’re just kind of, one day it’s going to happen. At least we know it’s coming at some point.
Dustin Gouker (31:38):
Yeah, I’d like to see a Fanatics product. I’d like to see their initial numbers when they launch into a state, and then they’ll have a lot better data point of where they’re headed.
Matt Brown (31:46):
Guys, as always, everything we talk about here on the pod, you can find over at legalsportsreport.com. Go over there, take in all the great words that Pat and all of his colleagues are writing over there. If you want to follow them on the Twitter machine, and you should, it’s absolutely free — I have so much envy over both of these guys — you can just follow Dustin @dustingouker. You can follow Pat just @patevans. Because they don’t have to put stupid stuff at the end of theirs like I do. And if you hate yourself, you can follow me @mattbrownm2 over on the Twitter machine. See, it’s so stupid, I don’t even know what my Twitter handle is with all of this stuff. But guys, for Pat, for Dustin, I’m Matt. Talk to you guys next week.