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SportsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Okay, so now let's get to Minnesota.
00:05 And the next part of the story that you guys have,
00:08 a Legal Sports Report, is really fascinating to me
00:10 because why would in-game live betting
00:14 hold up the idea of getting full-time betting in Minnesota?
00:18 Like, I mean, Sam, I get the idea that that's a big part
00:21 of what, you know, Fandle and DraftKings and MGM,
00:24 that they do, but wouldn't it be better
00:25 just to have anything as opposed to nothing?
00:27 And why would this be a stopping block
00:29 to legalizing it in Minnesota?
00:31 - Yeah, that's a great question, Craig.
00:35 You would think the industry would just, you know,
00:37 wanna get our foot in the door,
00:38 and then maybe we can address this later on.
00:40 The problem is that when something is put into law like this
00:44 as opposed to leaving it up to the regulator,
00:46 which in often cases has been done,
00:49 if, you know, the industry doesn't like something
00:51 in the bill, whether it's the tax rate, something like that.
00:54 I mean, even in New York, they conceded
00:56 to the 51% tax rate just because it was,
00:58 they wanted betting so badly.
00:59 But Minnesota is a different beast.
01:00 It's not as big of a state, and the regulators
01:03 wouldn't be able to really fix this after it got passed.
01:06 So this would keep it like this forever,
01:08 making Minnesota the only state
01:10 where live betting is prohibited,
01:13 which is when you look at the industry,
01:16 it's just something they were not willing to concede.
01:18 The lobbyists, they're not willing to concede.
01:20 The Sports Betting Alliance,
01:21 which represents all the major players,
01:23 came out in testimony during this whole process
01:26 in Minnesota saying, you know,
01:27 live betting makes up more than 50% in the US,
01:31 which I was honestly surprised to hear about.
01:33 I live bet, but I don't, the majority of my bets
01:35 are pregame, but maybe that's why I'm not a great better.
01:38 And that's expected to go up to 75% in the next five years.
01:42 So that's where it's headed.
01:44 If you look at what the companies are doing,
01:45 you're seeing them investing in all this technology
01:47 to gear up for live betting eventually.
01:49 So it's just not something they were willing
01:50 to concede, unfortunately.
01:52 There's a lot of question around why it was introduced.
01:55 A lot of people are calling it a poison pill,
01:56 saying that lawmakers just really didn't want
01:58 to get sports betting done in general.
02:00 So they added this in knowing the industry
02:02 wouldn't get involved.
02:03 So you get into the shady politics aspect of it.
02:05 And then behind the scenes, you have this debate
02:07 between who's going to own sports betting,
02:10 whether it'll be the tribes in the state,
02:11 the horse tracks, and those different parties
02:14 are affiliated to the Republicans
02:16 and the Democrats in different ways.
02:17 So it's a very messy, messy process in Minnesota.
02:21 But I would say the fact that this was added
02:24 and it doesn't look like it's going to be taken out
02:26 means probably that you won't have sports betting
02:28 legalized in Minnesota for yet another year.
02:30 They've been trying to do this for a while.
02:32 So the fact that no state has this,
02:34 I think is really the killer here,
02:36 unfortunately for Minnesotans.
02:38 (upbeat music)
02:40 (bells chiming)