Exploring the Future of Sports Betting in Canada and the US

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00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsGrid.

00:06Great to have Pat Evans with us from LegalSportsReport.com to go over the very latest in sports betting.

00:11We'll see if Missouri can get their act together and ever get sports betting on the ballot.

00:16That decision is coming.

00:17So we got Pat to talk about that.

00:18Pat, thanks again for coming on the show.

00:20Great to catch up with you.

00:21Hope you had a good weekend.

00:23Thanks as always, Craig.

00:24I think we're on a little bit of a delay because of my terrible internet connection today,

00:29but hopefully people are okay with that and we'll get through it here now.

00:33All right, let's get started.

00:35Let's talk about the ever-growing and changing landscape of Canada and sports betting there.

00:40Our first focus here is Alberta.

00:43Let's begin with Jay Snowden, the CEO of Penn, having some very intriguing words on what

00:49the future may look like there.

00:51Yeah, so it wasn't that long ago that Penn, Jay Snowden is the CEO of Penn Entertainment,

00:58they spent $2 billion on the score, a very well-known Canadian sports, you know, entertainment

01:09brand, however you want to put it, with a sports betting arm.

01:15They spent a lot of money on that and then they took them out of America where they had

01:18a little bit of a, you know, endeavor, but very little market share.

01:24And so now we're going, and they're laying, you know, what they can do in Ontario was

01:30huge with the score from all signs.

01:34And now they're looking at Alberta, which, you know, we've talked about before on this

01:38show, that Alberta is going to open up.

01:44It's a very small province in comparison to Ontario, the population's tiny, but, you know,

01:50there's a lot of betting going on there.

01:53There's a lot of casinos.

01:54There's a lot of people who like to bet from what I gathered at the Canadian Gaming Summit

01:58last two months ago now.

02:01And there's a lot of people very bullish, including Jay Snowden and Betway, a brand

02:06that just pulled out of the U.S. or will be pulling out of the U.S., but they're going

02:10to stay in Canada.

02:11And they see big things in Alberta too, because a lot of brands have been okay with what's

02:16happened in Ontario.

02:18And they see Alberta going ahead and taking exactly that model and putting it in Alberta

02:23and, you know, really benefiting from a public that likes to bet on sports and bet in general.

02:28I mean, one of the people at the Canadian Gaming Summit a couple months ago pointed

02:33to the Oilers playoff 50-50 raffles.

02:37During the regular season, they were, you know, $4 million or something like that, nothing

02:41huge.

02:42They got up to $12-16 million during the playoffs from their anecdotes, which is pretty wild

02:50if you think about that.

02:51And coming away from a game with half of that, that'd be okay.

02:55But that just shows that they're very excited about the prospect of being able to bet on

03:00their teams, I would think, just, you know, going to a game and throwing down some money

03:03just because of a raffle.

03:05But there's lots of teams there.

03:07There's the hockey teams.

03:08There's the Canadian football teams.

03:09There's, of course, the NFL.

03:11Everybody loves the NFL.

03:12A lot of opportunity in Canada, and brands are already talking about Alberta being the

03:16next frontier there.

03:18Yeah.

03:19No, I agree.

03:20I think that our fourth quarter story of the year is going to be focused on the sports betting

03:24changes, I think, in Canada, maybe even more here than the U.S.

03:27All right.

03:28Well, one change in the legislature in Missouri is that this guy who is just totally against

03:34sports betting there is not going away.

03:36So the deadline is tomorrow.

03:39So Pat, what's going to happen tonight?

03:41Well, I mean, I'm getting ready here.

03:43Should we just buckle up, get some popcorn, and get ready for, you know, filibustering

03:46to the end again?

03:48No.

03:49So thankfully, we're not talking about the legislative route this time.

03:52That's the good thing for Missouri.

03:55We're talking about the ballot here.

03:56You know, they've had this ballot initiative.

03:58The Cardinals came out, said, we're going to go around Senator Denny Hoskins, the man

04:02you're talking about, who has filibustered at length at times, including an eight-hour

04:07reading of Ronald Reagan's biography.

04:10That was a wild night, as you can imagine.

04:14But so this has been in progress since last fall.

04:17They got 300 and some thousand signatures.

04:19All they needed was 170.

04:22But those were all certified by local election boards.

04:25That had to be done by earlier this month.

04:27By tomorrow, the Secretary of State has to verify all those signatures.

04:32What's the difference?

04:33I'm not entirely sure, but it's all part of this very specific process that needs to be

04:37done.

04:38Once that's verified and all good to go, it will be placed on the ballot in November.

04:44Now here's where it gets kind of crazy and what I've been hearing from sources.

04:47Nothing official yet, because if you're going to go against it, you have to file something

04:52with the Secretary of State and you start seeing the opposition there.

04:57But there is a significant opposition party kind of floating about that people say could

05:02make a huge dent.

05:04I am working on a story and hopefully get some real verified sources here and we can

05:08talk about it next time I'm on.

05:09But it could be a real danger to this ballot initiative come November because it is a significant

05:16player in the industry in Missouri.

05:19So that's a big thing that's kind of floating out there.

05:22Now the good thing for this ballot initiative is FanDuel and DraftKings are all in and trying

05:27to get it done.

05:30One source suggested that they might try to drop out because the polling's not super great.

05:36It might be kind of a toss-up at this point in terms of what the vote will be in November.

05:43And so they're saying if you swing and miss, you're done.

05:46If the public support's not there and they show it and demonstrate it at the polls, then

05:51you go into the next legislative session and the people who were supportive of it in the

05:55legislature, not named Denny Hoskins, will say, well, you know what?

05:59The public didn't want it.

06:01Why are we going to put so much effort to get it done?

06:03So Missouri remains this just fascinating state of what could happen.

06:10A couple people have made great points.

06:13DraftKings and FanDuel are multi-million dollars into this endeavor, so why would they just

06:17drop it because there might be some opposition?

06:21Again, we'll see.

06:23We'll see what happens.

06:24It's going to definitely be a couple of interesting months.

06:26To your point, Q4, I mean, Canada right now has the only market on the launch pad, I guess

06:33you would want to call it.

06:35Missouri could be there if it passes in November.

06:39But so that's kind of all eyes on Missouri when you're looking at U.S. sports betting

06:43and kind of the optimism of the industry right now is kind of laying on that state.

06:50Yeah, I would agree.

06:52And a state that, again, has had its opportunities to legalize sports betting has fallen short.

06:58Kentucky, not as much.

06:59Kentucky often running with sports betting.

07:01Naturally, we've gotten some numbers here.

07:03Jim Ghazali was on the show a couple of weeks ago talking about the success that Kentucky

07:07has had.

07:08Circa Sportsbook is now having a physical location in Kentucky.

07:14What's this all about?

07:15Why is Circa taking their talents, like LeBron, to Kentucky?

07:22I didn't see this coming.

07:24So I think there's a few things here.

07:26One, yeah, talk about a state that surprised us all, unlike Missouri.

07:30They kind of skirted through it in the legislative session a few years ago and got it done and

07:35then launched.

07:36And to your point, it's been very successful for the state.

07:38And I don't think that's necessarily a big surprise.

07:40They're big in horse racing and they've got plenty of pedigree in that, no pun intended.

07:46But Circa is one of these sportsbooks that I think has a long future ahead of it, unlike

07:54some of these other smaller brands that are kind of popping in and trying to compete.

07:59I think we've talked before about all these brands that are bowing out of the market.

08:04They just can't generate market share.

08:06Their business models aren't making sense.

08:08You talk about different things that could go wrong with sportsbooks.

08:14Circa has their model.

08:15They know what they're doing.

08:18You're going into a market that's ripe for, I think, that exact market because of the

08:23horse racing kind of background.

08:25And I think it's those small sportsbooks, not named FanDuel, Bet365, DraftKings, those

08:30ones are going to continue and take up most of the market share.

08:33It's the small sportsbooks that know what they're doing, that know exactly what their

08:36business model is.

08:38They're going to take the market share they can and be successful at and be okay.

08:43And then the market will evolve around that and let them be, I think.

08:48So anyway, certainly a sportsbook to kind of watch as the industry matures.

08:54Yeah, BetRiver is a good example of what Pat is talking about, one of those companies.

08:58All right, Pat, thanks again for coming on.

09:01Probably going to see you later in the week, so I'll see you when I see you.

09:04Probably.

09:05All right, bye, Craig.

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