00:00Okay, so let's close out our week, Sam, with the state of Ohio online casinos being proposed,
00:06but it seems like no progress making on that front, is there?
00:10Yeah, this is an interesting one. It's more into the political kind of back dealings. The governor
00:15in Ohio, Mike DeWine, has been a huge advocate of raising sports betting taxes lately. He signed
00:21sports betting into law just a few years ago, doubled the tax rate, and wants to double it
00:25again. He actually wasn't able to double that tax rate again to 40%. And now he came out this week
00:31saying that he's against online casino expansion, against legalizing iGaming in Ohio. iGaming,
00:37of course, is the real endgame for sports betting companies. They want to acquire people to sports
00:41bettors and eventually convert them over to blackjack and online slots players just because
00:47the margins are so much higher in casino games than they are in sports betting. Over this past year,
00:51we talked about how crazy it was that the public won so often in sports betting. That doesn't really
00:56happen in blackjack or slots. It's much higher margins than betting on the NFL or something like
01:03that. So for me, I'm kind of seeing this as a bargaining chip. Mike DeWine didn't get what he
01:07wanted in terms of raising the sports betting taxes. The legislature wasn't on his side.
01:12And those same groups that were fighting to have that not happen are the same ones that obviously want
01:18to expand to online casinos. So he's talked about concerns about, you know, addiction, putting
01:23phones in people's pockets. I'm a little more dubious of that. He did sign online sports betting
01:28into law because, you know, you now have sports books in your pockets. I don't really see a huge
01:33difference in adding a casino into someone's pockets from a political standpoint, at least.
01:38So for me, this seems to be about, you know, I didn't get sports betting taxes raised and now I want
01:43to kind of block this. And hopefully we don't see this trickle all down to the bettors at the end of
01:47the day. We certainly seen that happen in Illinois with the surcharges and the minimum bet fees. So
01:52it's going to be one to watch in Ohio, but again, a really big state. So some important news there.
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