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00:00But the biggest story in sports over the last week and a half, two weeks, is the sports betting
00:04scandal that has operated in the National Basketball Association, specifically surrounding
00:09player who maybe end up being a former player in Terry Rozier. The Miami Heat this morning are
00:14looking for an exemption to potentially get him off their roster and get that money back to be
00:19able to use it. But meanwhile, we found out yesterday that Rozier faced an $8 million tax
00:24lien, which could explain some of the reasons why he was giving out information on his betting props
00:29that could potentially make him some individual money. The IRS filed an $8 million federal income
00:35tax lien in Broward County, which is where Rozier has a residence. And that's also where I have a
00:40residence as well. According to a federal indictment unsealed last Thursday, Rozier is accused of
00:45providing non-public information about his plans to leave a March 2023 game early to a friend,
00:53De Niro Laster. That's the guy he gave the information to, and it made him about $100,000.
00:58The Southeastern Conference is urging the NCAA to change a rule that has not yet been changed. I know,
01:08it's a little bit confusing. So the SEC is thinking of granting their student athletes the opportunity
01:14to bet on sports, just not college football and not college sports. Well, the SEC is asking the NCAA to
01:22forget about that. In fact, the commissioner, Greg Sankey, sent the letter to President Charlie Baker on
01:27October 25th, saying, hey, the message of our presidents and chancellors was clear and united.
01:32This policy change represents a step in the wrong direction. Southeastern Conference doesn't want
01:38their student athletes getting harassed by players over player props. And they also don't want to see
01:42their student athletes betting on other sports, such as the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball,
01:47soccer, and some others. So the Division I board yesterday did vote to delay the effective date of the
01:54legislative change to November the 22nd. That's one day after the close of the membership rescission
02:00period. So we'll keep an eye on this and see if it comes to pass later next month. We know we're
02:05getting six games in the World Series. The reason why? Because the Toronto Blue Jays defeated Shohei
02:10Ohtani in the Los Angeles Dodgers last night. In fact, 6-2. The game really wasn't close after
02:16Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit yet another big home run in the postseason. And this one was off Ohtani.
02:23The Blue Jays win 6-2. So that is the final. The series is now tied up at two. They'll play the
02:30final game in Los Angeles tonight. And the winner will take a series lead back to Toronto later this
02:38week. Here is John Schneider after the game talking about the victory, knowing his team would hang in.
02:45Yeah. I get that it's easy to write Ohtani versus Guerrero. To us, it's Toronto versus Los Angeles.
02:55But that swing was huge. You know what I mean? A sweeper is a pitch designed to generate pop-ups,
03:02in my opinion. And the swing that Vlad put on it was elite. And after last night and kind of all the
03:09recognition that went into Shohei individually, and he's in the mound today, it's a huge swing from
03:15Vlad. It's a huge swing to get us going. And I think that gives you some momentum. And, you know,
03:22Shohei settled in, struck out quite a few in a row after that. But, you know, our at-bats there
03:27kind of just, it was a Blue Jay inning. You know what I mean? Varsh, Ernie, and then you kind of went
03:33to work. But the swing from Vlad was game changer. Dave Roberts on the side of the Dodgers after the
03:40game seemingly explaining that he thought this series was going to be a good one even before it
03:46started. You know, I think that we knew it was going to be a great series. This team is talented.
03:54They're resilient. Talking about the Blue Jays. And they came back fighting. Caught an early lead.
04:01And, you know, Bieber, you know, does what he does and used the cutter, spun us, minimized damage,
04:09limited traffic. And, you know, we really didn't get a whole lot of good swings. And, you know,
04:14conversely, you see these guys, you know, grinding and using the whole field and putting some hits
04:21together. And obviously, you know, the homer by Vlad and, you know, that seventh inning,
04:27they built an inning right there. And we just didn't have an answer. So I think the takeaway is
04:33we saw Yusevich not too long ago. And so that's certainly information that we're going to use and
04:39expect Blake Snell to be better than he was in game one.
04:42Should be a fun game tonight, 820 Eastern. Meanwhile, an extension in the National Football
04:49League that all defensive ends are liking this morning. Lions have extended Aiden Hutchinson
04:54four years, $180 million. So there's the extension that he was looking for. Naturally, there's another
05:02defensive end in the NFL named Trey Hendrickson who wants to get paid by the Bengals. He'll look at
05:06that deal and say, hey, pay me too. Jaden Daniels is going to be back on the football field this week
05:11for the Washington Commanders. Dan Quinn said he will return to practice today. So expect to see
05:17him back on the NFL field later this weekend. Lamar Jackson, meanwhile, is back at practice. And
05:23it's a very quick turnaround because they play the Miami Dolphins on Thursday night. Jackson,
05:28after practice yesterday, told reporters every game from here on out is a must win.
05:34With the record and trying to get back in this every week, is it going to feel like
05:39playoff time at this point? Yeah, coach pretty much touched on that, talking about that with
05:44us in our team meeting. You know, each and every game going to be like a win or go home game,
05:49you know. We started off first season ever starting off like this slow. So we're going to have to
05:55do or die right now each and every week. Lamar, there have been various reports over the last
05:59couple of weeks about questions and frustrations with Todd Munkin. Where do you stand with that?
06:05I mean, do you, do you have faith with, do you, do you have faith in, you know, him as the
06:10board? Yeah, man. Um, we've been winning all these games over the years with him, you know,
06:15it's about 30 years. So, I mean, the start of a slow season, I feel like everybody play a part in
06:21their own way, you know, so can't just put that on one person. At some point, Lamar Jackson and the
06:27Ravens are going to have to beat the Steelers to jump ahead of them and win the division.
06:31That's been an easy task for a lot of offenses this season. In fact, Mike Tomlin had to back
06:36his defensive coordinator at his press conference yesterday. The Steelers have been one of the worst
06:41defenses in the NFL and you can make the case that this has been the worst defense under head coach
06:46Mike Tomlin, who spoke about that yesterday. You know, I've known Terrell a long time. He's very
06:51capable. Uh, he's very thorough. Um, I largely been pleased with his work. Um, but certainly he and I
06:58are not pleased with where we are right now from a defensive unit perspective. And so we're just
07:03going to keep working. I think you're always putting eight pounds in a five pound bag. I just
07:07think that's the nature of what we do as coaches. Um, there's never completeness of work. You never
07:13can say, Oh, we got that. Now you got it until the next time something comes up. Um, and that's not
07:20only defensively, but that's in all three phases of the game. Uh, you're continually tooling and
07:26retooling what it is that you do, making sure that it remains sharp. And when it doesn't, um,
07:32finding the appropriate fixes or alterations in an effort to get concepts, people or units going.
07:40Steelers did add a couple of defensive players via trade yesterday. Key on white and Kyle Duggar
07:45were traded from new England and Pittsburgh. We'll see if that helps. Meanwhile, great start this season
07:49for the golden state warriors. They went again yesterday easily over the Los Angeles Clippers
07:54as a slight underdog 98 to 79. The final Jimmy Butler, 21 points, Steph Curry, 19 points in this
08:01one. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma city thunder after a championship less than a year ago or off to a
08:07five and O start 31 points for Shea Gilgis, Alexander is Oklahoma city beat Sacramento. Also
08:13Giannis and the bucks beat the next one 21 to one 11. And one of the best starts in the NBA's
08:19Eastern conference is the Miami heat. They've scored 115 points plus in each of
08:24their four games this season. Yesterday, they beat the Hornets 144 to 117. Welcome back to
08:30Newswire. Sam McQuillan is with us from legal sports report. And you can read all of the stories that we
08:35discuss here on the show over at legal sports report.com. Sam, great to have you back here on
08:38Newswire and fallout from last week, continuing into this week, national basketball association,
08:44getting some clap back by Congress. Hey, you guys got to pay more attention to what's going on with
08:49your players, make sure that there's no props being bet on no illegal card games. Like I don't
08:55know how the NBA is supposed to monitor this stuff. But where do you think we're moving forward here,
09:00Sam? You think any new changes are coming? Any props off the board or anything like that? Adam
09:06Silver seems to have his hands full with this. Yeah, the NBA definitely has their hands full right
09:11now as they're, you know, trying to address concerns from Congress, as you mentioned from, you know,
09:16players have been outspoken about these things as well. Kind of have every level people are trying
09:20to get in and, you know, weigh in with their takes. And it, it all falls on Adam Silver and the NBA who
09:25came out late last week and said, now the league is reviewing everything in terms of its betting policy,
09:32its integrity monitoring, information sharing policies in wake of these huge scandals, which
09:37have really not just rocked the NBA, but the larger sports world in general. Those are policies like
09:42injury reporting, the training that they do with their players, which is already very excessive.
09:47You know, you know, players like Rozier who are allegedly involved in this, coaches like Billups
09:52who are allegedly involved in this, they, they know what they can and can't do. There is no real
09:57confusion there, but I guess more, more training always, you know, can't hurt anybody as well as
10:03trying to enhance their, you know, internal and external, external monitoring programs. Cause the NBA was,
10:09you know, famously they were aware of Rozier's alleged activity, the unusual prop bets that got
10:15bet on, on that March, 2023 game where he left with an injury. And according to the indictments
10:20had coordinated with a childhood friend to cash in the NBA did its own investigation and found that
10:25they didn't have enough evidence to really move forward. They allowed him to come back and play
10:29basketball. Congress, the, um, the house committee on energy and commerce, uh, is demanding answers for
10:36why the NBA did that as well as another Senate committee. Uh, silver has been very outspoken
10:41so far in terms of, you know, we need more resources. We need more federal guardrails.
10:45Even when it's far to say on the Pat McAfee show recently that, uh, he, he wishes this wasn't a
10:51state by state regulation thing where there was some sort of federal framework and involvement.
10:55Now, obviously sports betting has largely been left up to the States, which is why we have,
11:00you know, the environment that we have now. But I think when, you know, these cases come out,
11:04we're kind of moving beyond the standpoint of, yes, it's good that this all got caught
11:08when it keeps happening. And when these things are just so kind of earth shattering and grab a lot
11:14of headlines, then you have, you know, more potential, more action for a Congress to get
11:18involved for there to be some sort of federal clearing house to kind of monitor this whole
11:22thing. And I think the NBA right now is maintaining, maintaining the stance of, listen,
11:26we're trying as hard as we can. We're doing everything we can. We don't have subpoena power.
11:30We might need more help on this. So I think maybe out of this whole thing, we do get some
11:34kind of framework or changes, but we really just don't know what they look like yet.
11:38Yeah, no. And I think we're just scratching the surface of this story in the NBA, because I think
11:44that some changes probably are coming. All right. The prediction market, no changes coming there.
11:49Everybody's trying to get a hand in the cookie jar here. Uh, what do we got here, Sam? I mean,
11:54this is surprising to me. A social media website now wants to launch prediction markets just like
12:00Kalshi and Robin Hood. And I guess my answer to this is why not, right? I mean, if all these
12:07companies are running it and making money, may as well try. Yeah, this isn't just any social media
12:13website. This is Truth Social, the social media platform that President Trump created after he was
12:19banned from Facebook and Twitter following the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. They
12:24announced yesterday that they're now going to have prediction markets on Truth Social via a
12:30partnership with Crypto.com, which is a CFTC registered exchange. It's going to be called
12:35Truth Predict, and it will take bets not just in all 50 states, but worldwide, it says, on political
12:41elections. So those are elections potentially involving Donald Trump or, you know, people related
12:46to him, interest and inflation rate changes, the price of gold and crude oil, and of course,
12:52events across all major sports leagues. You know, half a dozen states have already filed lawsuits
12:57against this, alleging that this is actually unlicensed and illegal gambling that operates
13:02outside of the high bar of regulation that has been left up to the states. But meanwhile, companies
13:08like Kalshi, Polymarket, and in this case, Crypto.com, have argued that this is all perfectly fine
13:13as long as the CFTC doesn't stop it. Now, Trump, of course, is, you know, part of Truth Social. He
13:19also dictates who runs the CFTC. He had actually nominated a current Kalshi board member to head the
13:26agency, but he pulled that nomination after some emails came to light following a FOIA investigation,
13:32kind of questioning that nominee's ties to Kalshi. And, you know, of course, his son, Donald Trump Jr.,
13:37is also a board member on Kalshi, as well as Polymarket. So the Trump family now kind of has
13:43ties to all three of these leading prediction markets with Crypto.com being the latest. So these
13:49are companies that, you know, just really started offering sports prediction markets, I believe,
13:53five days after Trump was inaugurated. And since then, they haven't looked back. You've had companies
13:58like Kalshi, which are now nearing a $10 billion valuation, when at this time last year, they were worth
14:04only about $800 million. Same with Polymarket, which is eyeing a $15 billion valuation. And they've
14:10really credited this all to sports prediction markets, being able to offer basically sports
14:15betting without any guardrails, any taxes, licenses and fees in all 50 states. So now this is kind of
14:21the latest development in potential conflict of interest with, you know, the president being in
14:26charge kind of of the regulation of this, which hasn't really happened, and also benefiting from it as
14:31well. So I'm sure this is not the last we'll hear about a, you know, social media partnership with one of these
14:37prediction markets. They don't seem to be going away anytime soon. And of course, DraftKings and
14:41FanDuel, meanwhile, are preparing to launch them in case they stay for good. But states have also
14:46threatened to revoke their betting licenses if they do. So it's another wrinkle in this whole mess of
14:51prediction markets. But, you know, the story becomes more kind of more fishy as we move on.
14:57Finally, Sam, it appears the Southeastern Conference is not on board with their student
15:02athletes betting on sports. And it appears that the NCAA has decided to at least hear them out. So
15:09this tells me that before this happens, I feel like we're going to be going back and forth with
15:14this for a long time. I guess the bigger question has to be asked is, is it, you know, state by state,
15:21is it constitutional to prevent the student athletes from betting on sports that have nothing to do with
15:26them? And I guess that's the debate that will go back and forth. Yeah, that was one that was
15:32basically the one of the major reasons that the NCAA decided to make this change where they would
15:37allow college students or college athletes rather and athletic department staff to bet on professional
15:43sports. There was this longstanding rule that prevented them from doing it that obviously existed
15:47before you had the NCAA doing partnerships with sports books and before states really started to
15:53legalized gaming. There was a long process to get rid of that rule, which the NCAA said would allow it
15:59to focus more on enforcement issues, you know, issues of match fixing, game integrity, real threats to the
16:05game rather than what it's called these, you know, minor violations that really have nothing to do with
16:09it. Now, that rule change actually happened just a day before those federal FBI indictments dropped,
16:15which was really bad timing because everyone says this is kind of not the right time to do this.
16:20You had SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey come out with a letter urging them to reverse this decision.
16:26And now the NCAA has put it on pause. It was supposed to take effect November 1st. Now,
16:32November 22nd is when it's going to take effect. But that effectively gives schools more of a time to
16:38say whether or not they're going to adopt this rule. Now, your question about states allowing
16:44student athletes to bet on it or not bet on it, that could be something that eventually gets resolved
16:48in court. I'm not sure if a student athlete would take it that far, but it definitely complicates the
16:53whole mess. You know, before we had these FBI indictments, it was kind of, OK, this is a rule
16:58change that's going to happen. We're moving with the times, allow the college athletes to be on the
17:02same playing field as their, you know, student body counterparts. But now, again, that you have these
17:07huge indictments where Congress is trying to get involved, where the FBI has more to come, where the
17:13NBA has been demanded answers. Now, SEC commissioners coming out against this kind of
17:18stuff, it just really complicates the whole thing and kind of, you know, puts more of a spotlight on
17:22the integrity concerns, which so far had kind of, you know, just been in the background. But now that
17:28you see them really up front, it's causing changes like this. And we'll see what ends up happening
17:32with this. But I imagine you're right. It will probably be some more back and forth before the
17:36end. Yeah, I feel that way, too. All right, Sam, great stuff. As always, we will catch up again with
17:41you later in the week. Thanks for coming on Newswire. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks a lot, Craig.
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