00:00Sports betting, supremely popular when PASPA was overturned.
00:04I still think there is an appetite for it, Sam.
00:07There's no question shows like ours keep people informed on the landscape and where things have headed.
00:13But the general public, I think, you know, sometimes can be a little bit wary of sports betting.
00:20You know, we've had a lot of athlete scandals.
00:21There's a lot of advertising going on.
00:24And look, I think when the dust settles, there will be some pullback on that as well.
00:28But for the time being, I know that you found a poll that essentially said that there are some folks who are just getting a little bit worn out by seeing all the ads and everything else.
00:39Yeah, that's definitely been the case.
00:41It's an interesting time in the sports betting landscape where you have 39 states where it's legal now.
00:47And we're talking about all these new entrants and prediction markets.
00:50And as you mentioned, recent scandals in the MLB and NBA, which have caused Congress to actually look at those leagues' betting rules and safety integrity cards.
01:00But the Washington Post and the University of Maryland came out this week with a combined poll that found that 36 percent of Americans they interviewed randomly on the phone and online said that they view sports betting expansion as a negative thing.
01:13That 36 percent number was up from 23 percent in 2022, with about half saying they kind of view it neutrally and don't have a stance.
01:22So it signals that Americans are at least growing a little bit more wary than they were of sports betting.
01:29Now, their reasons differ.
01:31Most of them center on being concerned about addiction concerns, you know, whether or not games are being fixed or it's incentivizing athletes to be fixed.
01:40All issues which require a lot of nuance when we talk about, you know, legalizing sports gambling versus keeping it kind of in the dark, in the shadows.
01:48I think to sports betting's credit, it's done a lot right in bringing these things to the surface.
01:52These scandals, addiction issues that sports betting companies say they're committed to combating that we wouldn't be hearing about if sports betting was illegal and not all in our face with advertisements and in the news constantly.
02:05And certainly a big part of how we discuss sports now.
02:09So it's kind of, you know, a little bit of both sides, whether or not, you know, this is a good thing that it's more legal.
02:15We're paying more attention to it now.
02:16But with that comes more scrutiny and certainly more polls and more public scrutiny.
02:21So, yeah, you know, we almost have 50 states that are legal now.
02:25Interesting to see in the next couple of years what Americans think.
02:28Who knows what will happen between them, between scandals and sports books and, you know, how the industry is just changing pretty much every day.
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