00:00But Massachusetts is a big state. Boston is a very prominent sports town. If Calci is forced out of Massachusetts, I wonder if this is a domino of many to fall, so to speak. I guess we'll see.
00:14Yeah, and I'll add to that, Craig. We'll note it's happening right as the Patriots are in the conference championship as well, and then potentially the Super Bowl. So could be losing out on some money there as well. But this week, Massachusetts court coming out and allowing the state, giving it a preliminary injunction, which would basically stop Calci from offering its sports prediction markets in the state as soon as Friday is when it's supposed to be in force.
00:40It's one of several lawsuits ongoing over these prediction markets across Nevada, Maryland as well. And so far, judges have largely sided with the states. Now, in this case, Massachusetts argued it was actually the attorney general, not the state gaming regulator, basically saying that, you know, these products are sports betting products.
01:00They are not federal derivatives products. You know, the Congress did not intend when it created the Commodities Exchange Act. It did not intend for that law to basically preempt state laws in all policing powers that we have, which, as we know, the Supreme Court decided or kind of gave the final decision that states are the ones that regulate and oversee and make it legal or not legal when it comes to sports gambling.
01:25Calci arguing, Calci arguing, saying that, you know, the Commodities Exchange Act actually allowed a carve out or an exemption for for our product because it is a financial exchange.
01:39While it wasn't stated expressly in the law, it's kind of implied. That's the real kind of battle here or controversial topic is whether Congress intended to do this or not.
01:50Calci arguing it did a court so far saying that, you know, we're not satisfied with Calci's interpretation.
01:55It seems overly broad. Now, Calci has until noon this Friday to either request a hearing with the court, which could result in some further action.
02:04Or what's more likely to happen is they could request a stay and then appeal it to the Massachusetts Appeal Appeals Court.
02:12This is already in the Superior Court, so it's pretty high and it's moving along.
02:15But it's pretty significant that, again, a big state like Massachusetts would rule in favor of the state itself, allowing it to stop Calci from offering its product.
02:25Really interested to see what happens from here.
02:27They actually cited another case in Nevada, which was a similar ruling against Crypto.com.
02:32So it seems like so far, kind of in this slow process of state courts where we've seen this played out and, you know, we've talked about it could take for years.
02:40So far, it seems like the courts are mostly siding with the states, you know, whether or not if it eventually gets to the Supreme Court, they take that into account.
02:47You never know these days what the Supreme Court is going to do with the way it's been stacked and repacked and changed around and certainly won't know what it'll look like in a couple of years from now.
02:55But so far, states starting to win in this case, the next step will be it actually being enforced, which, again, we'll come back to Friday, see what Calci does.
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