- 9 minutes ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Alright, so let's get to it. Top story of the day involving sports betting. We'll begin with a little bit of a shock, which is the way that I saw it yesterday when I saw the story percolating on social media that Emmanuel Class A, now formerly of the Cleveland Guardians, who has been indicted for throwing pitches illegally to help people make money, is now being accused of doing so to benefit bettors in at least 48 games over two years.
00:27Not just a couple of pitches, but pitches in 48 different games. There's a co-conspirator, Luis Ortiz, also involved in this. We haven't gotten word exactly on how many games he was throwing or throwing balls or strikes or depending on what I guess they wanted to bet on, but as of right now, just some really fascinating information regarding this, and if indeed this is the case, Class A in a lot more trouble than he was when he was just throwing to a few, that's for sure.
00:55Alright, NFL Honors last night. We found out who won the MVP. If you bet on Matthew Stafford at the beginning of the season, man, did you cash in big. He won the MVP over Drake May. It was a close one. Next year's Super Bowl is at SoFi Stadium, by the way. Who knows if Stafford is even going to play next season? He hasn't determined that, but congrats to Stafford, who's been playing such a high level for a long time. MVP of the National Football League.
01:17Coach of the Year, by the way, also named, it was Mike Vrabel. No surprise there. Took the Patriots from a handful of wins to the Super Bowl, but the focus right now of Vrabel isn't winning Coach of the Year. It's all of the extra stuff that goes on during Super Bowl week, asking his players to stay focused on the trophy.
01:35I know it's a busy week, chaotic week. What do you tell your team and the families coming in today? What's your message?
01:41Stay away from as much as possible.
01:42No, it's a good balance. And again, everybody's excited for this opportunity. They're here because they love us and they support us, but also understand that we have a responsibility to each other to continue to prepare as much as possible and to be ready for every situation that could present itself in the game.
02:06And both of those things can be true. You can still enjoy your family. You can still have dinner with them on Friday night. You can still see them on Saturday afternoon, and you can still prepare to win the football game on Sunday.
02:21Meanwhile, on the Seattle side, it seems like they're taking things just as serious as you would imagine. Practice intensity ramping up just a couple of days before the big game. Here's Mike McDonald on making sure that everything is spot on.
02:34We practice the amount of reps and intensity on what we feel like, what we need to do to go play our best football. So sometimes it's putting pads on to make sure our pad level is up to snuff and our physicality is ready to go. And sometimes we don't. Sometimes we call it ACT practice. Sometimes we're in ACT tempo. We're changing tempos all the time.
02:56But Sam Ramsey does a great job of helping us on a daily basis of what the guys' outputs are and what they can handle and when we can push and when we can't.
03:05So, I don't know. I feel like our injury history over the last two years is just as good as anybody else in the league. So you can test me on that one, but I'm pretty sure we're up there.
03:18Rookie of the year, named in the National Football League, it's Ted McMillan, wide receiver on the Carolina Panthers. He received 1,104 yards this past season and also caught 7-7 touchdowns. Good first season.
03:35How about one of the biggest upsets in the NBA this season? Who predicted this one? Did you bet this one on the money line? Get to the NBA.
03:41Detroit Pistons, 17 and a half point favorites yesterday. 17 and a half. Washington had like eight players in this game or nine players in this game making all kinds of trades and they win 126 to 117.
03:55Aide Cunningham had 30 for Detroit, but it wasn't enough. Boy, J.B. Bickerstaff was not expecting this one to go down like that.
04:04I mean, the standard we set for ourselves and how we play to that standard every single night. And no matter what your opponent's record might be, if you don't play to that standard, these NBA players, you know, put themselves in a position to win. And that's what happened tonight.
04:21Do you have any update as of right now on Jalen Duren or if there's any concern it could be long term?
04:26I'm not sure yet. You know, it's a need that he's been dealing with a little bit. So we'll find out a little bit more.
04:31Six minutes for Kevin Herter. He just got here, obviously. What did you hope to see from him?
04:37And then just playing him six minutes in the second, what did you see during that stint?
04:40I just wanted to give him an opportunity to, you know, get on the court. Obviously, being down some bodies, there were minutes available.
04:48Just want to get him out there as much as we can and try to work his way into some sort of rhythm with this group, find his opportunity so he can get comfortable.
04:55You know, the in-season trades aren't always easy to find those opportunities.
05:01So we need to just do as much as we can to help them and just give them those opportunities when they're there.
05:06Lakers needed all 35 points last night from Austin Reeves. That's what he had.
05:10The Lakers beat the 76ers 119 to 115. Lakers were two-point favorites.
05:15Second game back from injury for Reeves. Luka left in the first half with a leg injury.
05:18He didn't return. We'll see what his status is leading up to the All-Star break.
05:22Joel Embiid had 35. Here's J.J. Redick on picking up a very important win against Philly.
05:27But we had a lot of turnovers, and that really hurt us in the first half where, you know, you shoot 50 percent.
05:34But I think it was 13 turnovers, including the team turnovers, which gave them a lot of life.
05:41And, you know, the group that closed and really everybody that was out there in the second half,
05:49I thought our toughness and our physicality really just allowed us to get back in the game.
05:57You know, Maxie made a number of plays that, you know, don't necessarily show up on the box score.
06:04I think it was just the physicality at one end was the big thing.
06:11I mean, I think it was...
06:14We were playing pretty good and rolling along pretty well.
06:17And it just seemed like it was physical at one end and not at the other.
06:24Hottest team going right now in the NBA remains the Charlotte Hornets.
06:27Eight straight wins.
06:29They needed every point they could get.
06:30109 to 99.
06:32Houston was even five-point favorites.
06:34Another upset for Charlotte.
06:35They're playing great basketball.
06:36It's the longest winning streak since the 1998-99 season.
06:42Who was on that team for Charlotte?
06:44Was that Larry Johnson?
06:45Bugsy Bogues?
06:46And those guys?
06:46That goes back.
06:47Probably not.
06:48Not bad.
06:49All right.
06:49Here's Khan Nuppel, rookie, having a great season.
06:5224 points for him last night.
06:53Yeah.
06:54I mean, I think just to focus on the task at hand.
06:56You know, a tough opponent coming off a big loss against Boston last night.
07:01And, you know, they're going to be hungry to get back right and get a win.
07:05And so just taking it game by game, you know, not looking at the streak as a whole.
07:10You know, I think that's the recipe for success.
07:13Teams are basically looking like they're coming in and playing harder.
07:15And they're looking at that mentality that if we play harder, then we'll beat them.
07:19There's no fight, no aggression, no just blank stares.
07:23And, you know, in the past, if we didn't win or weren't going to win, at least we would get into it, do something about it.
07:32And right now, it's the same mistakes over and over and over.
07:36You know, things we talk about and show at halftime get worse in the third quarter.
07:41And it doesn't look like there's any resistance.
07:46The Golden State Warriors defeat the Phoenix Suns.
07:48They needed that 101-97.
07:50No Steph Curry in this game, but the Warriors do end up picking up the four-point win.
07:55All right, in college basketball, number two, Michigan just keeps on rolling.
08:00They defeated Penn State last night.
08:021-10-69 in this game.
08:06Dusty May just having a great season with Michigan.
08:09Number three, UConn, one-and-a-half-point favorites tonight against St. John's.
08:12So Luke will be watching that one at 8 p.m. Eastern.
08:14And Duke travels to Chapel Hill to take on number 14, North Carolina, in that battle.
08:19On Tobacco Road on Saturday night.
08:21Luke says he will be at the game as well.
08:23Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid.
08:25Sam McQuillen is getting ready to forecast how many people will bet on the Super Bowl this week.
08:30So I'm going to give you a spoiler alert.
08:32It'll be the most ever.
08:33Let's bring in Sam from Legal Sports Report.
08:36It's like the mystery that we don't need, you know?
08:38Like the two things that are going to come out of this.
08:41I mean, look, I guess I could be a little facetious with the ratings.
08:45Because, Sam, if I say that this will be the highest...
08:48Because I do believe this will be the highest rated Super Bowl of all time, okay?
08:51But I also want to add that if Seattle's up 40-3 in the second half, it may not be.
08:57So I want to use that caveat.
08:58But those are the two things that I think going in.
09:01Most watch Super Bowl of all time.
09:02Doesn't matter who's in it.
09:04And most bet Super Bowl of all time.
09:06I think I'll get at least one of those two correct.
09:08So you're saying it'll be in best interest of the NFL, its sports betting operators,
09:14everybody else who makes money off of it, for it to be a close game,
09:17people have to watch all the way through.
09:19Yes, yes, yes.
09:21Would you agree?
09:22Yeah, I would agree 100%.
09:24I think even if it's not a close game, like you mentioned before,
09:29it's not a crazy prediction to say that it's going to be the most bet Super Bowl ever.
09:32If you just look at the evidence, over the past eight years,
09:35every Super Bowl has been the most bet ever.
09:37And obviously, Americans' appetites for sports betting has gone up,
09:41but also their access to it has gone a lot up.
09:43And it's become a lot more prevalent in our lives.
09:45This year, we're projecting $1.7 billion in revenue, the eighth year in a row,
09:50another all-time record, single biggest betting day in U.S. history.
09:54But what I'm really interested about this year, Craig, is the revenue
09:57and how much operators actually make from the Super Bowl.
09:59We know a lot is going to be bet, but how much are they going to keep?
10:02At Legal Sports Report, we're projecting about $100 million in revenue
10:06off of that $1.7 billion handle figure, which is assuming about a 6% hold rate.
10:14Now, historically, it's been really hard to kind of tell
10:17how well operators are going to do on the Super Bowl.
10:19Nevada, it's ranged from 1% to 12% over the last decade.
10:24So sometimes they have a really good day.
10:26Sometimes they get hit really hard.
10:28This year especially, we're going to be looking at player props
10:30and parlay legs more than we ever have.
10:34I think last year was kind of the first year where you saw the public win
10:37on the spread, the money line, and the total, which went over
10:40in a really high-scoring game.
10:42And before the results came out, Wall Street analysts were kind of putting out stuff
10:47that, oh, the books got hit hard.
10:49I don't know how they're going to recover from this.
10:51They had a terrible football season.
10:52This year, they've had a really bad football season as well.
10:55But then what actually came out was because Travis Kelsey didn't get in the end zone,
10:59because Saquon Barkley didn't get in the end zone,
11:01the books actually have one of their best days ever.
11:04So I think it's going to be a lot more of the same this year
11:06where we're really looking at just individual player performances
11:09to forecast how well these books do.
11:11Now, the most bet touchdown or the most bet prop usually always,
11:16it's not a Gatorade or something like that,
11:18is anytime touchdown props.
11:19So if we have a case where it's just a lot of kicking field goals
11:23and nobody that you really know of or is popular gets in the end zone,
11:27no JSNs, no Ramondre Stephensons, no Kenneth Walker,
11:30those are the top three guys right now.
11:32It could be a case where the public cleans up again on the spread
11:35and the money line or whatever, and the books absolutely do a killing.
11:39So it'll be really interesting to see who exactly is scoring this year.
11:42That's what the books will be watching.
11:44Right now, most of the money is on Seattle.
11:46The spread has moved from three and a half a lot of places to four and a half.
11:50I would expect that to kind of continue.
11:52It seems like they're forecasting a sloppier game with a total around 45 right now,
11:57I believe.
11:58The betting on that has actually been 50-50,
12:00so it'll be interesting to see if that spikes in any direction.
12:03I always find it so interesting.
12:05You have a ton of people betting on touchdown props,
12:08all these guys to score,
12:09but then nobody's confident that it'll be a high-scoring game.
12:12I think that just kind of shows you the appetite that we have as sports bettors
12:15or fans to pick guys to do certain things
12:18and not really think about how it folds in the game.
12:20But ultimately, this year is going to be much more about how the players do
12:24than the actual game itself.
12:26And hey, if it's close, like we're hoping,
12:28that's even better for the books.
12:30Yeah, absolutely.
12:30All right, so maybe 2026, we've discussed Alaska.
12:34Maybe driving online sports betting soon.
12:35Who knows?
12:36Let's get to Alabama.
12:39Is there a chance, I mean, this seems like such a long shot,
12:41that Alabama, amongst all the states that are left,
12:44that they're the ones in the South that are going to get this done this year?
12:48Oh, man, yeah, you're spoiling the story here, Craig.
12:51There's a chance, but it's also a long shot.
12:53So how much of a chance really is it?
12:55There's been an effort to legalize sports betting in Alabama
12:59pretty much every year since they've been able to,
13:01which goes back all the way to 2018,
13:03which is crazy to think about was eight years ago.
13:06So they're going to try to break that eight-year streak once again this year.
13:09There's a bill, SB 257, which is now in the legislature.
13:13It's awaiting a hearing in the Senate Tourism Committee.
13:16Whether or not it actually moves is another whole different story.
13:20Alabama really doesn't have much gaming at all.
13:22So it's a lot easier to legalize sports betting
13:25if you're a state like New Jersey that had casinos forever,
13:28or Nevada, which has had in-person sports betting,
13:31then you can just turn it online.
13:32Same with Mississippi, at least in theory.
13:34With Alabama, it's been a lot tougher
13:36because they don't even have a lottery.
13:37They don't have in-person casinos.
13:39They do have native tribes,
13:40which kind of throws a monkey wrench in the situation too,
13:43complicates it even more because they want a piece.
13:46If this bill passed,
13:47it actually wouldn't legalize sports betting.
13:49It would allow voters to then choose
13:51if they want to legalize sports betting.
13:53So if the bill passes, it's signed by the governor,
13:56then voters would decide at the ballot next election
13:59whether or not they want sports betting to be legal.
14:01Then it would take even longer to actually do it.
14:03So it's a long shot that it happens quickly.
14:06It's less of a long shot that it happens at all, I would say.
14:09But the real holdup here has been the Senate
14:11just hasn't really wanted to negotiate sports betting at all.
14:15They don't think the votes are there.
14:16The leadership keeps saying.
14:17So it's not a situation, at least right now,
14:20where there's one group vehemently opposed to it happening.
14:23But it's kind of like lawmakers don't want to get each other on board
14:26unless they're confident that it'll pass.
14:28It's very strange sometimes how these legislatures work.
14:31They don't want to vote on something unless they know it's going to pass 100%.
14:35I don't know always why that is the case,
14:37but that's been the case in Alabama so far.
14:38So we'll see if there's any progress.
14:40We'll definitely be watching it.
14:42There's not a lot of other progress going on, as you mentioned,
14:45just Alaska really out there now.
14:46There's a similar effort in Hawaii.
14:48But voter referendum sounds promising if the voters or the public, rather,
14:54can kind of demonstrate that they really want this,
14:56whether it's calling their local senator,
14:58whether it's answering more polls that the SBA does down there or whatever.
15:02Maybe that could spur lawmakers in other action.
15:04But right now, it kind of seems to be the same story it's been for the last couple of years,
15:08which is just, hey, we don't really have a huge reason to be doing this.
15:11We're kind of fine with it.
15:12Now, if we want to talk about prediction markets
15:14and whether that'll spur them to get the tax revenue,
15:16that's a whole other story.
15:17But we'll see if that changes anything this year as well.
15:20All right.
15:21So let's end, Sam, before we get you out of here for the week
15:23with one of these uh-oh moments in prediction markets.
15:27Because I got to tell you, you know, sometimes, let's just be honest,
15:31New York does drive the bus on some legislation.
15:33It does happen.
15:34And if the attorney general is speaking out on prediction markets,
15:37this could wake up everybody else.
15:39I just don't know exactly what was said.
15:41So fill us in.
15:44Yeah, as a proud New Yorker myself, I have no problem agreeing with that statement, Craig.
15:48New York drives the bus on a lot of things, not just legislation.
15:51But when it comes to sports betting, whenever New York talks, people tend to listen.
15:56And, you know, this week, the attorney general, Letitia James,
15:59who has had a very busy tenure as attorney general,
16:02it's really interesting that she's actually turning time over to prediction markets now.
16:06She came out and actually issued a consumer alert warning before the Super Bowl,
16:11warning New Yorkers that prediction markets are masquerading as federally regulated event
16:17contract systems, that they're operating outside of New York sports betting laws.
16:21And because of that, they don't have the protections to make sure you get paid out,
16:25don't have the protections to make sure that you are betting of age,
16:29and they don't have the other safeguards that kind of have been,
16:32you know, imposed on licensed New York sports books for a very long time.
16:36No responsible gaming limits, advertising limits, that sort of thing as well.
16:40It's the same kind of alert that states usually issue when you talk about offshore sports books
16:45or illegal cut and dry sports books that should not be operating in the U.S.
16:51or scams, even for that matter, warning constituents about what not to bet on.
16:55So really interesting that she would kind of liken that to prediction markets.
16:59Obviously, they're not paying New York's 51% tax on sports betting as well.
17:03I think that folds into it as well.
17:04And, you know, it's just kind of another state that's jumping on against the fight against prediction markets.
17:09We now have nine lawsuits against them.
17:12It'll be interesting to see if, you know, New York puts their money where their mouth is
17:14and actually joins one of those lawsuits.
17:16We'll see what happens when the CFTC comes down with the new rules they're coming out with.
17:21And, of course, we'll be watching the courts as well.
17:23But I wouldn't be surprised if other states now got on board.
17:26Like you mentioned, Craig, New York, usually a bus driver with this sort of thing.
17:29So it'll be interesting to see how the rest of the landscape plays out.
17:32Sam, who do you like Sunday?
17:34Who do you like?
17:35What do you got?
17:36Give me Seahawks spread.
17:38I think that's kind of the easiest pick.
17:39It's, you know, low-scoring game, sloppy.
17:42Sam Darnold rises to the occasion.
17:44And, you know, great Super Bowl.
17:46Rooting for Sam Darnold, are you?
17:47Okay, great stuff, Sam.
17:48Thanks again.
17:49Great name.
17:49He's got a great name.
17:50Fucking thought.
Comments