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00:00Let's get started with our biggest sports prediction market story of the day, and it's a very big one out of the state of Massachusetts.
00:06As of right now, it appears that CalShea and maybe Polymarket, Crypto.com, and some of the other companies that are running prediction markets are going to have to exit the state of Massachusetts.
00:16The emergency motion filed by CalShea to keep sport event contracts alive in the state of Massachusetts denied by a superior court judge.
00:25That means that the company's got to pull its event contracts within 30 days.
00:30So Massachusetts definitely is one state that doesn't want prediction markets intact and remains to be seen if other states are going to follow suit here.
00:40But meanwhile, Polymarket says, we've had enough of this, and their U.S. business has sued Massachusetts in return.
00:48They've sued the attorney general and gaming regulator in federal court, saying that it would suffer imminent and irreparable harm if the state tried to block its event contracts the way that they did with CalShea.
00:57I got news for you.
00:58Polymarket's on deck here.
01:00So we'll see if this means anything for the rest of the country.
01:02But Massachusetts appears to be the biggest state in our country that will not accept prediction markets in the future.
01:09Meanwhile, in college basketball last night, perhaps the first and last time Arizona loses this season, we'll see.
01:17Number nine, Kansas beat Arizona.
01:20It's their first loss of the season for the Wildcats.
01:2282-78 the final.
01:23Arizona was favored and they lost.
01:25And so the Jayhawks take the victory.
01:27They even won without their best player, Darian Peterson.
01:30He had the flu.
01:30He was out of this game.
01:31Bill Self, after the game, certainly gives all the credit to his team and the home crowd for picking up their biggest win of the year.
01:38And it was a fabulous night.
01:41We played a really good team and we didn't play great, but they didn't play great either.
01:47And so that's kind of what you're talking about, I think.
01:49And did the flu with Darren Layton, how is he and when did you know he wasn't there?
01:53Well, we don't know if it's the flu.
01:54It's flu like symptoms.
01:54At least that's what I've been told.
01:57So he didn't practice yesterday, but we were hoping he could play today.
02:01And, you know, he came out for shooting around and wasn't able to go.
02:05But we didn't know until probably 7, 7.30 that he probably wasn't going to be able to go.
02:13But we knew it was 50-50 yesterday that he may not be able to play.
02:17Meanwhile, one of the hottest teams in college basketball wins again.
02:19That's St. John's.
02:20They pick up their 10th straight win.
02:22They needed overtime to beat Xavier, 87-82.
02:25Of course, Xavier coached by Richard Pitino, the son of Rick Pitino.
02:30So with that 10th straight win, a very excited Rick Pitino basically in overtime decided
02:35he does not want to have to play his son again in the upcoming tournament.
02:40I hope we don't play them in the Big East tournament.
02:45But like I said, I think my son's brilliant.
02:49I'm proud of him.
02:51I hate getting any milestone against him.
02:54But I go away tonight saying my son's a hell of a coach.
02:59And that's much – I'm much prouder than 900,000, 1,100.
03:04To say my son's a great coach is much more pleasing to me than any number of victories.
03:12So we're excited to get the victory.
03:14We got a big one coming up on Saturday.
03:16Obviously, I have Providence who's playing good basketball right now.
03:19We are, what, 19-5?
03:22So it's a great record.
03:24And we're proud of it.
03:25Well done, I would say, by Rick Pitino there with his son.
03:29Oregon loses again.
03:30By the way, you talk about cold streaks.
03:32They've lost 10 straight games.
03:33Indiana beat them 92-74, easily covering the 10.5-point spread.
03:38It looks like the Ducks will be on the outside of March Madness this year.
03:41All right, the NBA's biggest story last night was a fight.
03:44The Pistons finally take care of the Hornets, who hadn't lost a game in a couple of weeks.
03:50Nine straight wins for them comes to an end.
03:52Pistons win 110-104, but there was a big fight in the game that's going to lead to a lot of suspensions.
03:58Isaiah Stewart is a player that came off the bench in this game and probably going to be suspended.
04:05We have a little clip here that we'll show you, and then we will go right to J.B. Bickerstaff,
04:09the head coach of the Pistons, who said that it was not his team's fault.
04:52Again, our guys deal with a lot, right?
05:02But they're not the ones that initiated.
05:05They're not the ones that crossed the line tonight.
05:07It was clear, you know, through frustration because of what J.D. was doing that they crossed the line.
05:15And I hate that it got as ugly as it got.
05:19That's not something that you ever want to see.
05:21But if a guy throws a punch at you, you have a responsibility to protect yourself.
05:27And that's what happened tonight.
05:28You go back and watch the film.
05:30They're the ones that initiated crossing the line.
05:33And our guy had to defend himself.
05:35Yeah, I'll have to go back and watch it again.
05:38Just look like, you know, a ton of physicality.
05:40And two guys kind of got in a heated conversation, and then it kind of spiraled from there.
05:47And for you to get ejected, what was the reason for that?
05:51Yeah, I take ownership of it.
05:52I thought that we were competing our tails off.
05:56I thought that it was a very physical game.
05:58And, you know, Grant's walking down the paint and barely touched somebody.
06:03And the guy fell over, and that's what we're going to call a foul.
06:05So, again, they have a hard job to have to make these calls.
06:10But I don't think that that was, like, the consistency of what had been called the rest of the game.
06:15Denver Nuggets led the Cleveland Cavaliers for the majority of their game last night.
06:18But in the end, Cleveland comes back and wins 119 to 117.
06:24The Nuggets were two-and-a-half-point favorites.
06:27Donovan Mitchell had 32 points in the game.
06:29And Nikola Jokic had a triple-double on the other side.
06:3222 points, 14 rebounds, 11 assists.
06:35Here's Mitchell on the great comeback victory.
06:39Donovan, what did it take to win a game against that caliber opponent when you trailed for nearly 43 minutes?
06:44Yeah, I mean, it's just a mental approach, right?
06:46Like, you know, finding ways.
06:48And we haven't seen it all game, right?
06:49Like, we're right there.
06:51A lot of our stuff was, like, our own mistakes.
06:52We're still right there.
06:53So for us to finally get over that hump the last minute 47 is huge.
06:58But, you know, it's a testament to who we have on the team and what we've got going.
07:03Man, it was a good win.
07:05They've handled it well.
07:06It's just, you know, it's not a fun thing for anybody.
07:09It really screws your rhythm.
07:11And let's think about this.
07:12It's not just Nikola, but I bring Jonas in for a short period of time.
07:16He misses two free throws, but he's stiff.
07:18You know, he's playing short bursts.
07:19And then part of the other part of that is if I get Jamal out, Nikola's starting quarters helps us.
07:26But it also breaks up his minutes.
07:27So it's just where we're at right now.
07:30And it's not why we lost the game.
07:31It's just a weird rhythm to how we're playing right now.
07:35And it's just trying to find a new rotation.
07:37I know when we get through the all-star break, we'll rediscuss what that is.
07:41And we can get back to more normal rotation.
07:44Shea Gilgis-Alexander missed the game last night.
07:46As expected, the Thunder still beat the Lakers 1-19 to 1-10.
07:50There were five-and-a-half-point favorites.
07:52Jalen Williams, of course, second-best player on Oklahoma City.
07:55He had 23 points.
07:56And a big shock last night for the Portland Trailblazers.
07:59They put up 135 points on offense to beat the Philadelphia 76ers 1-35 to 1-18.
08:08And when something like that happens, you ask how many three-point shots did Portland make last night?
08:12Well, the number that I see here in front of me is 22.
08:16So naturally, that is a lot.
08:18Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid.
08:21Dustin Gawker is with us.
08:22You should subscribe to his podcast to learn more about this ever-changing prediction markets around the country.
08:27And also what the future may hold, also doing a podcast discussing it as well.
08:30But he's kind enough to join us weekly to go over the latest in terms of landscape.
08:34Dustin, thanks for coming on the show.
08:35And when I say staggering, I don't want to give away the number here.
08:39But, man, is it possible from what I saw online that somebody tweeted this out?
08:45That Calci, did they make more money, Dustin, than Las Vegas betting on the Super Bowl this week?
08:49I mean, my gosh, the amount of money that is coming in for these prediction markets.
08:53I understand why they're fighting back to try and stay around.
08:56All right, let's start here.
08:58They didn't make more money than Vegas, but they took a lot of bets.
09:01Let's put it that way for sure.
09:03I have the number on Super Bowl Sunday.
09:06About $870 million was traded.
09:08Again, I caution you, that is not the same as a sports betting handle for a variety of reasons.
09:13But we also saw Nevada Sportsbooks, which includes Las Vegas, only took about $133 million in handle.
09:20That was its worst performance in the decade in terms of total handle on the game.
09:25Now, we don't have ratings.
09:27We don't have a lot of other things.
09:28There's a lot of reasons for that.
09:29But at the bottom line is, Calci did a lot of trading volume on the Super Bowl.
09:34The CEO went on CNBC this morning and said they had more than a billion dollars on markets related to the game.
09:40That includes the lead up, the weeks leading up to the game.
09:42It also includes things like betting on the Super Bowl halftime show and people who will be at the game, things like that.
09:48We'll get to that in a minute, I think, here.
09:50But, yeah, a huge number.
09:52We also know that regulated sportsbooks, we've talked about this before, $1.7 billion was the estimate on how much handle there would be.
10:00So, again, Calci, very big.
10:02But it is still not as big as regulated sports betting.
10:05But, again, we were talking about this time last year.
10:07Only $26 million was traded on the Super Bowl last year as Calci was ramping all this up.
10:12So a much different spot for them.
10:15I actually saw some people sharing the most expensive billboard on the Vegas Strip had Calci odds on it.
10:22It was a moment for Calci in prediction markets for sure.
10:25And, certainly, you could bet on this in places where you previously couldn't.
10:29California and Texas come to the top of mind.
10:31So, absolutely big moment for them.
10:33And the question will be whether they keep that momentum up after the Super Bowl.
10:37We all know the sports calendar winds down a little bit here.
10:41Yes, there's NBA.
10:41We have March Madness.
10:43There's the World Cup this summer.
10:44But the summer is kind of the doldrums for sports betting.
10:46Calci should be able to keep up this momentum.
10:48And what will we see over the summer leading into the next football season?
10:52And we also have a lot of other operators who are coming to this space to contest it.
10:56So, one of the discussions that I've seen back and forth on here from the prediction markets was the halftime show.
11:04And the ability to make predictions based on who was going to show up with Bad Bunny and participate.
11:11Some of them I thought were pretty obvious.
11:13I did see Ronald Acuna Jr.
11:15I did see Pedro Pascal.
11:18I did see Jessica Alba.
11:19But there was one celebrity, Dustin, in particular, that's really been stirring up the pot.
11:24Because I guess they're not positive if this celebrity was there or not.
11:30Can you get into more details for us on this?
11:32Yeah, you have this headline up.
11:34Did Cardi B perform during the Super Bowl halftime?
11:36Prediction markets aren't sure.
11:38This is, I started this newsletter a year ago.
11:40And this is the thing I have written that people have read the most.
11:43So, we're in this weird timeline where this is the world we live in.
11:46And people betting on whether people will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.
11:51All right.
11:51If you watch the halftime show, obviously, there are lots of people making cameos in the background.
11:54Just kind of dancing in the little bodega that Bad Bunny had.
11:58You mentioned some of the people that were there.
11:59Cardi B was one of those people.
12:02And prediction markets, by and large, had the same kind of markets.
12:05Whether somebody would, quote, unquote, perform at the Super Bowl with Bad Bunny.
12:10And some of them were very clear about what for a yes bet to win on this.
12:14At Kalshi, it said, both for yes or no, that dancing, quote, unquote, dancing, could be yes.
12:21It resolves to yes.
12:22She was performing.
12:24Dancing, no, she was not performing.
12:25So, people were getting very mad online about this because they had trades and bets on this and whether she would perform.
12:32Obviously, you and I saw her at the halftime show.
12:35But Kalshi ends up, there's millions of dollars being traded on this well after the performance was done.
12:42And it's just kind of crazy what was going on around this.
12:45Kalshi eventually has to close the market.
12:47Does this weird thing where they say, we're going to close it and get paid out at the last traded value, which was 26 on the dollar for yes.
12:55So, people are pissed.
12:56I know somebody who's sent in a complaint to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission about all this.
13:01And I think it's a symptom of the weird world we live in where these are supposed to be serious financial instruments.
13:08But they're also just nonsense betting on cultural events, which, again, that would be fine if we all just kind of realized this is fun.
13:15We're gambling on whether people are going to be at the game.
13:18It also brings up the idea of insider trading.
13:21There's certainly people who knew Cardi B was going to be a part of this halftime show, and they probably knew what her role was, that she wasn't going to be stinging.
13:29So, lots of weirdness here.
13:31Kalshi's dealing with a lot of customer complaints.
13:34And out of the Super Bowl, other than the volume, this is the thing that people seem to be latching on to the most.
13:40The things that people are talking to me most about after the Super Bowl in prediction markets.
13:45This was your most clicked item since you started the substack? Is that true?
13:49Yeah, I did it almost a year ago, and this is the thing that has the most views, wild times.
13:54Wow. How about that? I guess that gives you an indication how to move forward, Dustin, with the substack.
14:00It does.
14:00The Cardi B and Drake and Lamar and all those guys.
14:05Okay, let's get into this new partnership with Kalshi, another fantasy operator, so to speak.
14:13Who are they partnering with trying to take advantage of this market?
14:15Yeah, we already had PrizePix and Underdog in this space, the two largest fantasy pick-em operators.
14:22Now we have Sleeper announced on Friday, I believe, that they were partnering with Kalshi and going to launch prediction markets, basically.
14:29You know, team money lines, point spreads, things like that on their app.
14:33They're maybe not as well-known as those two brands I just said, but they have 10 million users.
14:37They are also a season-long fantasy app.
14:42They have a lot of users.
14:44They, again, claim 10 million users.
14:45They're far smaller as something that does daily fantasy, but this is a big move for them and a big addition of customer liquidity for Kalshi as well.
14:56So big move.
14:57We're going to see more partnerships like this, definitely, as the time goes on here.
15:01Yeah, and I think, Dustin, the final question that I would have for you is earlier in the show, we discussed the state of Massachusetts is pushing back and essentially looks like in the next 30 days, Kalshi is going to have to exit.
15:14Here's my question, 30 seconds.
15:16Why does Kalshi have to exit but not Polymarket as of yet?
15:19What's the difference?
15:20Well, Kalshi did this all first, so they've been fighting this battle longer.
15:25Polymarket actually just filed a lawsuit to try to go to court as well to stop all this from happening, but there's a chance that prediction markets have to pull out of Massachusetts, and that'll be interesting to see if it does happen.
15:36All right, Dustin, thanks again for coming on the show.
15:37Really appreciate it.
15:38We'll catch up next week.
15:39Cheers.
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