00:00All right. So top story of the day with us, Fair Markets and Sports Integrity Act has been introduced. And
00:06so I know what they would like to do, but I'll let you tell us. And if you think that
00:12what they're asking to do is reasonable within what their parameters are.
00:18Yeah, it's this new federal bill from Congressman Dina Titus, who is a Democrat in Nevada. Nevada prediction markets, the
00:27issue has been especially important to them there. They were the first state to launch one of these lawsuits against
00:33prediction markets, which pretty much as every state has alleged, is that they are using a loophole to offer sports
00:41betting under the guise of financial derivatives regulated by the CFTC.
00:45So basically, they don't have to pay sports betting taxes, comply with state sports betting laws. They're in 50 states,
00:51as opposed to the 39 that have legalized sports could go on and on about what the argument with prediction
00:57markets is.
00:57This is a new federal bill. So a bill Congress would be weighing theoretically that would clarify that these markets
01:04cannot offer any markets on an athletic event or another interesting wrinkle casino style games, which so far I haven't
01:12seen Kalshi or Polymarket or any of these others move into basically online gaming, but would be under the guise
01:19of kind of federal derivatives law.
01:21Now that we always talk about that with the end game for sports betting, right, that sports books want people
01:26to become sports bettors and then eventually get states to pass online casino.
01:30So that could be the end game with prediction markets as well. I think we don't really know what the
01:33end game is entirely.
01:34But the big kind of aspect of this being an important newsworthy item is that it's a bill in Congress,
01:42which has so far not done anything with prediction markets.
01:45They have had hearings where they interviewed the new chair for the CFTC, Michael Selig, who recently said that he's
01:52going to issue rules that clarify that prediction markets can exist.
01:55They can offer sports and kind of signal they would fight against some of the states and almost the 10
02:01court battles we have now.
02:03So be interesting to see if this picks up any steam in Congress.
02:06Obviously, Titus has been very opposed to them because she's from Nevada.
02:09She takes a lot of money from the sports books and casinos in Nevada who have been very against prediction
02:14markets.
02:14I think it's worth noting that the bet MGMs of the world, the Caesars of the world, the kind of
02:20the sports betting apps that have legacy casinos.
02:23They've not gotten into prediction markets yet, while DraftKings and FanDuel and those have.
02:27So there's a bit of a split there where, you know, Vegas and the casinos want their interests represented as
02:32well.
02:33I know Senator Richard Blumenthal has said he's working on similar legislation.
02:36It would amend the Commodities Exchange Act, which is kind of the whole the crux of the debate of did
02:43that act intend for these to exist?
02:45Did it not? So we'll see if it picks up any steam in Congress.
02:48Would be surprised if this ultimately becomes a law, but you never know what can happen.
02:53It's kind of the first iteration of it.
02:54And it signals that, you know, maybe the federal government is finally trying to weigh in on this issue, which
02:59has so far largely been left up to the states.
03:02There's about 10 state lawsuits playing out, and we've speculated that eventually the Supreme Court is going to have to
03:07decide.
03:08But if Congress does, in fact, pass a law that clarifies before that, that could change things up a bit.
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