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00:00But let's get started with our big story of the day that actually comes from the National Football League.
00:04It looks like Kirk Cousins is going to have a new home.
00:07Could it be a starting destination next season? We'll see.
00:10Falcons general manager Ian Cunningham confirmed, of course, that Kirk Cousins will be released in March on the first day
00:18of the league new year, making him a free agent.
00:21Right now we're getting some news because the NFL Combine is going on right now and general managers and coaches
00:27are talking about that.
00:28So it does appear the Falcons will move forward with Michael Penix Jr.
00:32Who knows if there will be a backup quarterback in place for him as well to potentially challenge him if
00:36something goes awry during the season.
00:38Speaking of going awry, what went on on social media over the last few months with folks who had the
00:44Calci badge on their Twitter profile posting things that basically could have been challenged to say that they were untrue
00:52or not?
00:52I'll leave that up to you. But Calci has removed all affiliate badges on X on Monday after the social
00:59media platform updated its paid partnership policy to prohibit promotional deals with accounts that post gambling and sports betting content.
01:07A Calci spokesperson said people love the badges. It was a fun way to engage the community, but it became
01:12too difficult to police and people often confuse badged accounts with Calci endorsed messages.
01:19Polymarket, no word on whether or not they'll remove these as well. Calci came under some fire for having basically
01:24bots or AI accounts posing for it inside.
01:27Very confusing, but now that has been put to rest. Don't have to worry about that in the future.
01:32All right, Kansas lost over the weekend and it looks like they are taking out that loss on Houston because
01:39they beat them last night relatively easily 69 to 56.
01:42Houston was two and a half point favorites. Kansas wins the game outright. They lost to Cincinnati on Saturday. Now
01:47they have a win.
01:48Trey White had 23 points last night. They hadn't lost consecutive home games since 1988 and 89 season.
01:55They're 52 and 1 on ESPN's Big Monday. Bill Self after the game, not necessarily sure that that loss Saturday
02:02meant a win last night, but it didn't hurt.
02:05I don't know that Saturday impacted tonight. I mean, I don't know what the player said, but I don't know
02:09that it did. I think we would have been excited to play tonight against Houston regardless.
02:15So I think it's I don't think that had much to do with our energy level being better or anything
02:22like that. I think if we'd have played well Saturday, I think we would have been the same team tonight.
02:27When I saw the schedule come out in September, October, whenever it did, and I saw that we had to
02:33go to Ames, Iowa on Big Monday.
02:38And then on Saturday, we've got to play Arizona. And then 48 hours later, we've got to go to Fog
02:46Allen to play Kansas.
02:49I was proud of my guys tonight. You don't get you don't go through this gauntlet like we just did.
02:57Now, we didn't play very well and we had an opportunity on Saturday, but I knew this was going to
03:05be a hard game for us after that Arizona game back in October.
03:10And right now, the other team that seems to be on the right track is North Carolina, thanks to Seth
03:16Trimble. He had 30 points last night.
03:18North Carolina beat Louisville 77 to 74. UNC hung on after having a very big lead. Trimble's performance has Hubert
03:27Davis thinking that was the main reason they pulled out the win.
03:31Well, no, I mean, I mean, Seth was huge for us tonight on both ends of the floor. He had
03:36the responsibility of, you know, guarding Brown and and what a responsibility that is.
03:44He's a fantastic player. And but, you know, against their defense, they're long, they're athletic, very versatile.
03:52You have to find ways to be able to break down their defense and be able to consistently score. And
03:58Seth was our guy coming off ball screen.
04:00The thing that I loved about him was he was thinking attack. He wasn't coming off looking to pass. One
04:07of the things that I've told him is, you know, when you come off of a ball screen, you're 100
04:11percent thinking score and then let the defense dictate whether you make a pass or you go to the basket
04:17and Seth's ability to be able to get downhill.
04:21He was able to score, draw fouls, just a huge difference maker for us against a really good defensive team.
04:29Also, last night in college basketball, we were awaiting the result of tonight's game because it could potentially mean Miami,
04:37Ohio, moving to 27 and oh, it's a 630 p.m. start.
04:41They take on Washington. Again, very few teams in the history of college basketball has pulled off what Miami, Ohio
04:48has.
04:48We'll see if they're able to win again tonight. OK, now let's get to the NBA from last night.
04:52A big win for the San Antonio Spurs is they keep surging. They beat the Pistons 114 to 103.
04:57Victor Wimbayama, huge game, six blocks, 21 points, 17 rebounds. The Spurs are on fire.
05:03They've won nine straight games. The physicality has factored into some of these performances and wins for San Antonio.
05:09Just ask head coach Mitch Johnson.
05:12I thought it was a really competitive game, very physical.
05:18We made some shots early and they reminded us very quickly it wasn't going to be about that tonight.
05:25I thought we settled in very appropriately at times during the game, that there was a few times that there
05:35was a physicality, a contact, a touching sequence or moment or situation.
05:45And I thought we we responded very appropriately at times, JB, their threes never really slowed down tonight.
05:54What did you feel they were doing so well to create those looks?
05:57I mean, you know, they moved the ball well.
06:01They had talked attack off the bounce to draw your defense, you know, to create those sprays.
06:07Some of them were our fault. You know what I mean?
06:08Like we gave up strong side corner threes, which we typically don't replacement threes, you know, that we typically don't.
06:16But give credit to them. They played a good ball game.
06:19Easy win for the Houston Rockets last night, taking on the Utah Jazz.
06:23125 to 105 was the final.
06:26Kevin Durant, 18 points, 12 assists.
06:28The Rockets had an 18 to 2 run in the second quarter to take control and they never looked back.
06:33Here's Ime Udoka on the 20 point victory.
06:37Obviously, y'all won by 20, but I think you had 27 turnovers.
06:40Is there something that you saw out there that was led to that?
06:44Yeah, just carelessness. I mean, simply.
06:46It wasn't by any pressure, any traps, any blitzes.
06:49We got nine in the first quarter, I think five in our first seven possessions.
06:53Got to be better.
06:55You're not going to beat a real team, you know, a better team with that high number.
06:59And obviously coming off of nine turnovers in the fourth quarter against New York, came back to bite us.
07:03And then, you know, we had four, I think we had 11 at halftime, and that's a point of emphasis.
07:08We show them, watch the film, and to come out and have six and I think eight more in the
07:14fourth quarter.
07:15Not good enough.
07:16You know, credit to Houston.
07:17They did a good job guarding us.
07:22And, you know, once the shooting kind of went south, they doubled down on their defense.
07:29And so credit to them, they played well.
07:31I think our physicality in general as a group has to continue to get better at the basket.
07:37And we will continue to, you know, vet out who is willing to do that and who is not.
07:45The Sacramento Kings 16-game losing streak officially over.
07:49They beat the Grizzlies 123-114 last night.
07:54In Major League Baseball, an announcement from the Atlanta Braves today that they have extended starting pitcher Chris Sale beyond
08:01this season.
08:02He'll be signed through next year.
08:04One year, $27 million.
08:06Also, the Baltimore Orioles signed Tyro Estrada to play the infield while Jordan Westberg gets healthy.
08:12The full spring training slate today starting in an hour, including watching Logan Webb, one of the best pitchers in
08:18the National League, visit the Angels at 3 p.m. Eastern.
08:22All right, welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid.
08:25Dustin Gawker is with us covering the prediction market landscape.
08:28You can follow him on social media and also read his sub stack, which updates us each and every day
08:34and every moment.
08:35Download his podcast on the latest with prediction markets as well.
08:38Dustin, great to have you back here on Newswire.
08:41All right, so let's check in with one of the top stories of the week, the state of Utah here.
08:46Now, this has got to be a tricky one, okay, because they literally have no gambling, no sports betting, nothing.
08:53And so yet, here we go with prediction markets probably trying to step on some toes here.
08:59So how does the state react and how does this end up?
09:02Yeah, it's interesting because Kalshi and other prediction markets have been offering prediction markets in 50 states pretty much since
09:08the beginning here, right?
09:09Since sports betting, sports event contracts went live earlier in 2025.
09:15So it's been everywhere.
09:16It's been the main, most of the fights have been about legal sports betting states against prediction markets.
09:21Like, they're stepping on their toes, right?
09:23We've regulated this.
09:24We taxed it.
09:25You should be listening to our laws.
09:27It's the same dynamic in places that don't have legal sports betting like Utah and Hawaii.
09:32And Utah apparently just woke up to this, that there is sports betting in their state just now because there
09:37has been a lot of noise here.
09:39We talked last week about the CFTC chair, Michael Seeley, kind of aggressively saying we are going to fight for
09:44prediction markets.
09:45We're going to fight the states on this.
09:46And then Utah's governor, Spencer Cox, came out and said, whoa, whoa, whoa.
09:50I'm paraphrasing here.
09:53We can't have sports betting in Utah.
09:54We're Utah.
09:55We don't have gambling here.
09:57We don't have any vices here, right?
09:58Well, we have some.
09:59But it's been interesting because that led to, you know, the attorney general has weighed in in Utah.
10:04We have one of the sitting U.S. senators that said, this is just gambling.
10:08We can't have this here.
10:09So this all escalated last night with Kalshi filing a lawsuit against Utah.
10:15Utah has not sent a cease and desist or said anything directly saying you've got to be out of our
10:19state.
10:20But they have applied that they are going to do such.
10:22So Kalshi proactively goes to court, federal court, and says, hey, we're worried that Utah is going to try to
10:27shut us down.
10:28We want a court to say we can keep operating here.
10:31So this has been, like, just over the past week, a really interesting dynamic that we have, you know, Republicans,
10:36which have been, you know, generally for prediction markets so far and for them happening, they have said, you know,
10:43we don't really have a problem with prediction markets.
10:45And there's been this pushback, I think, in a real way from some Republican politicians.
10:50And the Utah delegation, both the state and the federal level, has really pushed back against this.
10:55This, you know, this is taking the court battles into a way, to a more aggressive stance than the prediction
11:00markets have previously, trying to sue before they get told to knock it off.
11:05And it'll be interesting to follow.
11:07And this opens it up in another federal court, appellate court.
11:10So this all, it's all equals we're going to get to the Supreme Court someday.
11:13It's just a matter of when.
11:16Speaking of Utah out west, one of the senators said that prediction markets are the wild, wild west.
11:24That shouldn't come as a surprise, given the fact that these are all over the east, the west, the south,
11:29the north, and everywhere else.
11:31Yeah.
11:31If you have a bingo card for somebody calling prediction markets the wild west, I guess, collect your fee.
11:37People like to call anything that they don't have a handle on the wild west.
11:40We saw this in Daily Fantasy Sports.
11:42We saw it with the rise of the sports betting, and now it's being applied to prediction markets.
11:46But this is really interesting because it's the Senate Agricultural Chair, Committee Chair, John Booseman, another Republican.
11:52This is the committee that oversees the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which in turn oversees prediction markets.
11:58So him saying this, that this is, we didn't expect this.
12:02This area just caught fire.
12:04They're going to visit with the CFTC Chair and talk about this.
12:08Again, Congress doesn't do a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
12:11Is Congress actually going to come in here and try to rein in prediction markets or at least sports event
12:16contracts?
12:17I would bet no.
12:18But at the same time, there is more noise from prominent Republicans.
12:22We've talked about there's 23 Senate Democrats who signed a letter to the CFTC saying, hey, why are we doing
12:28sports betting via prediction markets?
12:29So this idea that Congress could get involved gains traction, I think, with every day.
12:34I'd still call it an underdog that the Congress is going to do anything on prediction markets.
12:40But, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire.
12:42And there's at least a non-zero chance that Congress gets involved in a more material way here moving forward.
12:48Yeah, the NCAA also wants to battle Kalshi and Polymarket and everybody else.
12:54I mean, they have, you know, I wouldn't say that one group has more to lose, but they really take
12:59student athletes very seriously.
13:01Obviously, we've seen this with sports betting.
13:02We've seen this with some of the controversies.
13:04So, you know, I know Charlie Baker, if he had his way, would have nothing to do with prediction markets.
13:09But as we see that little March Madness graphic, here we go.
13:12I mean, this is going to be the big opening for them in March Madness.
13:17Yeah, I mean, to be clear, the NCAA would really like to get rid of all legal sports betting, including
13:21state-regulated sports books, or at least have it very limited in terms of what you can bet on.
13:27They've advocated for no props.
13:28But Charlie Baker, president of the NCAA, has been very outspoken about prediction markets, you know, seeing it as, you
13:34know, this giant expansion of sports betting, and he's not wrong, and that they just don't think they have a
13:39handle on what this is going to be moving forward.
13:42So the interesting story, a site called Gambling Harm wrote about this, that Calshi was using NCAA trademarks, March Madness,
13:49Final Four.
13:50And then the NCAA gave the statement saying, NCAA has previously addressed issues with Calshi illegitimately using NCAA marks for
13:58their offerings.
13:58This continues to be a misrepresentation of any NCAA involvement, and we have requested immediate removal of NCAA trademarks.
14:04It looks like they've done that.
14:06It looks like other prediction markets have done that.
14:07We also come into March Madness was, British markets absolutely blew up last March Madness, that we are going to
14:13see, you know, probably well north of a billion dollars wagered on British markets on the NCAA tournaments, both men's
14:20and women's, this coming year.
14:22All right, so we got so much snow in the Northeast, and I know that this is something that Calshi
14:28offers, is predictions on snow.
14:30So I'm guessing that anybody that went over ended up winning, right?
14:33I mean, I can't believe we're doing this here, but here we are.
14:37You don't like betting on snow?
14:39Come on, Craig.
14:40This is good fun, right?
14:42But yeah, we thought.
14:42Who's measuring this?
14:45Yes.
14:46The snowfall in New York was a big thing.
14:49There's obviously been a lot of storms in recent weeks in there.
14:53Obviously, we had this big blizzard come through.
14:55So you could bet there was $4 million bet on Calshi on how much snow there would be from February
15:0021st to 24th.
15:01I think the interesting thing is they promised a forecast that is better than a meteorologist.
15:07In this case, it wasn't really that well, that great.
15:10We got over 18 inches earlier in the week.
15:13It was being traded at more like 14 inches, though.
15:15It was not great on that front.
15:17The truth machines were pretty good, but not super accurate on the snowfall.
15:21But, you know, again, good fun if you want to bet on how much snow you're going to get in
15:24your backyard, I guess.
15:26Yep, you can read Dustin's sub stack.
15:28Next week, we'll come back and weigh in on the State of the Union, which you can predict as well.
15:34Thanks, Dustin.
15:34Have a great week.
15:35Thanks again.
15:36Cheers.
15:37Thanks for having me.
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