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00:00But the National Football League stealing some headlines here in the offseason with free agency
00:04set to begin, getting a little more clarity as to which direction teams are headed. We found out
00:09that the Chiefs and Rams are headed maybe in different directions. Who knows? The Chiefs
00:14trade one of their best players on defense. Trent McDuffie is headed to the Rams for a first round
00:19pick, 29th pick in the 2026 draft. Also some other little factors involved, including a fifth round
00:26pick, sixth round pick, and the third round pick in 2027. But let's be real here. I think at this
00:32point, the Chiefs probably looking to get a little bit younger in the defensive backfield and the Rams
00:37all in once again on trying to win a Super Bowl. We'll also have some notes on Kenneth Walker. We'll
00:42get to that here in just a second. But first, in case you watched the show yesterday, you may have
00:46seen this, that Nevada and Calci going toe to toe. Now the state of Michigan doing the same. Michigan
00:52filing a lawsuit against Calci for operating in their state. For Michigan, they sue first in the
00:58state and then they go to federal court if needed. And that's what happened in Massachusetts as well.
01:03It's possible that there will be no Calci and there will be no prediction markets in the future
01:07if this indeed comes to fruition. Also yesterday, we found out that a brand new broadcaster is taking
01:14over play-by-play duties when NBC Sports carries the Major League Baseball package this season. Jason
01:20Benetti of the Detroit Tigers will be their number one play-by-play caller on television this season
01:26that also includes Sunday Night Baseball on NBC. All right, back to the NFL here for a minute. This
01:32was the story yesterday that I would say probably caught no one by surprise. Kyler Murray's time
01:37with the Arizona Cardinals has officially come to an end, if not sooner. March 15th is the guaranteed
01:43money that he would be paid. He won't. It's $19.5 million. So they release him next Wednesday or try
01:50to
01:50make a trade, but that's not going to happen. We know how these things go. The player gets
01:53released, signs with somebody else. Kyler Murray's tenure in Arizona coming to an end. And by the
01:57way, prediction markets have the odds on this as well. Right now, it would appear, at least according
02:02to Calci, the Vikings have the best shot to land him, 40%, as you can see there. And the Jets,
02:0619%.
02:07Jets, by the way, were the favorite yesterday. So updating that today, it looks like Arizona,
02:11at least currently, with the highest percentage. Murray, by the way, was the number one overall pick in
02:16the draft. Rookie of the year, two-time Pro Bowler, 87 starts, 20,000 passing yards, 32 rushing
02:21touchdowns. But you see that big number there, zero playoff wins. That's in your bottom right
02:26corner of your screen there, along with 60 interceptions. Also, Daniel Jones could be
02:31staying in Indianapolis unless somebody wants to pay him $37 million next season. Franchise tag,
02:37or they're calling it actually the transition tag for Daniel Jones. That's where he's going to be.
02:42So unless the team gives him a multi-year deal with more money, Jones will be back at quarterback
02:45for $37 million with the Colts next season. Also, some players that were not tagged with the franchise
02:51transition or anything else, so they'll head to free agency. As I mentioned, Kenneth Walker of the
02:55world champion Seattle Seahawks, he's a free agent. So is Alec Pierce of the Colts, Travis Etienne of
03:00the Jaguars, and Trey Hendrickson of the Bengals. Hendrickson, of course, had wanted a long-term deal.
03:04He'd wanted a trade. He waited a couple years, finally got his wish. By the way, Walker would become
03:09the fourth player to win the Super Bowl MVP and begin the following season with a different team.
03:13You may remember Larry Brown, the Super Bowl MVP. Remember that a long time ago with the Cowboys?
03:18Ended up signing with the Raiders. Desmond Howard also was Super Bowl MVP. Went somewhere else too
03:22with the Packers. Dexter Jackson with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Feels like the Raiders, I think,
03:26may have gotten all three of those players. Dexter Jackson, Larry Brown, Desmond Howard,
03:32all in the history books. Last year, Kenneth Walker had 65 carries, 313 yards, and four touchdowns
03:39in the playoffs. He was fantastic for them with Zach Charbonnet on the mend, and Charbonnet probably
03:44takes over as they're starting running back next season. Also, Trey Hendrickson, as I said,
03:47going to become an unrestricted free agent, so he'll have no shortage of suitors. Bit of a surprise
03:51yesterday. The Bears thought they had their long-term center signed up for years. Drew Dallman,
03:56but he's retiring at the age of 27. No reason given here. He just signed a three-year,
04:00$42 million contract. Also, the Giants announced they're going to release linebacker Bobby
04:05Okereke, and Okereke was set to make $14.46 million last season. A lot of money on the show
04:11here today. All right, you know who was money yesterday? Cleveland Cavaliers. They were two-and-a-half
04:15point underdogs to the red-hot Detroit Pistons, and they took care of business. Maybe James Harden
04:19is the truth for this team. 18 points, five rebounds, seven assists when he plays. The Cats win.
04:23Evan Mobley also had 18 points, five rebounds, and four assists, and Kenny Atkinson certainly happy
04:29with his team performance coming out with the victory. No doubt, a few guys, but no, it's a
04:34good win. You know, I wish we did a better job in the fourth quarter of taking care of
04:41the ball. They turned up their heat. I mean, Thompson is a, you know, he's a one-man wrecking
04:47crew, and we didn't do a good job taking care of it. That's the only negative, but we found
04:53a way through. I thought James made that big lefty drive. That was a big play. Sam hits
04:56that big three on the way. So we made the plays, and I thought we closed the rim a little
05:02better there in the second half, but it's a good win. Not perfect by any means, but
05:09we'll take it. Again, I'm frustrated in the effort level, the attention to detail
05:15that we played on that end of the floor. The times and opportunities where we did
05:21do the right thing, we did get stops, and then we let people outwork us to come up
05:24with offensive rebounds. You know, we can't afford to not play at maximum effort. That's
05:31been our superpower all year long. And tonight, I felt like there were times where we were
05:37outworked. And if we're outworked, this isn't going to be the results that we want.
05:42Meanwhile, north of the border, the Toronto Raptors took on the New York Knicks last night. New York
05:47wins 111-95. Carl Anthony Towns, 21 points, 12 rebounds. Jalen Brunson also with a nice game. He
05:54had 26 and 10 as well. Let's hear from the head coaches, especially Mike Brown, who of course is
06:00looking for his Knicks to get hot before the playoffs. It was a good win by our guys. Physical
06:04game. Obviously, you give Toronto credit. They brought a lot of physicality to the game tonight.
06:10But I think our guys, I believe our guys responded the right way. You know, we came out the third
06:16quarter, couldn't score the ball like we did in the first half. But we hung in there defensively.
06:23And, you know, to hold a team like that, that gets out and runs in transition the way they do
06:31to 37 points in the second half is a pretty good half defensively, especially when they
06:36had 13 points for the game. In fact, when it comes to fast break points. So, you know,
06:41we got to hang our hat on that end of the floor. And our guys are doing it. They're doing
06:47it with physicality first and then trying to go get that ball off the glass second.
06:52We're pretty much dead the whole game. They made more shots than us down the stretch.
06:59I think we, we look back at the tape. I think we just, we got to figure out our fourth
07:05quarter
07:06execution, exactly what we want to go to. I think every time we play a good team, they
07:13know exactly what they want to go to in the fourth quarter and they do it over and over
07:16again. So we just, the good thing is we're in, we're in the games, but we got to figure
07:22out how to finish the game.
07:25The Hornets are hot yet again. They've won their fifth straight game after winning eight
07:29games in a row last month. They've now won five straight here. There were 13 and a half
07:33point favorites. Brandon Miller had 17 points, five rebounds and four assists. Solid game
07:38also for LaMelo Ball. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Timberwolves also win again. This time they take
07:44care of the Grizzlies 1-17 to 1-10. As right now, Minnesota also playing good basketball,
07:50headed down the stretch. Here's Chris Finch on Anthony Edwards with another 41 point performance
07:56last night.
07:57How has Ant done at convincing you that he shouldn't pass the ball?
08:01I mean, it's not tennis. So like it's basketball and there's five guys out there and, you know,
08:08I trust Anthony and he's been doing a really good job all season with making the right decisions
08:13for the most part and he needs to continue to do that. And, you know, and I thought tonight
08:17he did a good job, you know, when they put two on him at the end. So, yeah, so.
08:24Guess who won again last night in college basketball? That would be Miami, Ohio. And yes,
08:28another close game. They beat Toledo 74-72. That means the 19th ranked team is 30-0 on the season
08:38as they wrap up the regular season title.
08:41Welcome back to Newswire here on sports. Great, great to have Sam McQuillan in the house from
08:45LegalSportsReport.com. Sam has news on a brand new super app. I've never heard of this before.
08:49I've heard of the Super Bowl. I've heard of Super Wild Card Weekend. Of course, I've heard of Superman.
08:54But Sam's going to tell us more about this DraftKings super app. What's so super about it?
09:01Yeah, the DraftKings super app, which was just announced this week,
09:05is really just a combination of DraftKings Sportsbook. It's, you know, chief product.
09:11DraftKings iCasino, it's online casino. Daily Fantasy Sports. And of course, Prediction Markets,
09:17because we all know, Craig, it wouldn't be a show if we didn't mention Prediction Markets. And
09:21that's really the focus of this super app. Again, DraftKings has all these apps and different products.
09:26It's now working on putting them together in one seamless experience, where one wallet can be used
09:33across all these features. But more importantly, I think is just wherever you are in any state in
09:39any jurisdiction, all you have to do is open up the DraftKings app. And if your state allows sports
09:46betting, it'll direct you to DraftKings Sportsbook. If you live in a state now like California, where
09:50sports betting is not legal, and you want to bet on sports, it'll automatically direct you to the
09:55DraftKings prediction market, which DraftKings revealed how it's going to look, looks almost
10:01exactly like how its sportsbook looks. So functionally, it'll be like if you're a sports
10:06bettor, you're always on DraftKings Sportsbook. It's just the back end mechanics that are different.
10:11Obviously, Prediction Markets, very different than sports betting on the back end. But DraftKings
10:16really with this move is trying to make it so the consumer can really not see a difference between
10:22the two. At least that's my read on it. It is offering the same odds in the same way, in
10:28the
10:28same manner, which is a little bit different than how Kalshi and Robin Hood and Polly Market have been
10:33moving so far. Although those prediction market platforms have also been moving towards
10:39increasingly looking like sports betting. There's all the lawsuits going on of is this sports betting,
10:45is it not? But for DraftKings, they're looking at it as about a $10 billion opportunity to expand
10:51their total addressable market, getting into states that doesn't have sports betting.
10:55This is just another way they're trying to leverage that and really capitalize
10:58on the opportunity. They also announced with this super app, which is going to be available
11:03around March Madness, I'm told, is that they're moving a lot of their in-house trading and pricing
11:10capabilities, everything that has made it a really good sportsbook over to its prediction market,
11:15which right now relies on third-party technology. It's not dissimilar from when sports betting
11:20first launched in the States. A lot of companies like DraftKings were using third-party technology,
11:26where they couldn't adjust their pricing themselves, where they couldn't customize the
11:31products themselves. It's one of the reasons we saw them able to offer things like same-game
11:35parlays, which really took off. Now it's really trying to do that with its prediction market
11:39service as well. So it's going to invest a lot of money in that as well. It'll still be the
11:44same
11:44DraftKings features and everything, just under one app. Roll out during March Madness,
11:49and then they'll really try to ramp it up before NFL season, which is when they want to be in
11:53front
11:53of those states like California, where they're offering what looks like sports betting, even though
11:57we all know it's technically not for some reason. And that's a whole bunch of Mishigas we can get into
12:03on another topic, I'm sure. But it's just another move where a sports betting company is doubling
12:07down on prediction markets that look like sports betting. Yeah, like Mishigas. That works for me
12:13for sure, Sam. Okay, let's get to Louisiana sports betting bill that could potentially limit or maybe
12:19even ban player props. And this is certainly targeted at collegiate athletes, Sam. At this
12:25point, they're doing everything possible to protect their interests.
12:30Yeah, we're now seeing another state in Louisiana moving forward with legislation which would ban not
12:36only player props, but all prop bets in the state, as well as micro bets, those very bets that were
12:43identified just a few months ago in the Cleveland Guardians scandal with Emmanuel Classe and Luis
12:48Ortiz. We've been accused of, you know, rigging pitches and intentionally throwing in the dirt or
12:54throwing balls to cash in for bettors and manipulation scheme. Of course, we had the NBA prop betting
13:00scandal, whatever you want to call it, with John Day Porter about a year ago, the Terry Rozier news.
13:05So now lawmakers are really starting to, you know, take attention to this, take notice and propose
13:11legislation that would ban these kind of things. It obviously is not something the sports betting
13:15industry wants. You know, they want to be able to offer all these prop bets, especially because
13:19they're really popular with parlays, you know, the highest margin bets that they take. So we're starting
13:24to see that point where we get friction from lawmakers proposing this stuff. Whether or not it passes
13:29will be a different kind of thing we have to see in, you know, weight and how the climate kind
13:34of works
13:34out, especially in Louisiana, you know, sports books really have a lot of lobbying presence in the
13:39state. Although obviously their interests are maybe focused elsewhere right now with prediction markets
13:43and everything else going on. And then furthermore, one of these other bills from Louisiana would also
13:48ban or make it so sports books would automatically have to ban people who were deemed to harass
13:54athletes, which I think is a really good kind of no brainer component, something that you might want
14:00to say, okay, maybe that's where sports books can find a win with all the kinds of bad press sports
14:05betting has got lately if they automatically harass athletes. So that's a measure I think they'll
14:09probably get behind. We saw BetMGM, I think last month announced that it's doing something similar
14:15on its book. I think it kind of reminds me of when states tried to ban credit card uses on
14:20sports
14:21books. A lot of the sports books themselves just automatically went ahead and banned it. So we'll see kind of
14:28what shakes out here with the rest of the legislature. But, you know, it's kind of a mixed bag so
14:33far in
14:33Louisiana in terms of new policies.
14:36And finally, can we read anything into this that Mississippi is getting closer to legalizing sports
14:42betting online? Because this story is one that just won't go away, they get closer, and then they move
14:46further away from this. Now, to be clear, Mississippi does have in person sports gambling, but they just have not
14:51been
14:51able to get this online.
14:54You know what, Craig, I think actually you can in this instance. It's not lost on me that
14:58we've talked about Mississippi going online for the past like four or five years. It's kind of been
15:03the same story of the House passes a bill, and then nothing else happens, the Senate doesn't move
15:08on it. The story is again that the House has passed a bill, but more interesting this time is
15:14the concern in Mississippi has been in-person casinos where in-person sports betting is done.
15:20They seem to really not want online sports betting. They think it will cannibalize their business.
15:24Whether that's true or not, you know, there's some disputing facts out there in terms of
15:29cannibalization. But with this bill, it would actually lower the tax rate of casinos pay on
15:35casino games from 8% to 6%, which is estimated to save those casinos around $45 million a year in
15:42taxes, which, you know, it's not a lot of money for the state legislature considering how much they
15:46make, but it would be a lot of savings for the state casinos. So this bill is kind of giving
15:51them, throwing them a bone saying, okay, if we legalize online sports betting, we'll lower your
15:56tax rate and you can save money. Now, we have to see if the casinos are actually on board with
16:00this.
16:00There's about 26 in the state, if I'm not mistaken. There's a lot of regional casinos specifically that
16:05aren't owned by the Caesars of the world, that aren't owned by the Hard Rocks, don't have those
16:09ties to online sports betting apps that have been concerned in the past. So we'll see if they're,
16:14you know, they're going to say, oh, you give me this, then we'll maybe be open to that.
16:18In the past, the Senate Gaming Commission chair has been very adamant that he will not move towards
16:25legalizing online sports betting unless the Mississippi Gaming Commission recommends it.
16:29So we start to see if they're going to come on board and say it's a good thing. In the
16:33past,
16:33he said, you know, we want tourism in Mississippi, we want jobs created, and online sports betting
16:38doesn't do that. Even though it's projected to raise about $100 million a year, that's not enough
16:43for the state. It needs to be creating jobs and tourism. So we know that the Senate's interests
16:48really lie with those casinos. If those casinos get on board with this new bill, which remains to
16:53be seen, obviously, then the Senate would maybe have to get on board. And then maybe we could really
16:57have a real conversation around it actually happening in Mississippi. But I will say, the fact
17:03that casinos are getting a bone with this proposal, you know, that makes it a little bit different in
17:06the past, where maybe we're inching towards there. But, you know, you never know, Mississippi.
17:11All right, Sam. Great stuff, as always. We'll catch up with you later in the week. Appreciate it.
17:16Yep. Sounds good. Thanks a lot, Craig.
17:18Sam McQuillen from Legal Sports Report. Updating a couple of quick scores from college basketball
17:23last night. The big upset, by the way, was TCU taking care of Texas Tech 73-65. So that will
17:30knock
17:30Texas Tech down in the rankings. Also, Georgia beats Alabama, snaps their eight-game winning streak,
17:36and Arizona State takes care of number 14 Kansas. So three teams inside the top 20 going down last night.
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