00:00The Hawks still in good shape in the NBA playoff picture.
00:03Meanwhile, the Orlando Magic desperately needed a win to stay alive.
00:06They beat the Pistons 123-107.
00:09Paolo Bencaro had 31.
00:11Desmond Bain had 25.
00:13And Detroit, naturally, has already clinched first in the East.
00:17But still, Jamal Mosley needs every win he can get.
00:20The Magic head coach talked about the win over the Pistons.
00:23They made a push, which every great team does.
00:26They're the number one team in the East for a reason.
00:27I mean, I've watched them play against Oklahoma City with that same group
00:30and come back and get it tight.
00:32You know, got down from 21 at one point.
00:34Did the same thing to Atlanta.
00:35So they're the number one team in the East for a reason.
00:37They won the East for a reason because they're not going to quit.
00:40And their ability to put pressure on you, get downhill, attack the basket,
00:44play with that level of confidence, that's what they've done.
00:47And our ability to withstand that run, knowing that teams go on runs,
00:51we've got to just continue to be smart about it when we get down or when we get up.
00:56We've just got to continue to play our style of basketball.
00:58You mentioned the teams.
01:01If the Magic have not been consistent, the Spurs have as they head toward the playoffs.
01:05The only question is, will they have Victor Wimbayama for the remainder of the regular season,
01:10which isn't much.
01:10They beat the 76ers last night, 115 to 102.
01:15Steph Castle had 19 points in the win.
01:18The reason why I mention this is because Wemby left the game with a rib contusion.
01:23So here's an update from head coach Mitch Johnson on him.
01:28First things first, what do you know about Victor?
01:29What can you tell us?
01:30Nothing.
01:32That's not even placating anything.
01:34I'm not sure.
01:35I know he came back and he just didn't finish.
01:38And so at halftime, I was told he wasn't coming back.
01:41And I, honest to God, haven't heard anything else up to this point.
01:45So clearly no sense of where it stands with him?
01:49No, I think it would be a positive that he felt like he could come back and he played
01:52the last four or five minutes of the half.
01:54So that's a positive from my perspective, but I'd have nothing.
01:59A little bit over a week before the Spurs have to play their first NBA playoff game.
02:03Same for the Denver Nuggets.
02:04They beat the Trailblazers last night, 137 to 102.
02:07Jokic had a triple-double, 35 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists.
02:13Also, the Cavs beat the Grizzlies without Donovan Mitchell and without James Harden.
02:19They made 29 three-pointers in the game last night, 142 to 126.
02:24Cleveland beats Memphis.
02:26In baseball, the Mets will be without Juan Soto for at least the next couple of weeks.
02:30He's got a calf strain.
02:32Ronnie Mauricio has been called up from AAA.
02:35Soto hurt himself last Friday night in the Mets' win against the Giants.
02:39Meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays struggling in a big way out of the gate after winning
02:43the American League last year.
02:45Dodgers beat them last night, 14 to 2.
02:47Shohei Ohtani homered, so did Teoscar Hernandez, and Freddie Freeman.
02:52Dave Roberts talked about the 14-run explosion after the game.
02:56Yeah, you know, we sort of picked back up from yesterday, you know, late in the game,
03:02and just the at-bats all around, taking walks, getting hits, you know,
03:07passing the baton situationally really good, you know, even just early on, you know,
03:13getting a guy over, you know, driving him in with the sack fly, running deeper counts,
03:20hitting to the opposite field, and obviously, you know, Dalton had a huge night,
03:23so that was good to see.
03:25But, you know, everyone, you know, 1 through 9 was really solid.
03:30Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsGrid.
03:32Joining us now to talk about the latest in prediction markets is Dustin Gawker.
03:36He's got a great sub-stack and podcast where he discusses everything to do with sports betting,
03:40but right now it is predominantly surrounded by prediction markets and news as well.
03:45Dustin, thanks for coming on the show.
03:46Appreciate it.
03:47And let's get started with Calci, which could be a predecessor for some things to come across the country.
03:53Now, let's be clear here.
03:54The state of New Jersey gave Calci a big win to operate in the Garden State.
04:00That doesn't necessarily mean that every state will follow suit, but it does set some precedent, doesn't it?
04:07Yeah, this is a big decision.
04:09There's court cases all over the country, both in federal and state court.
04:13This has been a subject of a lot of reporting and a lot of what we talk about on here,
04:17whether prediction markets are legal, whether federal law preempts state gambling law.
04:20And here, for the first time, we had a federal appellate court, Third Circuit,
04:25where this case between Calci and the state of New Jersey is going on.
04:28And the Third Circuit said, yep, you can continue to operate here.
04:33We're not going to stop you.
04:34And this is, again, the first time that an appellate court for this has been district courts,
04:38lower courts have said this.
04:40So pretty big win for Calci.
04:42It doesn't mean that this is by any means, but it's not the end of the road.
04:45This is one more step.
04:47But it is a big deal from that perspective.
04:50There could still be appeal by New Jersey.
04:52They can appeal to the same court.
04:55They could possibly appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
04:57At the end of the day, some of it's noise and some of it's not.
05:00This is going to the Supreme Court at some point in the next year or two, 100%.
05:04All these cases are going to get bundled up.
05:07And the Supreme Court is going to decide whether prediction markets and sports betting
05:12via prediction markets is going to stay and whether that's okay under federal law.
05:16The court cases are not over.
05:18But it is a big milepost, a big win after prediction markets have been losing in a lot
05:23of lower courts to date.
05:24So interesting stuff out of there.
05:26There's also a case going on in Nevada right now where that appeal is being heard as well.
05:32And meanwhile, Dustin, the CFTC getting involved, of course, we reported this.
05:36I know you've been talking about it.
05:38It's suing a few different states to try and get them back operating.
05:41Arizona, Connecticut very specifically are two of those states.
05:45And, you know, naturally, maybe that ruling in New Jersey, even though it has no bearing
05:50whatsoever on these, it couldn't hurt for them to see this.
05:54Yeah, I mean, they're going to point to this and say, look, the Third Circuit said this is
05:57okay.
05:57But yeah, what's different here is so far states have said cease and desist to Kalshi and
06:04other prediction markets and operators saying, you can't do this here, this is illegal sports
06:08gambling, knock it off.
06:09Usually Kalshi and others have not knocked it off.
06:11And then they go sue the states.
06:13We've seen this dynamic change a little bit.
06:16And states are now suing Kalshi specifically, including in Arizona, where they actually brought
06:20criminal charges against Kalshi for operating in the state.
06:24And now we have this new dynamic where the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is
06:27the regulator of prediction markets and Kalshi, now suing states themselves.
06:32So this is a totally new legal front where they're saying, we're in charge here.
06:36What are you doing?
06:37You can't do this.
06:38You can't tell our prediction markets and the companies that are under our purview.
06:43You can't stop.
06:45So now the CFTC has gone to three different states and actually filed suit themselves.
06:49This is the Trump administration saying that they want to do this.
06:53The Department of Justice is involved as well in this and saying, we're going to try to
06:57protect what we think is right, what we think is our remit.
07:02Our remit is to regulate prediction markets and allow them to operate.
07:06And states are infringing upon that.
07:07So yeah, new dynamic.
07:09The lawyers are getting paid.
07:10That's all I know, no matter what, like in all things in life, right?
07:14The lawyers are making some money.
07:15We're happy for them.
07:17Yeah, definitely so.
07:18But nobody is making money betting on 30-piece parlays here.
07:23This is a crazy story here coming from Kalshi promoting a parlay.
07:28Now, I got to tell you, Dustin, I kind of get wild here when I see these promotions of
07:33same-game parlays of four and five legs, you know?
07:37But 30-leg parlay promoted on their site?
07:41Like, I mean, in the history of sports, there's probably never been a 30-leg parlay to hit.
07:48You hear about 8, 10, 12, 15.
07:50It's like, wow, what a miracle.
07:51What are they trying to accomplish here?
07:54Yeah, I don't know.
07:55Like, so Kalshi has started, the backstory is Kalshi has started offering promoted parlays.
08:00This is not new, right?
08:01Like, you and I will log in to DraftKings or FanDuel and you get some parlays.
08:05Like, you know, LeBron says you should bet on this.
08:08Here's three or four-leg parlays.
08:09Like, because we're all lazy, right?
08:11Like, building a parlay is a pain in the butt.
08:13We just want to click a button and bet a parlay.
08:15Totally fine, right?
08:16Like, you know, some people will criticize that and say, like, oh, the house wants you to lose.
08:20Yes, you're probably going to lose your parlay, no doubt about it.
08:22So Kalshi started doing this.
08:24You go to the sports tab on the app and it's like, popular combos are not parlays and prediction markets
08:30parlays.
08:30So you could scroll past, again, a lot like the UX that we find on a sports book.
08:35And the first day they offer this, I'm looking and like, it says, you know, one, two, three legs and
08:4127 more.
08:41I'm like, they're not, they're not trying to get me to bet a 30-leg parlay, are they?
08:45And you click on it and absolutely, they're trying to get you to bet a 30-leg parlay.
08:50A lot of favorites, a lot of, you know, but yeah, nobody's ever going to hit a 30-leg parlay.
08:55Was it like plus, I forget what it was, plus 25,000 odds.
09:00But yeah, this is like, prediction markets are saying they're less predatory than sports books, that they're totally better and
09:06different.
09:06Like, meanwhile, they're trying to get you and I to bet on nonsense parlays that are never going to hit
09:11and you're just donating.
09:12Sure, it's fine if we understand this to be gambling, understand this is just, you know, I'm putting a dollar
09:17to win a lot of money.
09:18I'm probably going to lose the dollar, but, you know, it is what it is.
09:21But we also consider this, these are supposed to be serious financial platforms, like putting up 30-leg parlays, man.
09:26And yeah, like not even the sports, like FanDuel and DraftKings, you know how much crap they'd take if they
09:30started trying to promote 30-leg parlays?
09:32It would be a lot.
09:33So, super interesting there.
09:35They've seemed to rein in how many legs they're putting on these promoted parlays now, but they still do.
09:39They are promoting them to their rank and file users.
09:43Well, if you thought that was a dumb story or, you know, stupidity, I got a better one for you
09:48here.
09:49Dustin, what is going on here?
09:51I mean, who is this genius that thought it would be a good idea to promote people dying and wagering
09:56or predicting dying on Polymarket?
09:59My gosh.
10:00I mean, I certainly hope whoever that person was at the very least gets a slap on the wrist.
10:05Polymarket, what are they doing?
10:07Yeah.
10:07I mean, if you follow the news in Iran, some U.S. pilots were shot down.
10:11There's a rescue operation.
10:12We know what happened there, that the pilots were rescued.
10:14But Polymarket, for a short amount of time, says you could bet on whether they would be rescued or not.
10:18Of course, if you're betting against them being rescued, you're betting on them dying or staying in captivity.
10:23A terrible thing.
10:23Polymarket quickly walked this back.
10:26They got some static from people in Congress.
10:28You know, the latest dumb thing that prediction markets are doing, they should stop doing dumb stuff.
10:33I wrote about that this morning in the Event Horizon, my sub-stack about prediction markets.
10:39Yeah, you've got to knock off the nonsense if you want to not have dumb regulation.
10:43My gosh.
10:44Dustin Gawker always bringing the heat.
10:46You're on the show.
10:47Thanks again, Dustin.
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