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00:00Very big news yesterday coming in the way of Calci. The feds have arrested a special
00:04forces agent who profited from using Calci. Get this, ABC News is reporting that they've
00:09arrested a special forces soldier who was involved in the capture of Nicolas Maduro
00:13in Venezuela who made $400,000 on polymarket. The soldier placed bets on the removal of
00:19Venezuela just hours before his capture. So obviously he knew something was happening
00:22and that's ended up what happening and made money there. But naturally this is what's
00:26going on in the world of prediction markets and sports betting. But again, with some
00:30of this being legalized, it's important to note that if it wasn't, we may not have ever
00:34had this happen or find out. So stay tuned to story to continue. All right. Day one of
00:39the NFL draft officially in the books. Here it is. The first round of the NFL draft. Some
00:44trading definitely prominent. Some surprises definitely happened. But the good news is
00:49that that number one overall pick did indeed go to Fernando Mendoza. What a nice young kid
00:55who is the number one overall pick in the 2026 draft. He will play for the Las Vegas
01:00Raiders next season. They have not said whether or not he will start the first game of the
01:04season for the Raiders, but he will be a big part of their franchise and their future moving
01:09forward. So then things got interesting. Of course, the number three overall pick we'd
01:13heard so much about Arizona potentially trading out of that selection. They did not. They took
01:17Jeremiah Love with the third overall pick. Of course, he will be the cornerstone of this
01:21Arizona offense moving forward. And for fantasy football purposes, probably a first round pick
01:26coming next year out of Notre Dame. His teammate, Shadavian Price, was drafted by
01:30the Seattle Seahawks with the final pick in the first round. Maybe the biggest surprise of all is
01:36the future is now, I guess, for the Los Angeles Rams. They decided shockingly to take Ty Simpson when
01:42they have Hall of Fame quarterback Matthew Stafford. So this builds for the future. And they used a really
01:46high pick to 13th overall at the University of Alabama. We'll hear from their general manager,
01:51Les Snead, and maybe not as much from their head coach, Sean McVay, who is making the rounds on the
01:57internet today for, I guess, what he didn't say about drafting Ty Simpson, who will sit behind
02:01Stafford for at least this season. Meanwhile, Makai Lemon ended up being drafted a little bit later
02:07than most people thought. His total was around 14-15. Highly unusual to hear a player get a phone call
02:13from a team he thinks he's being drafted to and ends up somewhere else. But that's what happened.
02:16He ended up going to the Philadelphia Eagles, and it would absolutely appear at this point
02:20that the Eagles will trade A.J. Brown sooner, if not later. Lemon and Devontae Smith will be
02:26the wide receivers for the Eagles this season. And of course, day two will come up later. And on
02:31Monday, we'll recap the entire draft for you. Now let's get to the NBA last night. As suspected,
02:36the Atlanta Hawks are in it to win it. They now lead the series against the New York Knicks,
02:41109-108 the final yesterday. Jalen Johnson, 24-10-8. C.J. McCollum had 23 points as well.
02:48The Knicks once again went cold in the end, and Quinn Snyder is feeling it right now, having
02:54his team at home with a chance to go up 3-1 this weekend. Here's Snyder after the game.
03:00We guarded multiple actions and helped each other too. And didn't foul. That was a huge
03:11part of it. You know, I thought, you know, Onyeka showed his hands. You know, J.K. pursued.
03:19Dyson, you know, got knocked down and got back up. And I think, you know, we shifted and really
03:28made it congested in the lane. So a lot of good things happened on the possession from,
03:33you know, it's one of those kind of all five guys.
03:37You know, the reality of it is, and I told them this, it's a seven-game series for a reason.
03:43You know, stuff's going to happen. Plenty of teams have been down 1-2. You know, should I
03:52even think Oklahoma City was down 1-2 last year? And they end up winning it. So I'm not saying
03:58we're going to win it or anything like that. But the reality of it is it's seven games. And you
04:03take
04:03one game at a time. Each game is its own entity. And that's what I told the group. Now, this
04:08should
04:09stay because we gave ourselves a chance knowing that we didn't play our best basketball. So it should
04:17stay. But we need to feel it and get ready to be locked in for the next game, which we
04:24will be.
04:25See about that, says Mike Brown. Okay. Home cooking for the Timberwolves. Big time yesterday.
04:311-13 to 96. How about that? Not even a close game. Jayden McDaniels, 20. Anthony Edwards, 17.
04:37Nikola Jokic had his own great game, as he always does. 27 and 15, but not nearly enough. Under 100
04:42points for Denver. How about that? Chris Finch, the head coach of Minnesota, said the defense set the
04:47tone. That was the key. Collectively, defensively, right from the start there. Yeah, locked in.
04:54You know, into the ball. Everybody kind of went in. The battle that was right in front
04:58of them was really big. Challenging everything. Just making everything hard all the way around.
05:05You know. And came out and just set the tone. You know, which is what we wanted to do here
05:11at home. Had a hard time making shots tonight. And I think, you know, we talked about it after
05:16the game. Our physicality offensively has got to get better. I thought our physicality defensively
05:21in the second half was much better. You know, I went small. I tried to put a shooting lineup
05:26out there. And that led to what we knew could happen. The size issue. I mean, it's just the
05:31way it is. They got to the paint. And then if you double that with transition, you know,
05:37that's just, you're going to put yourself in a tough spot. You know, not to mention only
05:4039 points at the half. So I did think throughout the second half, we found some things defensively.
05:45But offensively, we've got to screen better. We've got to cut better. We've got to handle
05:49the pressure much better than we did tonight. All right. Also, 2-1 lead now for the Cleveland
05:55Cavaliers. The Raptors beat them at home. 126-104. The Raptors said they needed to get
06:01big performances from their main players. Scotty Barnes, R.J. Barrett will get this. 33 points
06:06apiece. That will get it done. Game four Sunday in Toronto. But of course, the Raptors felt
06:11they needed to get that win. Here's Scotty Barnes after saying, yes, sir.
06:15Scotty, do you guys feel like you need it? Do you feel like you needed a win like this
06:19just for your team's confidence kind of going forward in this series to kind of get back
06:23in it? We need every game. This is the playoffs. Everybody wants to win. We want to win every
06:30single game. We don't want to take a game off. 2-0, come back to our home crowd. It was
06:37very
06:37energetic in there today, but we know we needed a win. Donovan, just what's your major takeaway
06:43from this one? What do you guys got to do better? It's our aggressiveness. Our force, I don't think
06:49was there tonight as a whole. Give credit where credit's due. We knew it was going to be a tough
06:53game. No team wants to go down 3-0. We were right there for the majority of the game, and
06:59then
06:59battle kind of got away in the fourth. So just things we can control. I'll give them credit. They
07:03protect at home court. NBA action, of course, continues tonight. So does Major League Baseball
07:09action, and that will include the Philadelphia Phillies, who are going through it right now.
07:13Talk about two different teams in two different directions. Cubs are on a roll. Phillies can't
07:19win. The Cubs win 8-7, and Philadelphia has now lost nine games in a row. Say a Suzuki homer
07:26for the Cubs for the third straight game. Kyle Schwarber says afterwards it's time to get things
07:31straight. That's the way that we should go about our day every single day, where, you know what, we
07:37give up some runs, whatever it was, and we were able to respond, keep fighting back, and then kept
07:42extending it in the extra innings. You know, that's the way I think that we play baseball. You know, I
07:50think
07:50that's a good representation, right? It ends in a loss, right? It wouldn't be that big of a moment there
07:58if we're not on the stretch. I feel like that's probably our brand of baseball right there, and
08:02that's the way that we should keep playing, right? Like, guys are, like I said, guys are
08:06going to be grinding. Guys are figuring out, but I felt like we kept energy today. We kept
08:12fighting through it. We found a way through. We broke through. Kept pressure on guys. Take
08:18advantage of some situations that went our way, and obviously we don't end up with a win, but I feel
08:26like if we keep playing more baseball like that, that we're going to get a lot more good results
08:30moving forward. All right, welcome back to Newswire on SportsGrid. A familiar face makes his return
08:38to Newswire from Legal Sports Report. You would have to be a very big fan of this show and be
08:43watching
08:44this show about, I'm going to say, a year and a half, two years probably it's been. It feels like
08:50longer than a year for sure since we've had Pat Evans back with us. How long has it been?
08:55I feel you there, Craig, because I missed you. I missed Newswire. I missed SportsGrid. It's only
09:00been, I think, about eight or nine months, but it feels like forever. I think the last time was last
09:04July. I know, but hey, I'm back. I should be back now more regularly, so hey. Good. But thanks for
09:11having me back, and I'm excited to be back. Michigan State football, that's Pat's thing, and also,
09:16you know, working in Legal Sports Report. So you guys, whoever's out there watching, what you need
09:20to do is support Pat and his team over at LegalSportsReport.com. They do a great job over
09:25there breaking down sports betting and prediction markets. Pat and I haven't had a chance to chat
09:30about that. I'm sure we will. So let's get started. Let's start off with Oklahoma and a sports betting
09:36bill that looked like it was on the move forward, and now we're going the other way. It looks like
09:42it's
09:42been rejected, and part of this, Pat, with the remaining states that have not yet legalized
09:47sports, I would say at least half of them are going to have to get things done with the tribal
09:52entities, it does feel like. Exactly. We did see Wisconsin get that over the finish line this year
09:58with their tribal agreement, so that's, you know, one more state to go, and here we are. But yes,
10:03Oklahoma, that's something, this is something we've been talking about. I remember talking about it
10:06with you last year at some point, that they've been working on this for a really long time. There's two
10:11guys, Senator, well now I can't remember his name, of course, and then Ken Luttrell, Representative Ken
10:18Luttrell, who's kind of the real big leader. He's been working on it for eight years. They've been
10:23working on it, and you know, it kind of fizzled out early this session, and then all of a sudden
10:27news emerged late last week that, hey, a deal might be in place. And that's big news because Governor
10:33Kevin Stitt has been a thorn in the side of the tribes and legislature trying to get this done. Back
10:38in 2020, he tried to legalize through two tribal compact sports betting, and the rest of the tribe
10:44said, nope, we don't like that. The courts rejected it. And since then, Stitt's been, nope, we're not
10:49going to do tribal exclusive sports betting, which is an issue because tribes have gaming exclusivity
10:53in Oklahoma. And he's wanted an open market and has vowed to veto any tribal exclusive bills. So
11:01that's been the thing. We've had bills get to the Senate floor before, and he said, no, we're going to
11:06veto it so they don't pass it. This year, again, well, it was actually last year, a bill made it
11:12through the House, Luttrell's bill, made it to the Senate floor where it's been sitting, and we had
11:17a final bill deal kind of come out that the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association was very into, apparently
11:23the Oklahoma Thunder, who have been pulled into the discussions here, and then maybe for a license,
11:28maybe to share licenses with the tribes, maybe just get a cut of the revenue. They were into it
11:32because 8% of the sports betting revenue sent to the state as part of the exclusivity fee would
11:38help promote globally the Oklahoma City Thunder. But what it came down to, they pulled it up on
11:45Wednesday. The Senate voted against it because they knew Stitt wasn't going to go for it. Now,
11:52the promising thing for Oklahoma is you've got this legislature that seems to be fairly behind
11:57sports betting and legalizing it for the tribes. Stitt is term limited out this year, so you will
12:03have a new governor in Oklahoma next year. So this will be a state to watch because there are a
12:08lot
12:08of tribes in Oklahoma saying, we want this. FanDuel came out as this was coming and said, we want the
12:13chance to partner with at least one of the tribes to offer sports betting in Oklahoma. So long story
12:19short, we've had at least a six, seven year path that's been just really up and down and Stitt has
12:27been the major reason it hasn't gotten done and he's out of the way next year. So Oklahoma will
12:31definitely be a state to watch. Okay, fair enough. Now let's get to Colorado where like a lot of other
12:37states, some states are trying to push legislation through which would ban prop bets, but it seemingly
12:44is not happening, Pat, virtually anywhere. And this is with all of the stuff that's surrounded sports
12:50betting over the last year or so. It just feels like these states know how much money comes in
12:54from them. They're not willing to take them off the options. Exactly. And, you know, part of the
13:00reason a lot of states legalized sports betting was because of the potential revenue it could help
13:04bring in tax-wise. And that is, of course, as we're facing bigger and bigger state budget deficits,
13:09so all the money is welcome. Well, in Colorado, you have this bill kind of putting up more guardrails
13:15to make it better for consumers, which you're seeing a lot across the country. And this bill did
13:21advance out of a committee. It makes it so that sportsbooks can't limit bettors, but they can't use
13:27credit cards to fund their accounts. They can't make more than five deposits in 24 hours. They can't
13:34advertise, sportsbooks can't advertise during games, things like that. But this committee went ahead
13:39and stripped the prop bet ban out of it because of what you're saying, the budget deficit in Colorado
13:46is very high. Now, what makes Colorado interesting is almost all of the sports betting tax revenue
13:52in Colorado goes to water projects, which if you know anything about Colorado and the Rockies,
13:57water is very important in that state. So what they realized was the prop bets are a big driver of
14:03revenue. And if you take that out, more money would have to come from the general fund of the state,
14:08which is already very short. So they said, you know what, let's take this out. Maybe we can
14:12consider this again in the future. What's interesting is how kind of conservative they
14:17were in their estimates of revenue that they were getting from it. They said it would be about
14:23$2.4 million, actually 1.8 if you subtract what they were guessing from the component of
14:30banning credit card funding. But when Louisiana tried to do this earlier this year, they had a much
14:35bigger, and they are very similar markets for the most part, they had a much bigger projection
14:39of $28.9 million per year. So that's a huge discrepancy. And if Colorado would have went
14:45ahead and slipped this through, that could have been a huge detriment to that budget deficit that
14:49they're facing. And plus, you know, prop bets are, you know, a huge part of the sports betting
14:55ecosystem. And if you ban those, who knows where customers might go to find them elsewhere.
14:59So that is, of course, what you're doing. This bill hits the Senate floor likely today and we'll
15:05see a third vote. And maybe we'll have an update on whether or not this guardrail bill really fully
15:09passes the Senate this year or not next week. All right, Pat, let's wrap it up with this story.
15:15And this is the one that I find the most curious here. Calci has banned three political candidates for
15:21trading on their own elections, but that's not the story. The story, at least, is that a couple of
15:27the political candidates have claimed that they did this on purpose to show everyone that you
15:35shouldn't be able to do this. And so do you buy that? Do you think that that's what happened here?
15:41And by doing this, will this make a statement towards some of the prediction markets? They're
15:46obviously not in favor of prediction markets. That's why they claim they did it, right?
15:50Right. And there's all sorts of nuances to the story, far more than we have time for today.
15:55And maybe we can get into it more next week. But yeah, three, part of it was Calci wanted to
16:00kind
16:00of enforce some of these insider integrity trading kind of policies that more and more people are
16:06saying, wait, this doesn't seem right about prediction markets. And of course, the CFTC,
16:11which regulates it federally, has come out and said, we need more internal guard lines,
16:15guardrails. These platforms need to enforce this. And this is them doing that. What's kind of funny is it
16:21does not seem like any of these politicians did very much trading, but that was on themselves on
16:26races and on them that they are involved in. And the one that I found really interesting was
16:32Matt Klein, a state senator from Minnesota, who's running for a state or a US house seat
16:38that on himself in his house race. What's really interesting about that is he is a sponsor at the
16:44state level to ban prediction markets in Minnesota. And I did this story for DeFi rate, which is a kind
16:50of a
16:50similar similar site to LSR. And I'm doing a lot of fun election prediction market coverages about
16:56Senate races and things like that. So definitely check that site out if you have some time.
17:01But that was really interesting to me that Matt Klein went ahead and did that he and
17:07Ezekiel Enriquez, a representative candidate from Texas, both settled for very small fines and a five
17:14year suspension from Kelsey. Meanwhile, Mark Marone, the one kind of you're really talking about who
17:20came out and said, I did this on purpose. I wanted to get caught and whatever. He has not
17:24settled a bigger fine, $6,000 some dollars in the five year fine. And maybe we'll see more and more
17:30whether or not that was truly on purpose in the future if he's just kind of saying, well, maybe
17:35I made a mistake, but I'm not going to admit it. Pat, it is fantastic to have you back in
17:40the fold
17:40here. And we look forward to catching up with you again next week here on Newswire. And
17:45welcome back to the show. It's great to see you again. Have a good weekend.
17:48Thanks as always, Craig.
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