00:00And Sam, for my money, it is the state that we're going to talk about next because simply put for
00:05the state of Georgia that has a very rabid college fan base and young people who want to have the
00:13appetite to bet on sports, not to mention, Sam, how long can they get away with not having sports betting
00:19when their neighbors in Mississippi and Florida and the Carolinas and Tennessee all have sports betting?
00:25To me, Sam, I think Georgia will be the next state to legalize this.
00:30I don't know when it'll be, but I think that the next big one is the state of Georgia.
00:36Yeah, and to make your prediction, to give it even more weight, Craig, you now have sports betting companies forming
00:42a super PAC where they've spent almost $10 million on Georgia elections this cycle already, exactly for the reason you're
00:50saying, to get sports betting legalized.
00:52It's been one of those states for a long time where because of political footballing, because of religious interests, because
00:59of, quite frankly, how janky some of these new laws can be and the political process in general, Georgia has
01:07been unable to pass sports betting.
01:09And then to even throw another, you know, kind of bone in that argument of why it might be now
01:14that it legalizes is because you have a lot of young people in the state that are betting on sports,
01:18not just offshore, but on prediction markets, which have definitely taken seas of a state like Georgia as a huge
01:25opportunity with a huge sports appetite.
01:27Where now a lot of these, you know, sports betting adjacent activities are going on to young people, to people
01:33without the, you know, the same safeguards or, you know, oversight of the industry that sports betting has.
01:39And I think sports books are really themselves concentrating a lot of the effort in Georgia.
01:43They've already raised $48 million this cycle.
01:47It's this new super PAC created, or just, I guess, PAC, you would call it, not a super PAC, called
01:53Win for America, which is DraftKings, FanDuel, Bet365, and Fanatics.
01:57And Georgia is one of the big states they're concentrating on with multiple, you know, races in the House and
02:04the Senate.
02:04They're actually the top independent contributor for the election cycle, and they're also concentrating on other states as well.
02:10In Nebraska, there's going to be a ballot initiative, which I believe they've already funded about $6 million towards.
02:16So we're talking about a lot of money being concentrated this election cycle to get sports betting passed in these
02:22states.
02:22I'm told Texas is going to be a big focus, as well as Alabama.
02:25So other states similar to Georgia, where there's a big appetite for sports betting, a lot of young people, a
02:31lot of colleges, a lot of college sports.
02:32And then these sports books are also going to be concentrating on states like New York, Ohio, Illinois, which have
02:39already passed sports betting, but have some really hefty taxes, a lot of things the industry would like to either
02:45get rid of or make sure that states do not do more of.
02:48I'm sure they would hate if the tax rate in New York went from 51% to 52, 53, 60,
02:55even higher.
02:56You never know how high lawmakers are willing to go on supposed sin taxes.
03:00So, yeah, sports books really concentrating a lot of money this election cycle.
03:04Georgia will be their big target, as well as those other states I mentioned.
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