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00:00And by the way, in case you missed it yesterday, it's probably a good place to start.
00:04The schedule came out yesterday. It is the annual watch as many videos on social media as you can
00:10day with teams putting out the schedules for the season. And of course, all of the schedules coming
00:16out yesterday, Thursday night football, Sunday night football. Here's Thursday. We'll start
00:20there. As you can see, week two, Detroit Buffalo. That's a really good matchup. Of course, the
00:25highlights of Amazon Prime's games are Black Friday, Denver, Pittsburgh, week 12, Christmas
00:30Eve, Houston, Philly. And then on New Year's Eve, that's right, New Year's Eve, Baltimore
00:34will play Cincinnati. As far as Sunday night football is concerned, I think you kind of
00:39have to wonder if NBC thinks that Patrick Mahomes is going to be back in time to play Sunday
00:44night because second game of the season, KC plays. In fact, the Chiefs have several games
00:49on Sunday night, which also include the seventh game of the season, KC against Seattle.
00:55Mexico City highlights Minnesota, San Francisco week 11, and then naturally they'll flex out
01:00week 18 as they always do. And as I said, if Sunday night football, they're thinking Mahomes
01:05comes back, well, I guess he'll be back the first week of the season too, because Denver
01:08highlights their first game against the Chiefs. As you can see, the Giants get the second game
01:12of the year against the Rams. Patriots are back, of course, on Monday night football toward
01:17the end of the year. Certainly their coach involved in no stranger to any controversy in the
01:21offseason. And actually, the most important takeaway from Monday night football, as you
01:25can see, there are just one game each and every Monday night, not two. With the NBA taking
01:31a break yesterday, we move forward toward Major League Baseball last night. The Cubs
01:35finally got themselves a win against the Braves. Two to nothing yesterday. Ben Brown ended up
01:41pitching four innings and seven strikeouts. They were road dogs and avoid the sweep. Craig
01:47counsel after the game said that it was pitching that keyed in the win.
01:52Yeah, I mean, I think we just pitched really well tonight. And, you know, you can pick up
01:59everybody pitched really well tonight. So Ben started it off and another really encouraging
02:03outing and important outing from what Ben's done as both of his two starts. Really, you know,
02:12something that feel like we could build on and has given him a lot of confidence for sure.
02:16And then, you know, when Hobie gets two innings there, the game's kind of in order. And we got
02:22a shot to kind of do it the way we want to do it. And the guys did a great
02:25job.
02:26Meanwhile, the Dodgers were minus 160 yesterday. That's a small price for what you'll pay on LA
02:31all season. They ended up winning against the Giants yesterday. So they split the series. They
02:35played a four-game set. Dodgers won two. Giants won two. Emmett Sheehan, the better pitcher of the two
02:40between him and Landon Roop. Sheehan, six innings pitched toward runs, six strikeouts. Will Smith led
02:45off and hit his first ever lead off home run. Jung Ho Lee hit it inside the parko run for
02:50the
02:50Giants, but it was not enough. Offensively, seems like LA finding a little more footing. Here's Dave
02:55Roberts on putting up a five spot yesterday. Getting there. Getting there. I think that
03:04there's still more in there offensively. But I think we're getting there. But obviously the most
03:11important thing is to do is to win baseball games and to not be completely synced up and still find
03:18ways to win is good. So hopefully we can get a game from the Angels. They sort of had our
03:24number
03:24the last few years. Hey, Maeve, the New York Mets may finally be on the right track. They called up
03:29their young prospect, AJ Ewing. He hit his first career home run yesterday. Nolan McLean won for
03:35them. Juan Soto even got a couple of hits. So the Mets end up sweeping the Tigers after winning nine
03:41to four yesterday. Is this the start of something positive for the Mets this season? Here's manager
03:47Carlos Mendoza on that. These games you were down early. I think it was two nothing in the first two
03:52games, then three nothing today. What does that kind of tell you about your team and whether at least
03:56mindset wise and stuff? It's just it's good to see it because, you know, you get down and we've been
04:04through a lot. And it feels like when you were going through that stretch, every time we got down a
04:09couple
04:09of runs, kind of like the game was over. That was kind of like the feeling. Now, you know, we're
04:14down three
04:15in the first inning and you still feel good. And you could just sense, have that sense in the dugout,
04:20you
04:21know. And sure enough, we get a homer. But in general, the pitching is going to keep us in games.
04:26They've been doing that the whole year. And it's just good to see the guys fight back.
04:31They're resilient and they're not going to give up. They're not going to put their head
04:35down and they're going to keep going. And that's who we are.
04:39The red hot bat of Kyle Schwarber delivered again yesterday. Philly's Red Sox. He hit his 18th
04:45home run in the game and the Phillies win as road dogs. Jesus Lozardo, six innings pitch,
04:51no earned runs. Ranger Suarez faced his old team, did well, but did not get the win.
04:57Here is Schwarber after the game on facing his old buddy and homering off Suarez.
05:02What was it like facing Ranger and what made him so effective?
05:06Yeah, I mean, he's a unique guy where he's got so many different weapons in the arsenal.
05:13He has a really good idea of what he wants to do to you. Every single hitter, obviously we know
05:20that the
05:21sinker change-up is a big pitch for him, but the cutters underrated, the four-seam curveball,
05:26he plays a lot of different things off each and every single different pitch. And he's competitive
05:31with a lot of pitches. And I think that's why he's always going to be a guy that it doesn't
05:37matter how hard you throw. He's always going to find a way to get big contact and outs.
05:43Speaking of pitching, the Brewers seem to find it every year. They traded for Kyle Harrison in
05:47the offseason and he struck out seven over five shutout innings. The Brewers beat the Padres
05:52seven to one. Andrew Vaughn's also been a revelation from Milwaukee over the last year.
05:58Here is Pat Murphy on the Brewers starting pitching, which certainly has them in a good place
06:03in the central. They've been great. It's the lifeblood of this whole organization for years.
06:14You got to pitch. They've found guys for us that are young and we put them through the car wash
06:26and
06:26it's been great. It really has. Car wash works in Milwaukee. All right, the White Sox are red hot.
06:33Who would have thought? Good season for them, by the way. They beat the Royals again and they've
06:37won five games in a row. They were home dogs. Randall Gritchick hit a home run yesterday,
06:43also drove in four RBIs. How about the White Sox? Meanwhile, the Reds beat the Nationals 15 to one
06:50yesterday. Home runs from J.J. Bledet, Dane Myers, and Matt McClain. Bledet actually hit two home runs
07:00yesterday. Wow, he's on fire. Here's Bledet after the game on his opportunity with the Reds.
07:04It's just a breath of fresh air playing for this team and playing for this organization.
07:08You know, coming in spring training, I felt good. I felt like there was some opportunity here and
07:15I got an option out of spring, but I still felt like I was in a good spot mentally, physically,
07:20and I just kept on rolling with what I was doing in spring and took advantage of playing every day
07:25down there in AAA and worked on my approach and continued to get better. There's always
07:29room for improvement and, you know, was able to get the call and be up here and it's just
07:36trying to just keep on carrying it through. The Mariners take their series with the Astros
07:418-3 yesterday. Luke Raley, who's been really good for Seattle this season, 2-5 with a home run.
07:48Jordan Alvarez, homeward in the loss for Houston, who loses again. The Cardinals score 2 to beat the
07:53A's 5-4, so they win as road underdogs. It was Jordan Walker who went 2-5 with a home
08:00run. That
08:00was the key to their win. And the Pirates beat the Rockies 7-2. Ryan O'Hearn, who's been a
08:06nice
08:06signing for Pittsburgh, went 3-4 with a home run. All right, so the Montreal Canadiens are on the
08:11doorstep of the East Finals. They end up beating the Buffalo Sabres 6-3 and now they'll play game
08:19six in Montreal on Saturday with a chance to wrap it up. Five goals scored in the first period.
08:26Montreal fans haven't seen this kind of success from their squad in a long time. Golden Knights
08:31beat the Ducks to advance to the Western Conference Finals and then the Stanley Cup, as I said, resumes
08:36on Saturday. We'll see if Montreal can wrap it up. And welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid.
08:42Lots happening this weekend, including the PGA Championship. Scotty Scheffler, a huge favorite
08:48after a couple of nice days to win this thing this weekend. We will see what ends up happening,
08:52but make sure you stay locked in all weekend to updates on the PGA Championship. And then, of course,
08:58on Sunday for the grand finale. I'll be back with you on Sunday talking some baseball on Pro Baseball
09:03today as well. All right, before we hop back into the National Basketball Association ahead of their
09:09big weekend, let's get to some Stanley Cup final results. We've got the playoffs going on right now
09:15and the Canadians beat the Sabres yesterday by a final of 6-3. They were slight road dogs and now
09:21lead the series three games to two. We know that both cities are desperate for championships, Montreal
09:27and Buffalo, but it is right now the Canadians that lead three to two. Game six will be in Montreal
09:35on
09:35Saturday night. In case you missed last night's game, five goals were scored in the first period.
09:41Now, Montreal is heading back home. The Canadians with a chance to win. And here is Nick Suzuki
09:46on the opportunity to close it out. This will be your first Saturday night in the playoffs at home.
09:52We've talked about the atmosphere there before, but you've got a chance to put these guys away.
09:59How important is that that you take advantage of that? And how nuts do you think the city is going
10:04to be?
10:06Yeah, I mean, the city is already pretty crazy. And, you know, we saw against Tampa, you know,
10:14it takes a lot to close out a team. And, you know, we have another opportunity to do that. And,
10:19you know, I'm sure the, the crowd's going to be, uh, into it hours before the game starts and,
10:26you know, it's going to be rocking. So, um, you know, we're ready for that, uh, excited for the
10:32opportunity to close it out. All right. Welcome back to newswire here on sports. Great. Always fun to
10:37cash out as you say on a Friday with our friend, Sam McQuillan from legal sports report. You could
10:42read all of his columns by the way, over at legal sports report.com. And we're getting some
10:46interesting numbers here from sports books in terms of revenue in 2025, Sam, you know,
10:52the, the same story that we have been telling for a long period of time, not just prediction markets,
10:57but you know, the other part of this is that States like California and Texas and Minnesota
11:01and Georgia just aren't legalizing sports betting. It's a very quiet year and 25 and 26 seems to be
11:07no different, but the sports books themselves seem to be doing just fine. So I'd love that explanation
11:13if you don't mind. Yeah. Good setup, Craig, with naming the number of States that have not
11:20legalized sports betting, it's getting easy to remember which ones those are because we have
11:25fewer and fewer of them. And it's really just the same ones, uh, which we'll get into in a little
11:29bit,
11:29but, uh, the U S sports books in 2025 had a record nearly $17 billion in revenue. Like you mentioned,
11:37the number keeps going up. In fact, it went up about 23% from the year earlier. So revenue,
11:43isn't exactly the profit that sports books are keeping. You know, they still have a lot of costs.
11:48They have to pay people have to pay taxes, but it's essentially the money that they keep after
11:52they pay out all the bets. So that was up about, you know, like a quarter of what it was
11:57from the
11:57year before, but really interesting. I think for the first time ever, the American gaming association,
12:02which reports all this stuff, they did not include handle, uh, in their report for the first time
12:08ever. They do this annual report and that comes as, you know, separate, uh, data that we track shows
12:14that handle has really been slowing. You know, handle is the total amount of money that people
12:19are betting. You know, like you mentioned, no new States going online. It's going to be hard to keep
12:24growing that number. People aren't going to always be betting more and more. Uh, we actually have some
12:29data that indicates handle grew about 11% during the year. So separate from what the AGA reported,
12:34but if you match that up with the revenue, it shows that the revenue is outpacing, uh, the handle
12:40growth, like about by double. So essentially people are not betting more and more, it's more money
12:46they're losing. And that comes as obviously, uh, same game parlays, which you can never, you can never
12:52kind of undersell how much growth that continues to have and how much that continues to help sports
12:58books make more money out of their customers. Live betting has taken off more, which again,
13:03is higher margin bets for the sports book as well. And then really importantly, I think the story
13:08here is also, uh, NFL season was really good for the sports books, uh, which comes after last year,
13:14they had one of their worst NFL seasons ever on record. So that kind of gives us a little bit
13:19of a hint as to why perhaps they're making so much more revenue. And that growth is really outpacing
13:24the actual handle growth, but with handle in general, that's been a concern among the industry.
13:30As of late, um, there's actually some data that indicates that betting is down for the first time
13:36ever, or was down, uh, in the first quarter of the year, about 2% from the year before, which
13:42is a
13:42big change because for years we've talked about double digit growth every quarter. That's going to
13:47be something the industry really has to kind of get ahold of, or take the reins of going forward
13:52throughout the rest of the year. You definitely don't want to have, you know, betting going in the
13:56opposite direction once the world cup comes around this summer. And then once football season comes
14:01around, uh, in the fall, that'll always sneak up on us. Like it does the sports books. They'll want
14:05to make sure that it doesn't sneak up on them and that they'll obviously be growing their handle.
14:10So I'm really interested to see how that story kind of plays out as well. Meanwhile, taxes are up,
14:14uh, even more than revenue as comes in a lot of states have increased taxes as well.
14:18We've talked about Illinois with their huge tax increase, uh, now a number of other states as well.
14:23New York, I believe is considering something, Maryland, New Jersey, all passed similar tax
14:27increases last year. So we'll see if those taxes keep going up as states keep passing more taxes or
14:33like the industry likes to say that perhaps that might, you know, help the black market and drive
14:37activity offshore. But yeah, it's an interesting report to kind of dig your teeth into. I would
14:42definitely encourage everyone to take a look at illegalsportsreport.com and check it out.
14:46All right. Check out, as Sam said, they do a great job covering sports betting and a lot of
14:50prediction markets discussion as well. And as Sam said, it's a good segue to kind of discussing
14:56which state potentially could legalize sports betting. And Sam, for my money, it is the state
15:01that we're going to talk about next because simply put for the state of Georgia that has a very rabid
15:07college fan base and young people who want to have the appetite to bet on sports, not to mention Sam,
15:14how long can they get away with not having sports betting when their neighbors in Mississippi and
15:20Florida and the Carolinas and Tennessee all have sports betting? To me, Sam, I think Georgia will
15:27be the next state to legalize this. I don't know when it'll be, but I think that the next big
15:32one is
15:32the state of Georgia. Yeah. And to make your prediction, to give it even more weight, Craig,
15:38you now have sports betting companies forming a super PAC where they've spent almost $10 million
15:44on Georgia elections this cycle already, exactly for the reason you're saying, to get sports betting
15:50legalized. It's been one of those states for a long time where because of political footballing,
15:56because of religious interests, because of, you know, quite frankly, how janky some of these new
16:02laws can be and the political process in general, Georgia has been unable to pass sports betting.
16:08And then to even throw another, you know, kind of bone in that argument of why it might be now
16:13that
16:13it legalizes is because you have a lot of young people in the state that are betting on sports,
16:18not just offshore, but on prediction markets, which have definitely taken seas of a state like Georgia
16:24as a huge opportunity with a huge sports appetite, where now a lot of these, you know, sports betting
16:29adjacent activities are going on to young people, to people without the, you know, the same safeguards
16:35or, you know, oversight of the industry that sports betting has. And I think sports books are
16:39really themselves concentrating a lot of the effort in Georgia. They've already raised $48 million
16:45this cycle. It's this new super PAC created, or just, I guess, PAC, you would call it, not a super
16:51PAC
16:51called Win for America, which is DraftKings, FanDuel, Bet365, and Fanatics. And Georgia is one of the big
16:58states they're concentrating on with multiple, you know, races in the House and the Senate, actually
17:04the top independent contributor for the election cycle. And they're also concentrating on other states
17:09as well. In Nebraska, there's going to be a ballot initiative, which I believe they've already funded
17:13about $6 million towards. So we're talking about a lot of money being concentrated this election cycle
17:19to get sports betting passed in these states. I'm told Texas is going to be a big focus, as well
17:24as
17:24Alabama. So other states similar to Georgia, where there's a big appetite for sports betting,
17:29a lot of young people, a lot of colleges, a lot of college sports. And then these sports books are
17:33also going to be concentrating on states like New York, Ohio, Illinois, which have already passed
17:39sports betting, but have some really hefty taxes, a lot of things the industry would like to either get
17:44rid of, or make sure that states do not do more of. I'm sure they would hate if the tax
17:50rate in New York
17:50went from 51% to 52, 53, 60, even higher. You never know how high lawmakers are willing to go
17:57on supposed sin taxes. So yeah, sports books really concentrating a lot of money this election
18:02cycle. Georgia will be their big target, as well as those other states I mentioned.
18:07All right, Sam, let's close it out with Colorado. They're trying to set a trend here,
18:11which I think a lot of states will follow, which is limiting the amount of deposits that you can make
18:17over a 24-hour period to a sports book. Nothing to say necessarily on limits,
18:22but deposits really seemingly, at least to the state and legislature, indicate the idea that
18:28somebody is losing money betting on sports and maybe going above their means. Do you think that
18:32this is something that passes? Yeah, it's now sitting on the governor's desk, so it's just a pen stroke
18:39away of being put into law, and I believe would go into effect this summer if that happens.
18:43All signs point to the governor being fine with this. It's not a measure that seems super
18:49controversial for politicians in the state. And it's part of a larger kind of theme, like you
18:54alluded to, Craig, that we've seen of states, once they pass sports betting, they want to add new rules
18:59and one of those new states that is putting a new rule in where you can't make more than a
19:04couple of
19:04deposits within 24 hours. Again, designed to prevent people from spending more money than they would
19:10like, more money than they should, and just kind of tweak and put the industry in check a little bit
19:15more. There's also provision in the bill that would make sure that all the revenue that goes towards
19:20their water plan in Colorado is the same every year, cannot be less than the year before, which is, again,
19:25designed to raise more tax revenue and get more out of the industry. Just, you know, number one of those
19:30tweaks we're seeing from states as sports betting matures, and they want to kind of, you know, keep
19:34tweaking it as best they can. But definitely a trend we'll probably see some other states trying to follow.
19:38And check out Sam and all of his work at LegalSportsReport.com. Sam, thanks again.
19:41We'll see you next week. Yeah, thanks for having me, Craig.
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