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00:00So let's get started here on this Friday edition of the show and begin with a bit of a surprise.
00:04A company that you may be familiar with in the daily fantasy landscape is now relaunching in the state of New York after pulling out after being fined.
00:13Underdog is back once again.
00:15They did withdraw their DFS contest from New York back in March and essentially left the state.
00:21But with all these prediction markets coming back, it just seems natural that everybody wants a piece of the pie.
00:27Now, Underdog, of course, is not a sports wagering company, but they do provide different options on player props, combination props as well.
00:36But they're back now in New York, and certainly I would imagine all of the daily fantasy operators and prediction market companies are going to try and stay alive as long as they can.
00:44Meanwhile, at the PGA Championship, what a huge surprise.
00:48The first player ever from Venezuela is leading after round one and actually still leading here going into round two.
00:55Jonathan Vegas, who is six under par, he's 25 to one currently to win, is still in the lead as we speak here on day two of the PGA Championship.
01:06Also, Max Homa is six under par, along with one other player, Ryan Gerrard.
01:14So those are the three that are currently six under par.
01:16Aaron Ray is five under.
01:18Luke Donald, four under.
01:20And if you're wondering, hey, where are all the big names?
01:23Where's Scotty Scheffler?
01:24Where's Xander Schauffele?
01:25Where's Bryson DeChambeau?
01:27Rory McIlroy?
01:28Not at the top right now, as far as the leaderboard is concerned.
01:32To say that this has been a huge surprise at Quail Hollow would be an understatement after day one.
01:38And, of course, they are currently playing right now there for round two.
01:41All right.
01:41Another big upset in the NBA last night.
01:44The odds makers made Oklahoma City a favorite.
01:46Why?
01:46I'm not really sure.
01:47Because the Denver Nuggets just keep winning their home games.
01:49They did it again yesterday in game six, 119 to 107 officially.
01:53We're headed to a game seven coming up on Sunday.
01:55Nikola Jokic, 29 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists.
01:58Jaylen Williams was just three for 16 shooting.
02:02One of the big reasons why Oklahoma City may not have won.
02:05Jamal Murray, after the game, talked about a back-against-the-wall moment for the Nuggets,
02:11but said he prefers to be in a different situation.
02:15How much do you enjoy these back-against-the-wall type of games?
02:20You've played well.
02:21I'd rather be up.
02:24I don't know.
02:25I mean, we've had our fair share.
02:26I think it just adds to the character that we build and experience.
02:30You know, chemistry, the trust, another big word.
02:34I think with that being said, I think we can do a lot better job of being the first to throw the punches and just be up.
02:42But just how happy were you for Julian Strother to have that moment?
02:47Super happy.
02:48Super happy, man, because we all know what he's capable of.
02:51You know, he just kind of needs to see the floor and get his rhythm, get some time in, you know, not fouls, stuff like that.
02:56But, I mean, you can see how he can impact the game real quick in a high-pressure moment.
03:00So, it was just really good to see him catch that rhythm, show that emotion, and get everybody going.
03:06I really felt like he, even when they kind of came back or had a run, like, his energy really set the tone for us.
03:16Everybody kind of realized what was going on, and we were able to just build off that kind of energy.
03:22The crowd got into it and everything like that.
03:23So, I think it was just a snowball effect, and we all play better after that, to be honest.
03:28And Game 7 will be, of course, in Oklahoma City.
03:31They're a big favorite going into Game 7, as they have been in all of their home games.
03:35Shea Gilgis-Alexander last night knows they're headed to Game 7.
03:39Not all that disappointed with Game 6.
03:42It felt pretty good.
03:43It felt like we had the right intentions.
03:44Now, I could have a better answer for you after watching the film.
03:51Just it's hard being out there and, like, trying to judge force while you're in the middle of pick and roll.
03:57But, yeah, I feel like we had the right intention.
03:59Like I said, it was more so, like, defensively.
04:02We had lapses to start the game for sure.
04:06Like, I know I wanted to baseline out of bounds.
04:09I was guarding the corner, and Brown just cut behind me for a dunk.
04:12Like, things like that can't happen.
04:15And, yeah, that tone was kind of set early.
04:18So, just making sure that we control what we can control to start the game.
04:22Next game will be big for us.
04:24Yeah, obviously, that's a high-level game on the road right there.
04:28You know, they came ready to play, and they came out swinging, throwing punches.
04:33And, you know, I feel like we did a good job of handling that first punch and then responding.
04:37And, you know, it was really a game of runs, back and forth.
04:41But we have to figure out how to sustain that better throughout the game.
04:49We can't let them go on big runs, energy, momentum plays, and things like that.
04:54You know, I think they're a really good team, and they make really good plays.
04:58But, you know, I feel like there were some that we left out there, places I could definitely be better, where we can clean up and make things tougher on them.
05:07You know, you can't give a good team easy looks.
05:08In the Stanley Cup playoffs, Carolina Panthers heavily favored, of course, against the Washington Capitals.
05:15That series did come to an end last night.
05:18Hurricanes beat the Caps 3-1.
05:19They win the series in five games.
05:22The Capitals, of course, won the Stanley Cup back in 2018.
05:26That was with Alex Ovechkin.
05:28After 20 years, it would appear.
05:30Ovechkin may play another season.
05:32It still remains to be seen.
05:33But after the game, the head coach of the Caps, on the going-out interview, basically said they went out on a high note.
05:41I'll have plenty of time to dissect what went on through the five games.
05:47I think the main takeaways are this.
05:49Carolina is one heck of an opponent.
05:52And so all the things that we're going to talk about of shortcomings that we had.
05:59So whether that be special teams, five-on-five, scoring, depth scoring, we can break it all down.
06:07The first part you have to look at is not the lack of that from the Washington Capitals.
06:12It's how the Carolina Hurricanes did that to the Washington Capitals.
06:17That's where my head goes.
06:19So guys that didn't produce or didn't do this or X, Y, Z, penalty kill, go down the list.
06:25They did a real good job.
06:27And the games were tight.
06:29And, you know, you get a balance one way, flip one of those games.
06:33Maybe it's a little bit different.
06:34But they, over the length of the five games of the series, they showed the quality of the team that they are.
06:43Dallas thought they were ending their seven-game series with Winnipeg last night.
06:48Didn't go as planned.
06:49Jets win 4-0.
06:50They make the series three games to two.
06:53Winnipeg's been really good at home, and they showed it again last night.
06:55Most think Dallas eventually will win the series, then take on Edmonton, but still remains to be seen as that series goes on.
07:02Hottest team in Major League Baseball going into the weekend, which is rivalry weekend, by the way, in Major League Baseball, has to be the Minnesota Twins.
07:10They beat the Orioles yesterday.
07:12They've now won 11 games in a row.
07:15That's the high for anybody this season.
07:17By the way, in the game, Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton collided on a pop fly.
07:22Hopefully they're okay and can play this weekend.
07:24Bruce Bocci now managing the Texas Rangers.
07:27Of course, won a World Series with them a couple years ago.
07:30He passed Sparky Anderson for sixth on Major League Baseball's all-time win list for managers.
07:34He got his 2,195th career win.
07:38By the way, Jacob DeGrompich in this game was awesome.
07:41He threw eight innings pitched, no earned runs, and seven strikeouts in the game as the Rangers beat the Astros.
07:48It was a great matchup.
07:49Hunter Brown pitched well also.
07:51Meanwhile, late last night, you may have missed this one, as I did, sleeping.
07:55Shohei Otani, late last night, hit only two home runs last night, Frank, and only six runs.
08:02And a 19-2 win.
08:06The Dodgers beat the A's.
08:08Guess who leads Major League Baseball in home runs?
08:10High for the lead.
08:12That would be Shohei Otani.
08:14Welcome back to News Bar here on Sports Grid.
08:15Some good sports betting news.
08:17That's what we needed, and we got Sam McQuillan to deliver some of that today here.
08:21He's back from a conference in South Florida to break everything down for us that he learned at the conference and a whole lot more.
08:27But Sam, before we get to that, we found out some good news from Missouri.
08:31I mean, I don't know.
08:32I mean, when you think about it, every single thing that has been launched in the sports betting universe has been launched around something.
08:41It's been the NFL, college football, March Madness.
08:45So I did find it a little odd that the state of Missouri announced that sports betting will launch on December the 1st.
08:52I'm not really sure how they landed on that date.
08:55According to the quote that I read, it was just basically that's the soonest that they could get it going.
09:00So I'll need a little bit more on that.
09:03Yeah, exactly, Craig.
09:04Whenever you look at the sports calendar, you can always pick different events.
09:07I mean, if you want to make the case for December 1st, it's right around the NFL playoffs.
09:12So there'll be a lot of action around then.
09:13But, yeah, most states want to get sports betting usually launched either before March Madness, right before the Super Bowl, or the start of football season.
09:21For Missouri, when they legalized sports betting at the ballot a few years ago, there was this clause that was good that they put in there where they had to have it no later than December 1st.
09:32Originally, they wanted to have it earlier.
09:35It actually was supposed to potentially go live in May, which would have been good because it's a lot of sports going on now, and then it's definitely ahead of football season.
09:44As always with this stuff, it's the bureaucratic process which delays it.
09:48The Gaming Commission has yet to actually go through all the paperwork and all the procedures they need to do where they open up the license process.
09:57They do background checks on companies.
09:59They then review their applications.
10:01They decide, you know, whether everything's going to work or not, all that stuff.
10:04There was actually one senator who had been a big thorn in the side of people trying to get sports betting legalized in Missouri named Denny Hoskins, which I think we've talked about on this show several times.
10:15Oh, yeah.
10:15Lo and behold, he was actually the one that got the date delayed where he said he didn't think that, you know, this was enough time for the commission to go through all these procedures to get sports betting live and up and running.
10:28So that's why we had the December 1st launch.
10:32Now the application process has just opened for these companies.
10:35So you'll have two that can get licenses through the state of Missouri itself, and you'll have about 13 applications ready for brands that want to partner with any of the state's riverboat casinos.
10:48And then the state sports teams as well will be able to have licenses.
10:52So you could have more than 20 sports books.
10:55So it's good, good for the market, good for the betters themselves.
10:58You know, I just came from Florida where you are, where there's only one sports book in town, and everyone knows how frustrating that is.
11:04So even though there is a delay, it's going to be a good market.
11:07It'll only be about a 10% tax rate, at least right now.
11:10You never know.
11:10Those things could always get changed, as we're seeing.
11:12So you're going to have to wait a little bit if you're in Missouri.
11:14But the good news is you do have a launch date, and it is before some, you know, big NFL games, some big playoffs.
11:20So I imagine the appetite will only be ramping up more and more, especially throughout the football season.
11:25But, yeah, you've got the December 1st start date.
11:27If everything goes smoothly, so now we're just going to be watching and monitoring to see which companies are trying to get in and how the process goes for that.
11:34All right. Well, I look forward to that launch in Missouri later this year.
11:39All right. Meanwhile, FanDuel reveals a new feature that is based around responsible gaming and deposits, meaning that they're allowing real-time deposits and alerts.
11:51And how does this affect the industry, Sam?
11:54Yeah, really cool from FanDuel debuting this new responsible gaming tool.
11:58You know, when you talk about responsible gaming, you don't want it to be something that you only talk about when you have a problem or when you notice somebody have a problem.
12:06But these companies have been very vocal about embedding it into the experience the way that everyone bets.
12:11So FanDuel just debuted this tool, real-time check-in.
12:14If you make a deposit that is inconsistent with your pattern of previous deposits, with your behavioral history, then they're going to alert you and say,
12:22Hey, you know, this deposit was five times what you normally bet.
12:26Maybe you'd normally deposit $20 with us.
12:28Now you deposited $200.
12:30Did you mean to do that?
12:31Are you sure?
12:32So there's this sort of real-time process that embeds it into the betting experience, not where you have to go look at these tools later on to see how you're doing.
12:40Because, you know, everyone knows it's good to have these tools, but how you actually use them is a big part of it.
12:46I don't think a ton of people are going on the back end and, Hey, look, this is how I'm doing.
12:50When you have it right up there in your face, that's a thing they're very bullish on helping the overall experience.
12:56These companies have talked about for a long time being able to leverage the technology that's grown and because of the sports betting boom, because of the demand, the competition.
13:06Some of these companies collect over 186 individual user data points where they are monitoring how you bet, how to market bets to you, how to best leverage you.
13:15So this is a great example of seeing maybe how that technology is now being used to actually help people and make our overall betting experience safer, more responsible.
13:24It's the first kind of tool of its kind in the U S they did benefit from FanDuel being owned by Flutter, which owns sports bet in Australia.
13:33They had that same tool there.
13:34So this is one of the first examples we're seeing of responsible gaming tools across the world now coming over in the U S where it's a much younger market.
13:42And I'd love to see more of this in the future.
13:44Really excited to see how adoption goes with this tool and, you know, how it impacts people's betting and the way we think about responsible gaming in general.
13:52Yeah. And I would say along those lines, it kind of is a good segue to our next story, which is this lawsuit that's going on in Maryland, where the state is suing sports betting operators, FanDuel and DraftKings, basically intimating that some, you know, semi promises were being made regarding bonuses.
14:10And maybe, you know, I'm not even sure really how far they're trying to go with this, but they're moving this, I guess, in terms of venue to me, Sam, to break it down a little bit further.
14:20This is a little bit of a landmark case here in the United States, because if the state of Maryland wins, and it says that FanDuel and DraftKings are not operating correctly and enticing people to bet on sports, then these companies are going to have to change the way that they promote their ads.
14:36Definitely a really fascinating case.
14:38We've seen rules around the way you can promote ads and bonus bets, which are the target of this lawsuit in Baltimore.
14:44We've seen those change drastically.
14:45You know, sports books can no longer say risk-free or free bet.
14:48The language they've had to do that has changed a lot.
14:51And Baltimore here is suing DraftKings and FanDuel, alleging that, you know, their practices are not only dishonest, alleging that the bonus bets and promos they give exploit the most vulnerable at-risk residents and violate the city's consumer protection laws.
15:08So it moved now from local court in Baltimore to federal court, which comes because FanDuel and DraftKings filed this thing called a notice for removal, which basically means when you're suing two companies that don't exist in the state of Maryland, they're not headquartered there, and it's more than $75,000 at stake.
15:27It's quite a lot more.
15:28You can then move it to federal court.
15:30So it'll be in the U.S. District Court for Maryland, where you'll now have a federal judge residing over this.
15:34You'll have a federal jury.
15:36So it could be beneficial for DraftKings trying to, you know, avoid like a local hometown ruling with the jury there.
15:44But they haven't actually responded to the lawsuit yet.
15:47Their response is due in July, where we'll make the case of why it should be dismissed.
15:51And they've gone on record and talked about, you know, the companies that actually facilitate these bets, our partners, aren't even named in the suit.
15:58So they're going to really be trying to get this thrown out and dismissed.
16:01If that doesn't happen, if we get past that July date, if we get past the August date where the company's response is due, then we'll really, really be watching this.
16:10And, yeah, like you said, if they win this case, it could have monumental impact on the rest of the country.
16:16And just kind of the way we get bonus bets, the way we talk about promotions, and certainly for companies like DraftKings and FanDuel, which, whether right or wrong, they're the top dogs in the space.
16:24They're the only targets of this lawsuit, not the other competitors.
16:27So, again, a really interesting lawsuit from Baltimore.
16:30We'll be watching to see how this develops and waiting for the response from DraftKings and FanDuel.
16:34But now in federal court, no longer in district court, which is sort of a small win for the companies being sued so far.
16:40But we'll have to see what happens.
16:42All right, Sam, enjoy the NBA game tonight.
16:45I know you'll be locked in on that.
16:47And we'll see you again next week.
16:48Thanks for coming on.
16:49Thanks a lot, Greg.
16:50You too.