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00:00Without further ado, let's get right to it and get to the basketball game last night that simply could determine the series.
00:05The Indiana Pacers beat the New York Knicks by a final of 130-121, going up 3-1 in the series.
00:13The Pacers took care of business last night with the game of his life.
00:17Yes, for Tyrese Halliburton, 32 points, 15 assists, and 12 rebounds,
00:22becoming the first player in playoff history to put up at least 30, 15, and 10 without a turnover
00:28since they started tracking this stuff 40 years ago.
00:30Here's Rick Carlisle after the game on the performance of Halliburton and his team with the win.
00:36Very, very tough game, very competitive game.
00:39I mean, some of the shot-making in this series has been really beyond belief.
00:47Both teams, I mean, some of the shots they had and nobody hit,
00:50and one of the setback in the left wing tonight was just an unbelievable shot, you know?
00:54And so at these high levels, these guys do amazing things.
01:02And so when you can get a stop and a rebound, it almost feels like an anomaly sometimes.
01:11But proud of Ben Matherin.
01:16The guy has stayed ready.
01:18He came in yesterday, worked.
01:19Got work, got shooting in, got some simulated game shots.
01:26I've just been encouraging him to stay ready.
01:29Yeah, I felt like in the fourth quarter last game, we were a little bit more reactive than proactive.
01:34You know, they got some guys who can just make some hellacious shots, you know?
01:38And Cat and JB did that last game, and I felt like those were kind of like, you know, taking the air out of us.
01:44We were, you know, kind of sighing after everyone and walking the ball up.
01:47So today, you know, we were just trying to keep focusing on who cares, you know, let's get it in and let's run, go right back at them.
01:54They're going to make shots.
01:55Let's just keep going.
01:56So I thought we did a great job of just playing our way, you know, the whole game, keeping pace in the game and just playing pace for basketball.
02:02So I thought we responded really well, which we've proven that we do after tough losses really all year and especially in these playoffs.
02:10All right, so now the bottom line for the Knicks is they have to win their next game.
02:15Same could be said for the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
02:20As the Edmonton Oilers are one win away from advancing, they win 4-1 and go up 3-1 in the series.
02:27Leon Dryas, Seidel, Corey Perry each had a power play goal and an assist.
02:31Oilers 9-0 in Game 4.
02:33So with their past three playoff runs, they've been incredible.
02:35Here's Chris Knobloch on the victory and how close they are to getting to the final game.
02:42Yeah, in the first period, we were the second best team.
02:45In the first period, we were a little bit slow.
02:48They had their chances.
02:49They had many chances.
02:50We were just hanging on and the chances we gave up, Stu made many saves.
02:55And we could have been down several goals after the first period.
03:00And then after that, I thought we played a really good game.
03:03And I don't know how many chances we gave up in the second and the third, but I didn't feel like it was very much besides the penalty kill.
03:10They had a lot on the power play in the second period.
03:13But 5-on-5 in the second and third, I thought we checked.
03:16And that mostly is just because we were skating much better.
03:19And we were playing shorthanded.
03:21So, you know, a lot of guys stepped up and elevated their game.
03:27I think right now, the Edmonton Oilers are probably going to end up being an underdog to the Florida Panthers in the finals,
03:35but the Panthers still have to win their next game.
03:38Meanwhile, a huge finish for the Milwaukee Brewers yesterday.
03:40Christian Yellich with a grand slam as they beat the Red Sox by a final of 5-1.
03:45A walk-off shot.
03:47Very impressive for the Brewers.
03:48The Red Sox certainly are struggling.
03:50Meanwhile, what will the Texas Rangers do without Nathan Uvalde for a while?
03:55It's certainly possible that that happens.
03:57He exited his start early with a triceps issue.
04:00Says he's optimistic moving forward.
04:02Pitched just two innings.
04:03His ERA 1.56 this season.
04:06Shohei Otati hit his major league leading 20th home run.
04:09As the Dodgers beat the Guardians 9-4.
04:11He's now homered in three straight games.
04:13Ranger Suarez shuts out the Phillies.
04:15Spencer Strider finally loses to the Phillies.
04:182-0 the final.
04:19Nolan Arenado, by the way, also hit a tie-breaking home run in the 8th inning.
04:22The Cardinals beat the Orioles' final score there 7-4.
04:26In NFL action, not much, but a couple of pieces of news.
04:30Kirk Cousins not present for the start of Falcons OTAs.
04:33James Cook also not present in OTAs.
04:35And Demarius Thomas, very nice gesture, who passed away on December 9, 2021.
04:41They're going to put him into the Broncos' ring of fame.
04:45Welcome back to Newswire.
04:46Sam McQuillen is with us from Legal Score Report.
04:47He joins us now to discuss the very latest going on in Maryland.
04:51The tax hike getting set to go in place there.
04:54Also, BetMGM, the latest on them as well, as Penn.
04:57And Sam, welcome to the show.
04:59You know, honestly, I think that this is a very big year for Penn in general.
05:03ESPN Bet, part of this mix as well, to see how, you know, sort of they make any progress before the end of the year.
05:09And I feel like football season will probably determine that.
05:11But shareholders, of course, are involved in these conversations.
05:14And, you know, there's no stranger to, you know, sort of seeing how this is going to play out.
05:19In your mind, is this something that could come to a head at the end of the year?
05:22Because they just simply put are not making enough progress to be in the same category as FanDuel, as DraftKings, and maybe some of the others.
05:31Yeah, absolutely, Craig.
05:33You have sort of what most sports bettors see is the sheer amount of money and investment and time, quite frankly, put into Penn's online sports betting strategy, which, of course, first started with Barstool and then famously went over to ESPN about a year and a half ago.
05:51But behind the scenes, the investors at Penn are getting fed up, quite frankly, at the lack of progress Penn has made, ESPN has made.
05:59And you have this investor, H.G. Vora, which is now suing the company amid a proxy battle where they're trying to take over seats and then remove CEO Jay Snowden as the leader.
06:11The latest that just happened this week is H.G. Vora filed a long report criticizing ESPN Bets failures.
06:18They have only about 3% of market share in the entire country, which, compared to FanDuel and DraftKings, is really just, you know, very small numbers we're talking about here.
06:28They've accused Jay Snowden of excessive pay, of selling stock options at a bad time for the company and of misuse of the company's private jet.
06:39So then, of course, Penn felt the need to respond, saying that those stock sales were actually mostly to cover company expenses, taxes, options and fees.
06:49And he really hasn't sold much stock in the company.
06:52And then they responded to the claim that he's been using the private jet, mostly just to go back to his home in Boston and New Jersey, where another executive lives.
07:01They said those reports are actually third party leases out to people who don't even work at the company.
07:06So they're saying H.G. Vora is trying to sort of mislead people in this lawsuit, mislead regulators.
07:12And then H.G. Vora came back and said that Penn essentially has asked state regulators to not allow them to settle the lawsuit by allowing them to get rid of ESPN Bet.
07:23They said that they're using state regulators to prevent that from happening.
07:26And Penn comes back and says that actually we can't do that.
07:29State regulators would never allow us to do that.
07:31So it's a lot of he said, she said in this fight right now.
07:34But you're very right, Craig, that sort of while this background stuff is going on, you have the very real here and now of football seasons coming up.
07:42How do we expand?
07:43They're certainly trying to do a lot with the ESPN activations, with fantasy football, with becoming more part of the broadcast this season.
07:51We've yet to really see those numbers amount to anything, some adoption to increase and help their sports betting outcomes there.
07:59So it's going to be a make or break football season, of course, for Penn, as all this kind of comes to a head.
08:07Now, the other company that I think definitely is looking to make a big move this year, Sam, is BetMGM, although the big move could come in December when Missouri goes online.
08:16Are they hoping for big success there?
08:19Yeah, BetMGM has been about third in sports betting market share for the last couple of years.
08:24And they had some good news this week when it was announced that they will be in Missouri in December.
08:30They'll be one of up to could be 30 sports books at a time that launch in December.
08:35When Missouri turned sports betting online, BetMGM partnered this week with a company called Century Casinos.
08:41That's one of the 13 riverboat casinos that exist in the state that have an option to partner with a sports book.
08:49And we've only heard about two brands so far make these partnerships.
08:53You had Bet365 have a partnership earlier this year with the St. Louis Cardinals.
08:59A bunch of the sports teams also get to have a partner with a sports book.
09:02So there'll be plenty of there'll be plenty of sports book options very likely in December in Missouri.
09:08BetMGM will be one of them and it'll be a very open market.
09:11You know, you have almost 30 sports books.
09:13Even the Royals and the Blues will be able to have an option.
09:16There'll be in-person betting as well.
09:18And BetMGM will certainly try to expand their presence in the Midwest.
09:21You know, you already have them live in Illinois, have them live in Kansas and Kentucky.
09:26And Missouri has been wanting sports betting for a long time.
09:29So they'll be hoping to make some big progress in the winter, kind of halfway through football season when Missouri goes online.
09:36And then finally, let's get to Maryland, who's going to be a trendsetter in this industry the rest of the year, looking for a tax hike in sports betting.
09:44I know that a lot of states are looking to do this.
09:46Maybe the idea, Sam, isn't going for what New York has at 50 percent.
09:51You know, maybe it's going for smaller increments because if it worked for Maryland, maybe it'll work for another state, too.
09:57Yeah, you're definitely right, Craig.
09:59We've heard a lot of talk so far this year about sports betting taxes.
10:02And Maryland's one of the first to actually get it done with a tax hike increase.
10:07They went from 15 percent to now 20 percent, which will take effect just before the football season.
10:13And that's a pretty big bump when you, you know, historically you've thought about most states only tax about five to 10 percent.
10:19You mentioned New York, which is an outlier 50 percent.
10:22But now we've seen more states kind of adopt the small incremental bumps, which, to your point, Craig, a lot easier to get adopted than just double the rate.
10:30You know, we saw Ohio already doubled its tax rate once from 10 percent to 20 percent.
10:36Now it wants to do 40 percent as well.
10:38So Ohio has been one of the more aggressive states there.
10:41New Jersey actually just introduced a bill from the governor that would raise their rate to 25 percent.
10:48You have Louisiana also considering this.
10:50But what seems to be easier to get done is when you have states like Maryland, where they were facing a two and two point seven billion dollar budget deficit.
10:58They look to a business like sports betting, which, quite frankly, you know, when you have a recession or times when the economy is tough, it's been pretty resilient and has actually done a lot better.
11:08It certainly was the case during COVID when a lot of states faced budget shortfalls.
11:12So no surprise to see other states considering the idea once you have a state like Maryland having success with actually going through with it.
11:20Then you have to think about how the industry itself is going to respond.
11:23You know, last year, DraftKings famously announced that they were going to have this fee that was placed on bettors in high tax states like New York, high tax states like Vermont and Illinois, which would essentially just make the payout worse for people in those states.
11:39They walked that back before ever implementing it, kind of as they got a lot of backlash.
11:44And we've heard other companies as well talk about, you know, quote unquote, other levers they can pull to make up these differences in the states.
11:51So I think it's going to be really interesting to see.
11:53We kind of are at the point where we already know more states are going to adopt this.
11:56But how do sportsbooks themselves actually respond when, you know, the cat is kind of out of the bag and it doesn't seem like this is going to go away anytime soon?
12:04I don't think anyone's really considering lowering taxes on sportsbooks.
12:08It might be a long time before that happens.
12:10So we'll have to see how they deal with this.
12:12We'll have to see if, you know, a proposal comes out to, you know, make the outcomes worse for bettors in these states.
12:19We'll have to see, you know, the industry certainly has a lot of other things legislatively, but it's on its plate.
12:25You have prediction markets, you have fantasy sports, you have legalizing sports betting and iGaming in other states.
12:30We'll have to see where this goes on the priority list in terms of combating tax rates, especially if it's only incremental.
12:36So Maryland, we'll see if they, you know, if their move here is something that a lot of other states actually are successfully adopting, but they're definitely thinking about it for now.
12:46Well, Sam, great stuff as always.
12:47We'll check out all of the things that we just discussed and a whole lot more over at LegalSportsReport.com.
12:52Thanks again for coming on Newswire this morning.
12:55Appreciate it.
12:56Absolutely.
12:57Thanks.