00:00You know, look, I was looking this morning at some of the things we're going to talk about, and I was like, wait a second here.
00:05We are going to potentially legalize sports betting in Rhode Island?
00:10Have you and I even said that the state Rhode Island on this show and our history of doing this?
00:16I'm not sure about that.
00:17But, yeah, I mean, so sports betting already is legal in Rhode Island.
00:22It has been since 2018, but it's a very unique market in that it's one of the few states that has a monopoly through the lottery.
00:30That is then run by IGT, so it's Sportsbook Rhode Island is the name of it.
00:34And apparently, you know, the regulators and the lawmakers aren't super pleased with the performance, which you do end up seeing a lot in these states that have the monopolies,
00:44whether it's Oregon and their DraftKings or Montana or New Hampshire.
00:50And so the lawmakers have come out and they're kind of listening to a report that was published last year by the Rhode Island Lottery by Spectrum Gaming that said,
00:59hey, can we open up the market to more people?
01:01I think the market will perform better.
01:03That'll bring more tax revenue to the state.
01:05Even though right now Rhode Island has an effective tax rate through that monopoly of 51%, the per capita bet amounts and the things like that aren't super high.
01:15So it's not bringing in that much money ultimately.
01:18And, you know, Rhode Island is a very tiny state population wise, so that might have something to do with it as well.
01:23But this bill passed the Senate last week that would open it up to between two and five more Sportsbook operators, more than just the one.
01:34And so you'd have to imagine that, you know, it'll kind of look like Massachusetts and have, you know, the big players, DraftKings, FanDuel for sure, just coming to the state.
01:45Now, that, of course, will probably have to bring down that tax rate.
01:48It wouldn't be that high for these commercial operators as it stands right now, but you have to imagine they might bring it down a little bit more to make it more attractive to them.
01:56But, yeah, just kind of an interesting thing because, yeah, we don't talk about Rhode Island because, one, it's been legal for so long as just that monopoly, one operator state.
02:06And, two, it's just not a big mover in terms of revenue and because of the population size.
02:11So, yeah, we don't talk about it much, but it looks like this could be happening.
02:15It passed the Senate by a 30 to 2 vote.
02:17We'll, of course, have to see what happens in the House.
02:20But just judging by the feel of the Senate and how that happened, you have to imagine it'll get through probably pretty easily.
