- 6/20/2025
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00:00so let's get started and of course the big surprise last night another win and another
00:04cover for the indiana pacers they have been the best bet in the nba finals make no mistake about
00:09it they force a game seven after a very convincing win in indianapolis last night tyrese halliburton
00:17did play did contribute as now they gotta wait a couple of days before they go to a decisive
00:23game seven most had the thunder winning this in four and five even in six it looks like it's gonna
00:30take game seven to get it done rick carlisle head coach of the pacers very pragmatic about just
00:34simply playing better in game six we played better you know we were we were in where we should be most
00:43of the time well a lot more than we were in in game five um and we were stronger with the ball
00:50i you know and um you know we had some we had some that weren't great ones but um we when we when we
01:01made a mistake we bounced back well and that's what you got to do this kind of time of year i i mean i
01:07just look at it as uh you know i want to be out there to compete with my brothers you know these
01:11are guys that i'm willing to go to war with and uh we've had such a a special year and we have a
01:17special bond as a group and uh you know i think i beat myself up if i didn't give it a chance you
01:22know and um you know i just wanted to be out there and fight and i just had to have honest
01:28conversation with uh coach that you know if i didn't look like myself and you know was hurting the
01:33team like sit me down like that's obviously i want to be on the floor um but i want to win
01:40you know more than anything so uh i just have have an honest conversation with coach um but yeah i
01:46just i want to be on the floor and if i uh have the ability to if i can like i said if i can walk
01:52then i want to be out there so um you know i just want to be out there with my brothers to to to compete
01:57and um yeah those guys have my back and you know i feel like i have theirs at the same time so you know
02:02that was important for me the last thing the thunder wanted to do was go back home for game seven to
02:08have to win to win the nba championship but here we are by the way seems like they're pretty unhappy
02:14if you watch the post game last night here's shea gilgis alexander who did not mince words
02:19the way i see it is we suck tonight we have to learn the lessons um and we have one game
02:26for everything for everything we've worked for and so do they and uh the better team sunday will win
02:32second row michael shea michael grange from sports net in toronto um
02:38you know you've been under pressure this whole series from them defensively tonight they were
02:43able to get into the ball with more success i guess than they've had you know did they do anything
02:49different the turnover numbers for you were unusually high any explanation yeah they
02:56yeah i don't even know they just turned this over a bunch they um
03:02they didn't pressure full court like they have been um which led to more turnovers i didn't expect
03:11that but whatever it is they did it right um and if we want to win on sunday we got to take care of
03:16the ball yeah i think that's the word from our standpoint first of all credit indiana i thought
03:21they obviously earned the win they outplayed us for most of the 48 minutes uh and you know that's
03:28the story of the game they they went out there uh and attacked the game from our standpoint uh it
03:33was uncharacteristic it was disappointing but um it was collective it wasn't one guy you know just
03:39we were not uh where we needed to be uh on either end of the floor for much of the game
03:44uh and we have to be a lot better you know before game seven
03:47padres beat the dodgers yesterday in major league baseball and that wasn't even the biggest story of
03:53the game these two teams continue to not like each other no surprise here xander bogarts ended up
04:01having four hits as the padres beat the dodgers by a final of five to three robert suarez the reliever
04:08of the padres hit shohei otani with a pitch and then all of a sudden uh fernando tatis jr was hit in the
04:14pitch you can see him on the ground there dave roberts has a much better explanation as to what
04:20went down to me um you know the way i see it the way i saw it was um jack little was making his major
04:28league debut and um he's trying to get through the outing and um we're trying to get him to finish
04:35the game and obviously the arm side missed to iglesias walks him um walks in a run and then he
04:44gets tatis with an arm side fastball obviously i think anyone knows there was no intent and so
04:51and i think even you know mike speaking the other day talking about intent versus no intent
04:56and so i think then anyone understands that there was no intent there and even by my reaction
05:01i didn't feel good about tatis a great player good guy getting hit i didn't feel good about it
05:09and um and so as he comes out and he's yelling at me and staring me down um that bothers me because
05:21to be quite frank that's the last thing i wanted um i'm taking starters out of the game and
05:27you know trying to you know get this game over and get this kid a couple innings and so that's why
05:34i i felt you know i took that personal because uh i i understand the game and and know that i
05:41understand it doesn't feel good to get hit but understand again intent versus clearly no intent
05:47meanwhile the dodgers this weekend we'll see basically two players who i think are destined
05:53for the hall of fame is that fair to say clayton kershaw that's a guarantee he'll pitch on friday
05:57against the nationals who finally won yesterday we'll get to that in a second dustin may saturday
06:01and then shohei otani pitches sunday against washington meanwhile matt olsen spencer strider
06:08the brave seem to be bouncing back a bit they beat the mets 7-1 and the mets all of a sudden are
06:13struggling just like the yankees did final score as i said 7-1 six straight losses in a row here's
06:19carlos mendoza on that obviously every team goes through slumps over the course of the season over
06:24these six games is there one theme in particular that you've seen as kind of a through line to why you
06:29guys are struggling yeah i think uh they're starting pitching right now you know um they've been so
06:35good the whole year pretty much carry us all the way through this point and you know you lose you lose
06:40couple of guys that were consistently throwing the ball well and then you know some of the other guys
06:45couple of bad outings um you know it happens you know we're going through a a rough stretch right now
06:50six games obviously uh but uh starts right there on the mound right now on the mound is where charlie
06:59morton is back feeling comfortable he goes six innings giving up just one run remember when he was
07:03pulled from the rotation they beat tampa bay four to one the yankees finally win as well their six
07:08game losing streak is over a seven to three win over the angels aaron boone thrilled with a win
07:15i don't know you know a little more patience obviously you got to be patient with anderson who's
07:19gonna you know kind of try and try and destroy your timing and mess with you um i thought i thought
07:25we were a little better in that regard last night too like so carrying that in still didn't completely
07:30break through and um you know had a chance to really have a big day um but you know to hit a couple
07:37balls out of the ballpark pressure them a little bit more um you know more guys up and down being in on
07:44the act uh it was good right now the sacramento a's that's what we're calling them right they're
07:52loving what they see from nick kurtz he had his second walk-off home run of the week the a's beat
07:56the astros final score six to four also i mean he's not going to win mvp of the national league but
08:01james wood is having some season a walk-off and he got 20 on the season four to three and he solely
08:08breaks the nats losing streak they had lost 11 games in a row they finally win and also logan
08:14seven innings giants beat the guardians final score of two to one great to have sam mcquillan
08:18in from legalsportsreport.com as we wrap up the week getting to some of the hot topics around sports
08:23betting as sam joins us now here on the show sam great to have you back here on the program all
08:28right it's a pivotal year for one of the sports betting operators otherwise known as espn bet
08:34trying to you know really become if they can i guess the third most popular sports betting
08:40company in the country behind fanduel draft kings you know that progress is honestly sam from what
08:46i see a little bit stalled some new board members coming in are these things that i'm discussing with
08:51you correlated at all to try and improve or is just common business practice
08:55yeah it's a great question craig the the short answer is they're all correlated but not necessarily
09:02into helping pen make espn bet a real player in this space they've tried for years to become this
09:08number three sports book previously with barstool sports and now espn bet and in the backdrop of
09:14all of that there's been some real pushes to make changes at the top uh there's a big group of
09:20investors calling for uh not only the resignation of penn's ceo but uh they really want to overhaul
09:27uh the company's strategy and uh kind of say you know maybe online sports betting isn't for us
09:33maybe we should just focus on our retail properties our casinos so uh there was another development
09:38this week uh this there's this ongoing shareholder battle uh with this investor called hg vora
09:44uh which wanted to nominate uh three new board members uh to penn's board to essentially shake up
09:51the leadership amid this ongoing proxy fight penn came in and ended up uh only getting two of those
09:57three through and now hg vora is coming back uh trying to sue penn saying that uh they're basically
10:05not listening to shareholders and this this is a move to try to retain power um all while they struggle
10:10to try to grow espn bet we've seen them ramp up their efforts you know i just saw commercial yesterday
10:16um talking about how you can now link the espn app to the espn bet app and we're only going to see
10:22more of those efforts um to the public uh as we approach football season this is the time they're really
10:27going to try to ramp it up and kind of their final push to make good on this if they don't you have
10:32this backdrop of the proxy battle going on with the shareholders uh this big legal fight that they
10:38probably don't want to have to deal with uh in the meantime penn has only had about three percent of
10:43the market uh which is not even third not even fourth it's six behind fanduel and draft kings uh for
10:49now anyways so uh we've also heard penn brass talk about uh the ability to opt out of this deal if it's
10:55no longer you know making us money or if we're just going to keep losing money here by 2026 if
11:01they don't hit certain uh measures in terms of market share uh penn and espn can both walk away
11:07which i think would be really interesting um to kind of see you know it took espn a very long time
11:12to get in the space i know they they kind of waited for the highest bidder and penn threw a lot of money
11:17at them part of that was giving barstool back to its founder for just one dollar what happens if all of
11:22a sudden they get out of sports betting what happens to the espn bet brand there's a lot of
11:25details we don't know about there and then what's next for penn what happens to this company um you
11:30know it's been one of those that has kind of hung on while we've seen many others in this space uh give
11:35up so it'll be really interesting to see what all happens there you know in the meantime they're
11:39going to try to push to grow espn bet as much as they can ahead of football season but yeah this
11:44investor pressure uh sure is boiling over right now let's get to illinois where the battle rages on
11:51the state wants more money from sports betting the operators say if you take more money we're
11:56going to take more money back boy it seems like this is a battle that's say i'm not going to end
12:01well and and i i gotta say other states have to be watching how it does yeah whenever there's battles
12:07you know there's debris and other people get affected you know whether it's other states saying
12:12hey we really like what illinois is doing cracking down on these companies and raising the taxes or
12:16whether it's the betters in those states getting those fees passed down to them my colleague at
12:21legal sports support eric ramsey did a really good deep dive this week about where exactly this new
12:27tax hike in illinois comes from it's targeted really only against fanduel and draft kings because
12:34it's this 20 cents per bet tax or 50 cents per bet tax that only starts after you take 20 million bets so
12:42the only operators who have taken over 20 million bets a year are both fanduel and draft kings there's
12:47certainly a number of other sports books in illinois but they don't come close to that number
12:51um you know last year both those companies paid 286 million dollars in taxes under this new change they
12:58would pay about 424 million which is almost half of the taxes that illinois gets from sports betting
13:04um so this of course came after they'd already raised the rate last year from the flat 15 tax to
13:10this tiered rate where the maximum is 40 which again only fanduel and draft kings get hit with
13:16um so there there seems to be a lot of targeting in this new tax law you know we've seen states like
13:22ohio talk about just raising the tax overall but really only fanduel and draft kings are getting hit here
13:28which is why it's no surprise to see them being the only companies that announce that they're going
13:32to pass this uh this fee down um you know it really all comes back to 2015 when both these companies
13:38were getting started as galley fantasy sports companies there was a big push from the casinos
13:43in the state to not let that happen to classify that as illegal betting uh mainly from rush street
13:49which owns bet rivers and is a very in their owner is a very influential uh person in illinois gives a lot
13:55of money to the governor a lot of money to different lobbying groups in the state so um it's no coincidence
14:01that we're seeing these kind of targeted tax rates against the companies that the casinos fought against
14:06against the companies that um they said were infringing on their rights and are now or on
14:11their access and are now really not competing in this space so um fanduel and draft kings obviously
14:16responded with that uh that surcharge being passed down but you know how does that change their
14:21business in illinois over the next year especially in the football season are we going to see that even
14:26matter for people are they going to care about this you know paying an extra 20 cents on a 10 bet
14:32um is this going to accomplish what the legislator legislature wants whether that's you know raising
14:38new taxes but also kind of making the market more of an even playing field for everyone else and then
14:43of course there's legal questions there whether they can even do this so um it's it's it's beyond just
14:48kind of raising revenue it seems to really just be targeted at these main companies and given the
14:53fact that they have all the power in most of the country it'll be really interesting to see you
14:57know how they react how they change things across the country finally sam uh sweepstakes another hot
15:03topic for this year this you know very popular in a lot of states where you can't bet on sports but
15:08you can kind of do these casino type games a ban going on of course in in different states some states
15:15it is allowed and again you know it's taxation is everything here sam it's like when companies are
15:22able to run things without being taxed the battle presses on for this as well doesn't it
15:26yeah that's how they got al capone right it wasn't you know it's a lot easier to prove that you're
15:32not paying taxes than it is to you know say whether you say something that's legal isn't
15:36actually illegal we see this all the time in the gambling and sports betting space you know
15:41one company says this is allowed one company says your definition is wrong so now we've seen states
15:46like new york move forward with these bans on these sweepstakes games new york's now the fifth state
15:51to send a bill to their legislature which would effectively ban all of these you know
15:56games that mimic online casino and sports betting products often with a loophole of being able to
16:01bet with free money but usually people don't bet with free money um and the states really for them
16:06it's about you know collecting that revenue collecting not just the tax revenue but you know
16:11licenses cost a lot of money as well so this is a way that a lot of companies have been able to kind
16:15of flout that you know fiscal responsibility and you know new york we saw um the attorney general
16:22sent you know over 25 letters to these companies so this law comes after that we've seen other states
16:26like louisiana mississippi do the same where their attorney generals send out a bunch of letters and then
16:31you kind of see the legislature uh follow through with a bill so new york is obviously you know a very
16:36big state you know if they sign this it wouldn't just ban um you know the sweepstakes operators
16:42themselves but it would ban any payment processors any software vendors from working with these
16:47companies which is another shot to kind of cripple their business and how they work so um you know
16:52they face big penalties big fees if they don't comply so it's no surprise we've already seen a
16:58bunch of these companies pull out of a big state like new york and wouldn't be surprised if you know
17:02another state follows suit if that's kind of the case and this is kind of the last we hear about
17:07you know the sweepstakes fiasco great stuff as always sam enjoy the rest of your weekend
17:11enjoy nba finals game seven too thanks for coming on you too thanks greg
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