00:00Finally, Sam, sweepstakes, another hot topic for this year, this, you know, very popular in a lot of states where you can't bet on sports, but you can kind of do these casino type games, a ban going on, of course, in different states, some states, it is allowed. And again, you know, it's taxation is everything here, Sam. It's like when companies are able to run things without being taxed, the battle presses on for this as well, doesn't it?
00:25Yeah, that's how they got Al Capone, right? It wasn't, you know, it's a lot easier to prove that you're not paying taxes than it is to, you know, say whether you say something that's legal isn't actually illegal. We see this all the time in the gambling and sports betting space. You know, one company says this is allowed, one company says your definition is wrong. So now we've seen states like New York move forward with these bans on these sweepstakes games. New York's now the fifth state to send a bill to their legislature, which would effectively ban all of these, you know,
00:55games that mimic online casino and sports betting products, often with a loophole of being able to bet with free money. But usually people don't bet with free money. And the states really for them, it's about, you know, collecting that revenue, collecting, not just the tax revenue, but, you know, licenses cost a lot of money as well. So this is a way that a lot of companies have been able to kind of flout that, you know, fiscal responsibility. And, you know, New York, we saw the Attorney General sent, you know, over 25 letters to these companies.
01:23So this law comes after that, we've seen other states like Louisiana, Mississippi, do the same where their Attorney General send out a bunch of letters, and then you kind of see the legislature follow through with a bill. So New York is obviously, you know, a very big state, you know, if they sign this, it wouldn't just ban, you know, the sweepstakes operators themselves, but it would ban any payment processors, any software vendors from working with these companies, which is another shot to kind of cripple their business and how they work.
01:50So, you know, they face big penalties, big fees, if they don't comply. So it's no surprise, we've already seen a bunch of these companies pull out of a big state like New York, and wouldn't be surprised if, you know, another state follows suit, if that's kind of the case. And this is kind of the last we hear about, you know, the sweepstakes fiasco.
