00:00Sam, in California, which, you know, if you're a big fan of, again, just gambling, sweepstakes, casino, you name it, California is, you know, what you might call a problem state.
00:10Gambling is limited to the tribal nations and sweepstakes is trying to get in there.
00:16And California legislators have now introduced a sweepstakes casino ban, which is just, you know, further delaying this.
00:23I guess what I want to ask first and foremost is, are we delaying the inevitable or is this going to just be something that, you know, drags on and on and on, never quite gets resolved to where people, residents of California are able to gamble and bet in the way that they wish to?
00:40So I think that's what it all comes down to.
00:42Eventually, you will be able to bet legally, maybe not in all 50 states, but close to it.
00:49And California is definitely going to be one.
00:50And big roadblock there, like you alluded to, has been tribes, you know, not wanting to make a deal where they lose any of their rights.
00:57You know, they're only going to want to allow sports betting to happen on their own terms.
01:00And we've very much seen that in the state.
01:02Then meanwhile, you have these sweepstakes operators that are operating right now in the state of California.
01:08You can bet with them.
01:09You can play with them.
01:10They operate under this model, which they're basically offering these online casino games and sports betting games to customers, allowing them the option to play them for free.
01:20Although most don't do that.
01:22Most are exchanging real money like you would on a sports book or casino.
01:26They've been able to do that in California, kind of skirting the law by calling themselves sweepstake operators.
01:32And now you have lawmakers that have proposed a bill that would really ban that practice, make it explicitly clear that, no, we see this as illegal gambling.
01:40We don't want to allow it to continue.
01:42Now, to your point, the more you kind of illegalize these different gambling mechanisms that try to skirt around that, the more pressure kind of builds into, well, there is a huge demand in California for sports betting.
01:54That's a reason, you know, I'm sure if FanDuel and DraftKings were legal in California, sweepstakes would not be focused on it at all.
01:59It wouldn't be a huge market for them.
02:01We've only seen the big states like Texas, California, and even Florida, where there's only one sports betting option that's legal.
02:07Those are really the big states for sweepstakes.
02:10But now that you have lawmakers actually taking action, trying to push them out, it wouldn't only make them illegal.
02:15It would also ban, you know, payment processors, financial institutions, even celebrities from promoting these platforms.
02:22You know, we've seen celebrities like Drake and Ryan Seacrest promote these platforms online just because they're getting paid to.
02:27And there's no law that's really saying it's legal.
02:30So they've been able to do it.
02:31So this would make that happen.
02:32This would kind of cut off their business, not just, you know, give the legal weight of the law behind this.
02:38So sweepstakes operators, it seems they're trying to persist.
02:42They're trying to make arguments that, you know, this is going to hurt legitimate businesses and have a bigger, you know, wide-reaching effect.
02:49I don't know whether that will actually, you know, how much that will matter to lawmakers that, you know, are very much loyal to the tribes and potentially very much loyal to the operators if they ever want to get a deal done there.
02:59So for sweepstakes, it looks like this might be the beginning of the end.
03:03But with, you know, legalized gambling, this should only push the focus more on, okay, now we've gotten rid of these illegal operators.
