00:00All right. So I felt like, you know, you know, talking to you, you know, Rhode Island was a possibility of, you know, getting sports betting here and closing out the summer here, maybe closing out the year with no states, you know, legalizing sports betting.
00:14Of course, one is getting ready to launch here in December, but Rhode Island, any update there?
00:19Yeah, so Rhode Island, we came into the legislative session with a report from, you know, consultants saying the lottery should open up sports betting to more operators.
00:28There is one sports book product in Rhode Island that is through the lottery partnered with IGT.
00:35And the thought is, you know, when there's one, you know, one sports book monopoly, the product's not great.
00:40The prices aren't great. Your offerings aren't great.
00:43And yeah, so there was a bill that started and it passed one of the chambers, the Chamber of Origin and said, you know what, let's open up to between three and five more sports books.
00:51And, you know, Rhode Island isn't a big state, but, you know, all these sports book operators do want a little bit more market.
00:57So you have to imagine there was hope there that this would be a state that kind of opens up.
01:02And unfortunately for Rhode Island residents and bettors, it fell apart and died on the floor of the second chamber because they just didn't get to it.
01:13They didn't get around to it.
01:14Now, the IGT contract as the monopoly provider for the lottery is up next year.
01:23It has a very long contract with the lottery, but the monopoly part of it is only through next year.
01:27So we'll see. You know, I have to imagine another bill will come up to say this or or maybe just the lottery opens up applications for more next year.
01:35Because that is what the House of Representatives speaker said was, you know what, this isn't needed because the contract runs out next year.
01:42But again, you never know kind of how legalese is taken and what that means ultimately without legislative action.
01:49So, again, we'll have to watch what happens in Rhode Island in the future and whether or not another bill is needed to open it up to more than just a monopoly sports book there in Rhode Island.
