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00:00Welcome back to Newswire.
00:04We've got a lot to cover with Matthew Waters from Legal Sports Reports.
00:07The state of Michigan looking to block one of the sports betting operators overseas is
00:13made for an interesting story.
00:14We'll dive into that and also we bring in Matthew to talk about a company that it looks
00:19like did very well for themselves.
00:21The name Tipico, which I know that there are some people familiar with, maybe some others
00:25who are not.
00:26Matthew, any time a company gets purchased, I think congratulations probably in order.
00:31Who ended up purchasing Tipico and what does this mean for their future?
00:34Yeah, MGM bought Tipico and Tipico is actually owned by a larger group also named Tipico,
00:42but they are huge in Germany.
00:45So they have a greatly established sports betting business over in Europe.
00:50They know what they're doing and when they entered the US, they did so a little slower
00:55than others and they built their own platform.
00:59They didn't want to take anything from Europe.
01:01They said, we want to build a platform that kind of restarts everything.
01:06We can build it to what the American market is doing.
01:10But obviously they had a lot of help from what they learned in Europe building that
01:14your platform over there, right?
01:16So MGM has the BetMGM partnership, as we know, with Entain and MGM just did not want to be
01:25in a joint venture for international at this point.
01:29They said, you know, we would like to do this on our own.
01:32They had tried to buy Entain a couple of times and that just never worked out.
01:36And so they had said that they were looking for sports betting technology after they went
01:40out and bought Leo Vegas, another online gaming company that has a great online casino established
01:49in Europe and they have a sports book that was powered by another industry supplier that
01:53we've talked about before, Canby.
01:55So now MGM gets to take the BetMGM brand into international markets.
02:01It's already in the UK.
02:03They get to have that brand over there and now they're going to be able to have everything
02:07under the hood of MGM, which should allow them, you know, you always think about cost
02:12savings first.
02:13Those third party contracts can get expensive when you get to a higher scale.
02:18So you hope to cut down on that.
02:20And then also you just hope to make the product better, right?
02:24You're going to be able to get things done quicker.
02:26You're not waiting on outside parties to get work done so you can be flexible.
02:31They talk about, you know, they always say, can you be nimble with your product?
02:34Yeah, they're going to be able to do that.
02:36They're going to be able to add games quickly.
02:38They're going to be able to add updates quickly.
02:41So MGM has what it wants now in the international market.
02:46This should have no effect on the US market right now.
02:49But who knows at the end of their contract, if MGM can now say, you know, we're going
02:53to do this on our own, but BetMGM has worked out well so far in the US with the two sides
03:00and Tain has admitted that it's been a little slow to act before to get BetMGM what it needed
03:06to be competitive, quite frankly, in the US market with, you know, the FanDuel and the
03:13DraftKings.
03:14So, you know, is this an answer to all of those issues?
03:18You know, we'll have to wait a couple of years to find that out.
03:20But right now, MGM is building itself its own iGaming operation.
03:27I think that as the future kind of comes with some of these companies, especially the smaller
03:32ones, we've seen a little bit of this with, I believe, PrizePix was one of them.
03:38You know, we saw Fanatics get involved.
03:39I am curious how some of the other operators will move forward, whether or not now is the
03:44time for them to get out.
03:46All right, Bovada, it was the time for them to get out of Michigan.
03:50You'll have to kind of catch me up here on the timeline here because I had heard a few
03:53weeks ago that the state of Michigan did not want Bovada to be operating in their state.
03:59You and I, I think, kid around about this.
04:01It's like, wait a second, they're already illegal.
04:03They're offshore.
04:05So what is the demand actually going to do?
04:07And it looks like Michigan, Matthew, has taken some preemptive steps here, kind of like you're
04:12not allowed to bet in states that's not legal.
04:15You can't even access Bovada at all now in the state of Michigan.
04:19So tell me how this went down.
04:21Well, Craig, that's how it started off.
04:24Thursday, we noticed that Bovada had added Michigan as well as Colorado to its list of
04:29banned states.
04:31And at first it wasn't available in Michigan.
04:34And now it seems like it is again available in Michigan and Colorado.
04:39And look, we haven't heard from regulators.
04:42They haven't wanted to confirm if the website is still available, but various people I know
04:47that live in those states have checked.
04:51We've been checking it by a VPN in different places, and it does seem like you can still
04:55go on and bet on Bovada in these states.
04:58So yeah, Colorado and Michigan, and we have Connecticut as well now.
05:02They have sent cease and desist letters recently to Bovada, and they added them to the list
05:10of banned states, but it's not acting that way.
05:14For example, Craig, I live in Delaware.
05:16Bovada is banned in Delaware, and it actually is banned in Delaware.
05:20It's not just on the list.
05:21When I go to open it up, it says you can't access this.
05:25Doesn't even give me an option to create an account.
05:28It says if you have an account and you want to withdraw funds or something, you can log
05:31in here, but you can't actually do anything else.
05:35But that is just not happening in Michigan and Colorado yet.
05:38So Michigan said that they were going to continue to monitor the process to make sure
05:44Bovada was completely complying with the cease and desist, and we're just not sure when and
05:51if that is going to happen completely now at this point.
05:55One other issue that I noticed too, when Connecticut sent their cease and desist, they made it
06:00very clear that they want their customers to be able to get their money back, and Bovada
06:05is only allowing cryptocurrency withdrawal in states that have had operations closed
06:11down.
06:12So is that going to be okay with the Connecticut regulator?
06:16I don't know.
06:17I asked them.
06:18I haven't gotten an answer back on that either.
06:21You can understand why there's a limited flow of information on the record here, Craig.
06:26It's a messy situation.
06:27It is hard because even though they have a physical address for this site, and obviously
06:33Bovada is known throughout the industry, it's still kind of a nebulous, you know, where
06:37are they sending that cease and desist?
06:39Is it getting to the people that need to have it?
06:43And so this is one of those stories where you want to see the regulated industry win,
06:51and it's interesting that Bovada was quick to act on other states and is not now.
06:57And we're just going to have to see how this shakes out because, again, they can send a
07:01cease and desist as much as they want, but it's hard for a state to really shut down
07:07what a company is doing that's licensed in a foreign country somewhere else.
07:12Yeah, this is a perplexing story, how it could be available and not available.
07:17I mean, once and for all, we've got to figure out what these offshores are going to be all
07:21about in the future.
07:22All right, not a surprising story over a legal sports report that I read about Penn Entertainment.
07:28I mean, the writing is on the wall here, Matt.
07:30I don't know.
07:31It feels like they were at their peak when sports betting began a couple of years ago,
07:34but everything since then does not give me a ton of optimism.
07:38And so what is the latest for Penn?
07:40And look, if they get bought out, just like Typico, just like some of the others, kudos
07:44to them.
07:45But it does feel like maybe that's in the future.
07:47Yeah, you know, there has been a lot of chatter now about Penn and Boyd Gaming, another regional
07:54casino operator that is a direct competitor of Penn.
07:58There's been a lot of chatter about Boyd now trying to buy Penn.
08:02And this all started when an investor wrote an open letter to Penn Management, the chairman,
08:09the board of directors, and took them to task.
08:12And just look, it has been unacceptable to see the level of online losses that we've
08:16seen.
08:17You know, they've spent, they've burnt a lot of money, Craig.
08:21They've essentially set it on fire with all the barstool stuff and then selling it back
08:25for a dollar to Dave Portnoy.
08:27Yeah, so now Boyd is apparently interested in buying Penn.
08:31It's not going to be that easy, though, Craig.
08:35They own a lot of properties in the same states.
08:38They would have to find a third party there to buy that.
08:41And one analyst, Carlo Santorelli of Deutsche Bank, said if Boyd buys it, they are probably
08:48selling the interactive side of Penn and the ESPN partnership immediately.
08:53So you would have to have another buyer there.
08:55So now you're talking about four parties and then Penn has a landlord, five parties
08:59that have to get on board for the steal.
09:01That would be tough.
09:02But, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire.
09:04And this one is heating up.
09:06Yeah, definitely so.
09:07All right, Matthew.
09:08Great stuff as always.
09:09Have a great rest of your week.
09:10Thanks for coming on Newswire.
09:11Appreciate it.
09:12Thank you, sir.
09:13Take care.