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SportsTranscript
00:00Let's end with this story here in Maryland, a story about online casino betting, not so
00:08much about the actual betting that's going on, Pat, but about what a lot of these companies
00:13seem to be doing.
00:14And I know you've been reporting on this is like internal reviews as to how they have
00:18handled legalization of going online and how and their rollouts.
00:22And so what did we learn or what did the legislatures learn from their rollout in Maryland?
00:27Yeah, so we were at a conference, pretty much the whole team and myself in Pittsburgh last
00:31month, you know, with legislators from gaming states, it's literally called the National
00:36Council of Legislators from Gaming States.
00:38And, you know, there was quite a bit of talk about online casino legislation.
00:42I mean, this is where, you know, the money, the revenue is going to come for most of these
00:48operators in the future, way more so than sports betting.
00:52And now that we have 38 plus states legalized, they're turning their attention to this.
00:57Maryland was probably the closest to getting it done last year.
01:00And Senator Ron Watson was by far the most insightful thing we saw at this conference
01:05because he got up in a fireside chat and kind of laid out what happened.
01:10Basically, he said, you know, that legislators need to treat this rather than a piece of
01:14legislation, which granted it is, they need to treat it like running a full campaign
01:19because there is a lot of education that needs to happen around this and why it's important
01:23to regulate it, kind of like we were just talking with in New Jersey and sports betting.
01:27So basically, he just said, you've got to get it around.
01:30You've got to get the education out there because things like the cannibalization argument
01:35that came out in Maryland in big force killed the issue because there was a casino that
01:41came out and said, you know, this is going to hurt us.
01:43The Union of Workers showed up in mass to one of the hearings and that, you know,
01:49legislators see that and it dies.
01:51So basically, he's like, you just have to run it like a campaign.
01:54You've got to get a whole team behind it to educate legislators and the public on why
01:58this is important and why it's good for the public.
02:02So it'll be interesting to see if anybody uses that lesson going into the next session.