Exploring the Future of Sports Betting in Canada and the US
Transcript
00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsGrid.
00:06Great to have Pat Evans with us from LegalSportsReport.com to go over the very latest in sports betting.
00:11We'll see if Missouri can get their act together and ever get sports betting on the ballot.
00:16That decision is coming.
00:17So we got Pat to talk about that.
00:18Pat, thanks again for coming on the show.
00:20Great to catch up with you.
00:21Hope you had a good weekend.
00:23Thanks as always, Craig.
00:24I think we're on a little bit of a delay because of my terrible internet connection today,
00:29but hopefully people are okay with that and we'll get through it here now.
00:33All right, let's get started.
00:35Let's talk about the ever-growing and changing landscape of Canada and sports betting there.
00:40Our first focus here is Alberta.
00:43Let's begin with Jay Snowden, the CEO of Penn, having some very intriguing words on what
00:49the future may look like there.
00:51Yeah, so it wasn't that long ago that Penn, Jay Snowden is the CEO of Penn Entertainment,
00:58they spent $2 billion on the score, a very well-known Canadian sports, you know, entertainment
01:09brand, however you want to put it, with a sports betting arm.
01:15They spent a lot of money on that and then they took them out of America where they had
01:18a little bit of a, you know, endeavor, but very little market share.
01:24And so now we're going, and they're laying, you know, what they can do in Ontario was
01:30huge with the score from all signs.
01:34And now they're looking at Alberta, which, you know, we've talked about before on this
01:38show, that Alberta is going to open up.
01:44It's a very small province in comparison to Ontario, the population's tiny, but, you know,
01:50there's a lot of betting going on there.
01:53There's a lot of casinos.
01:54There's a lot of people who like to bet from what I gathered at the Canadian Gaming Summit
01:58last two months ago now.
02:01And there's a lot of people very bullish, including Jay Snowden and Betway, a brand
02:06that just pulled out of the U.S. or will be pulling out of the U.S., but they're going
02:10to stay in Canada.
02:11And they see big things in Alberta too, because a lot of brands have been okay with what's
02:16happened in Ontario.
02:18And they see Alberta going ahead and taking exactly that model and putting it in Alberta
02:23and, you know, really benefiting from a public that likes to bet on sports and bet in general.
02:28I mean, one of the people at the Canadian Gaming Summit a couple months ago pointed
02:33to the Oilers playoff 50-50 raffles.
02:37During the regular season, they were, you know, $4 million or something like that, nothing
02:41huge.
02:42They got up to $12-16 million during the playoffs from their anecdotes, which is pretty wild
02:50if you think about that.
02:51And coming away from a game with half of that, that'd be okay.
02:55But that just shows that they're very excited about the prospect of being able to bet on
03:00their teams, I would think, just, you know, going to a game and throwing down some money
03:03just because of a raffle.
03:05But there's lots of teams there.
03:07There's the hockey teams.
03:08There's the Canadian football teams.
03:09There's, of course, the NFL.
03:11Everybody loves the NFL.
03:12A lot of opportunity in Canada, and brands are already talking about Alberta being the
03:16next frontier there.
03:18Yeah.
03:19No, I agree.
03:20I think that our fourth quarter story of the year is going to be focused on the sports betting
03:24changes, I think, in Canada, maybe even more here than the U.S.
03:27All right.
03:28Well, one change in the legislature in Missouri is that this guy who is just totally against
03:34sports betting there is not going away.
03:36So the deadline is tomorrow.
03:39So Pat, what's going to happen tonight?
03:41Well, I mean, I'm getting ready here.
03:43Should we just buckle up, get some popcorn, and get ready for, you know, filibustering
03:46to the end again?
03:48No.
03:49So thankfully, we're not talking about the legislative route this time.
03:52That's the good thing for Missouri.
03:55We're talking about the ballot here.
03:56You know, they've had this ballot initiative.
03:58The Cardinals came out, said, we're going to go around Senator Denny Hoskins, the man
04:02you're talking about, who has filibustered at length at times, including an eight-hour
04:07reading of Ronald Reagan's biography.
04:10That was a wild night, as you can imagine.
04:14But so this has been in progress since last fall.
04:17They got 300 and some thousand signatures.
04:19All they needed was 170.
04:22But those were all certified by local election boards.
04:25That had to be done by earlier this month.
04:27By tomorrow, the Secretary of State has to verify all those signatures.
04:32What's the difference?
04:33I'm not entirely sure, but it's all part of this very specific process that needs to be
04:37done.
04:38Once that's verified and all good to go, it will be placed on the ballot in November.
04:44Now here's where it gets kind of crazy and what I've been hearing from sources.
04:47Nothing official yet, because if you're going to go against it, you have to file something
04:52with the Secretary of State and you start seeing the opposition there.
04:57But there is a significant opposition party kind of floating about that people say could
05:02make a huge dent.
05:04I am working on a story and hopefully get some real verified sources here and we can
05:08talk about it next time I'm on.
05:09But it could be a real danger to this ballot initiative come November because it is a significant
05:16player in the industry in Missouri.
05:19So that's a big thing that's kind of floating out there.
05:22Now the good thing for this ballot initiative is FanDuel and DraftKings are all in and trying
05:27to get it done.
05:30One source suggested that they might try to drop out because the polling's not super great.
05:36It might be kind of a toss-up at this point in terms of what the vote will be in November.
05:43And so they're saying if you swing and miss, you're done.
05:46If the public support's not there and they show it and demonstrate it at the polls, then
05:51you go into the next legislative session and the people who were supportive of it in the
05:55legislature, not named Denny Hoskins, will say, well, you know what?
05:59The public didn't want it.
06:01Why are we going to put so much effort to get it done?
06:03So Missouri remains this just fascinating state of what could happen.
06:10A couple people have made great points.
06:13DraftKings and FanDuel are multi-million dollars into this endeavor, so why would they just
06:17drop it because there might be some opposition?
06:21Again, we'll see.
06:23We'll see what happens.
06:24It's going to definitely be a couple of interesting months.
06:26To your point, Q4, I mean, Canada right now has the only market on the launch pad, I guess
06:33you would want to call it.
06:35Missouri could be there if it passes in November.
06:39But so that's kind of all eyes on Missouri when you're looking at U.S. sports betting
06:43and kind of the optimism of the industry right now is kind of laying on that state.
06:50Yeah, I would agree.
06:52And a state that, again, has had its opportunities to legalize sports betting has fallen short.
06:58Kentucky, not as much.
06:59Kentucky often running with sports betting.
07:01Naturally, we've gotten some numbers here.
07:03Jim Ghazali was on the show a couple of weeks ago talking about the success that Kentucky
07:07has had.
07:08Circa Sportsbook is now having a physical location in Kentucky.
07:14What's this all about?
07:15Why is Circa taking their talents, like LeBron, to Kentucky?
07:22I didn't see this coming.
07:24So I think there's a few things here.
07:26One, yeah, talk about a state that surprised us all, unlike Missouri.
07:30They kind of skirted through it in the legislative session a few years ago and got it done and
07:35then launched.
07:36And to your point, it's been very successful for the state.
07:38And I don't think that's necessarily a big surprise.
07:40They're big in horse racing and they've got plenty of pedigree in that, no pun intended.
07:46But Circa is one of these sportsbooks that I think has a long future ahead of it, unlike
07:54some of these other smaller brands that are kind of popping in and trying to compete.
07:59I think we've talked before about all these brands that are bowing out of the market.
08:04They just can't generate market share.
08:06Their business models aren't making sense.
08:08You talk about different things that could go wrong with sportsbooks.
08:14Circa has their model.
08:15They know what they're doing.
08:18You're going into a market that's ripe for, I think, that exact market because of the
08:23horse racing kind of background.
08:25And I think it's those small sportsbooks, not named FanDuel, Bet365, DraftKings, those
08:30ones are going to continue and take up most of the market share.
08:33It's the small sportsbooks that know what they're doing, that know exactly what their
08:36business model is.
08:38They're going to take the market share they can and be successful at and be okay.
08:43And then the market will evolve around that and let them be, I think.
08:48So anyway, certainly a sportsbook to kind of watch as the industry matures.
08:54Yeah, BetRiver is a good example of what Pat is talking about, one of those companies.
08:58All right, Pat, thanks again for coming on.
09:01Probably going to see you later in the week, so I'll see you when I see you.
09:04Probably.
09:05All right, bye, Craig.