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SportsTranscript
00:00Since sports betting was legalized, we have talked about this state quite a bit because
00:03they were really one of the first ones to get sports betting going back in 2018.
00:08That of course is Mississippi.
00:10But something is, as I want to say, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, must be in the water
00:15there because how they can get in-person betting and six years later, still not have online
00:22sports betting tells me there's something going on in a backroom somewhere, Pat, with
00:28The Beau Ravage.
00:29I mean, no offense, Beau Ravage.
00:30I know you guys have a sports bet.
00:32Are they blocking this?
00:34What exactly is going on here?
00:36Are they afraid that they're going to lose money here?
00:38And I understand that notion, but I mean, this has gone on way too long, Pat, without
00:42an explanation.
00:43I know.
00:44It is kind of crazy to think about because when we look at the landscape and so much
00:47of what we're talking about now is other states in the Southeast expanding.
00:51I mean, Alabama doesn't even have a lottery.
00:53We're talking about building a lottery or passing a lottery this year, potentially with
00:58sports betting.
00:59But again, I think we've talked about in the past that Alabama's going to maybe skirt that
01:03for a little bit and just get lottery done.
01:05Georgia again, South Carolina, all these states have this little fundamentalist side of them
01:10that is pushing back on gambling and sports betting.
01:14And I don't think that's any different in Mississippi.
01:16Mississippi, of course, does have that just vibrant casino culture, which I think helped
01:21that 2018 passage of in-person sports betting.
01:25And since then, they've tried a lot to get mobile sports betting passed, and it just
01:30hasn't moved.
01:31And I think to your point, it is a lot of cannibalization concerns by a lot of the locally
01:36owned operators.
01:38Of course, they've got big casino companies, national and regional casino companies that
01:42are for expansion online.
01:44But I don't think you can discount the effect that local ownership has politically at state
01:52level governments.
01:53And I think that's kind of what's been holding it back, is those cannibalization concerns
01:56from the local casinos that don't have the weight of these giant casino conglomerates
02:01behind them.
02:02And then so then we get to this year, and I mean, we've talked about it quite a bit
02:06over the last couple of weeks as we head into this new legislative session.
02:10The sales of sports betting and even online gambling as a whole kind of momentum, the
02:17sales are kind of getting slack.
02:20There's not a lot of...
02:22The headwinds are growing, as we've talked about the US congressional hearings, the big
02:27media articles talking about problem gambling, just kind of the backlash of all the ads and
02:32frequent stuff.
02:33I was just reading an article about how the DraftKings partnership with Delta Airlines
02:37is just another kind of step of how annoyingly prevalent sports betting now is to people
02:43who don't sports bet.
02:44And that's where this kind of backlash is coming from.
02:49And I think that might be why we might not see a bill.
02:52The senator who leads the gambling committee in Mississippi said he doesn't plan to file
02:57a bill unless the gambling commission tells him to.
03:00And the gambling commission has come out and said, you know what, we don't weigh in on
03:04any bills or laws.
03:06That's to them.
03:07We just regulate it.
03:08So he's not going to file it.
03:09He said, you know, there's certainly other people who could file it.
03:12And so I wouldn't be surprised if we see a bill in Mississippi.
03:15But you know, it doesn't seem like it's going to have a ton of momentum.
03:19But again, anything can happen in the political world and in these legislative sessions.
03:23So something could move.
03:25But again, we're not seeing anything right now in Mississippi.