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00:00Let's start. I mentioned sports betting news across the country. Well, congrats to Illinois,
00:05of course. This is a big one right here, as Bet365 is the 12th online sportsbook to go live
00:13in the state of Illinois, and just in time for March Madness as well. Illinois, one of the
00:17largest online sports betting markets in the entire country last fall, became the fourth
00:22state after New York, New Jersey, and Nevada to eclipse $40 billion in all-time handle.
00:29That is 40 with a B, folks. Huge, huge number. Incredibly exciting news, of course, for Illinois,
00:36and hopefully more and more and more states continue to file suit or follow suit, and we
00:41have ourselves a universal sports betting phenomenon across the country. I know it makes
00:47things a lot more fun for you out there watching and listening, certainly for me sitting in this
00:52chair as well. Now, before we get to a whole lot on the college basketball front, let's start in
00:57the pros. One quick note, more bad news for the San Antonio Spurs. That's right. De'Aaron Fox, who,
01:04of course, had been acquired by San Antonio back at the deadline from Sacramento after having a
01:10great start there with Sacramento, had averaged about 25 points per game in that offense in his
01:1745 games. Not quite as good, as efficient there with the Spurs, 20 points per seven assists. The
01:24dimes went up in his 17 games, but sadly, he is done for the remainder of the year, undergoing
01:31season-ending surgery. It's a pinky issue, left pinky tendon damage that needs to be repaired. Now,
01:39in the big picture, what does this mean for the Spurs? Honestly, not a whole hell of a lot, because
01:44obviously, after already losing Victor Wembenyama, the superstar of that team for the remainder of
01:49year a little while back, his team wasn't going anywhere. You consider the NBA's Western Conference
01:55standings, this is a Spurs team that was already sitting outside the play-in tournament. And of
02:01course, before the creation of this play-in tournament, we'd be talking about the Spurs as a,
02:06you know, 12th seed in the Western Conference and say, like, their season's over anyway,
02:12they're completely cooked, they're not going anywhere. But even with that hope among hope,
02:17trying to get themselves into the 10th to qualify, obviously, for the top eight through the
02:21play-in, if I'm not throwing enough numbers at you, it's not going to happen. The Spurs are sitting
02:2626 games out of first, but more notably, still four and a half games behind that 10th slot
02:32currently occupied by Dallas. I mean, you can decide whether or not the Phoenix Suns even have
02:36a chance. They've got a better chance, obviously, than San Antonio. So the Spurs season is over,
02:42it's on to next year. I do believe that between Fox and obviously Wemby, this is a team that
02:47has real aspirations to be dangerous there in that Western Conference in the entirety
02:52of the NBA. Sadly, it's just not going to happen this year. So the good news, though,
02:57from a betting perspective, if you are someone that invested, be it way back toward the beginning
03:02of the year or even mid-season as this kind of putrid rookie class has evolved in terms of
03:09injuries, playing time, what have you, if you do have an investment in Stefan Kassel to win
03:14Rookie of the Year, he is now the overwhelming favorite. That's where the offense is going to
03:20come from. Don't be surprised if he starts putting up 20 points per game. But looking at FanDuel
03:25right now, Rookie of the Year odds, Stefan Kassel, minus 950. Only a few weeks back,
03:31this guy was plus money. Minus 950 to win Rookie of the Year, Jalen Wells of Memphis behind him
03:37at 11-1. So really what that tells you is obviously it is not even close. All right,
03:44college hoops. We're less than a half hour away from the first game of this busy day.
03:48VCU against St. Bonaventure. It's an 11.30 Eastern tip. And then from there, a full,
03:55full day of the madness. I'm talking like 14 hours of basketball before all is said and done. So
04:02truly, this is the best time of the year. Let's get into some updates from yesterday, though,
04:06and start in the ACC tournament where this could be debilitating news for the Duke Blue Devils.
04:12A lot of people, I know it's chalky to want to take Duke every single year to win the title
04:17just because of the pedigree of the program and the name recognition. It's not necessarily to the
04:22degree that it once was with Coach K. But look, even without Krzyzewski, it's the Cooper flag
04:28experience. And he's going to be one and done. He's going to be the first overall pick in the
04:32NBA. The question is, is he going to have the opportunity to finish out his college season?
04:38Number one, Duke did beat Georgia Tech after trailing big early 78-70, but lost flag to an
04:45ankle injury. And there is a real long shot that he is going to play in this game today
04:50against five seed North Carolina in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament.
04:56As for UNC, handled Wake Forest with relative ease, 68-59. Advanced to the semis, R.J. Davis
05:03had 23 points. The other side of that bracket that these two teams are aspiring to match up with,
05:09Stanford and Louisville yesterday went down to the buzzer. Number 13, Louisville
05:14beat Stanford, edged them out by just two points, 75-73. Chucky Hepburn's put back at the buzzer,
05:22lifted his team. And so huge, obviously, for number two, Louisville. The Cardinals get
05:28Clemson next year after the three seed dispatched. SMU was not easy. Another tight one, 57-54. Chase
05:36Hunter, 21 points in that one for the number 10 team in the country. So again, could we see Duke
05:43get by North Carolina? Does it make more sense to take North Carolina with the points in that
05:47matchup later on tonight? We will discuss it, obviously. And then a close one, Louisville and
05:52Clemson on the other side. As we move over to the SEC, again, so much action happening over the
05:58course of the day. It is again, quarterfinals here. And we have Texas keeping its season alive,
06:05a 94-89 high-scoring win over Texas A&M in double overtime. Sunk a parlay for me. A&M was the last
06:13leg that I needed in that one. I mean, went down before some of the other ones came through. But
06:18the last leg that I needed, just an A&M win on the money line. They were leading late. Didn't
06:23happen for me. Double OT win again for Texas. Arkansas and Ole Miss. You had Sean Padula,
06:30three-pointer with 1.3 seconds left as Ole Miss beat Arkansas, 83-80. Another high-scoring game
06:39and disappointment, but maybe not personally for John Calipari, the head coach of the Razorbacks.
06:46We've been through this all year. Same kind of deal. Either we're up and they come back,
06:51or we're down and we come back. We've had two games that were duds. Literally, two games that
06:57were duds. I think in our non-conference, we played probably four or five or six teams that'll
07:04be in the NCAA tournament out of those 13. And then the games we played against this league,
07:11I mean, you tell me how many of these teams are going to be in. So, this team has proven it all
07:20year, and they've made me proud. I told them this is one of the most rewarding years that I've had.
07:27Some of them may get mad and say, well, what about this year? What about that year?
07:31I'm talking for me as a coach that all that we were up against, these kids never stopped,
07:39and they just kept coming. So, it was great to see.
07:44Kentucky edged out. How fitted, Kentucky. Calipari's old team edged out
07:51Oklahoma. Pardon me. A late one again, 85-84. Kentucky with that win to extend its season,
07:59within this tournament, anyhow. Mississippi State and Missouri. We saw number 21,
08:04Missouri, with a comfortable 12-point win in that one. So, again, that gives us Auburn and
08:13Ole Miss, Texas and Tennessee, Florida, Missouri and Alabama and Kentucky.
08:19Some fun games ahead of us, obviously, in the SEC. Over in the Big Ten, very quickly here,
08:25Michigan State, Oregon, UCLA, Wisconsin, Maryland, Illinois and Michigan and Purdue.
08:32That'll be a tight one. How many of those little green backers are going to take the
08:36two and a half today? We'll have a lot more coming your way. Stay with us on Newswire.
08:40Back on Newswire, and our thanks once again to Gil McGregor from Sporting News. A lot of great
08:45stuff in the world of college basketball, where it's going to be a fun-filled, hopefully,
08:50profitable day for people out there. And to heed Gil's advice, a lot of good picks
08:54in the mix. Got to fire away some of mine during the breaks as well. But
08:58as we always do here on Newswire, like to attack the legal world surrounding sports betting. And
09:05here to help us out from the legal sports report is, of course, a frequent guest of the program,
09:10Sam McQuillan. Sam, how are you? Good, Adam. How are you?
09:15I'm doing great. You know, I'm really interested in what we're going to get into here,
09:18especially this first story. You've been, obviously, writing a few articles over the
09:23course of the last week and since the last time you were on, but Major League Baseball and its
09:29pushback against predictive markets. Now, when it comes to, I know there are so many models out
09:36there and algorithms and what have you that people will use to help them with their sports betting.
09:41I don't personally have a model that I have created and curated, but there are certainly
09:46services that I subscribe to that I like to look at predictive data. And that does absolutely
09:52impact the way that I will invest in certain things, because I realized that at the core of
09:56a lot of this stuff, you know, you can bet with your heart if you want to. It's not generally
10:00a good way to make money. It's a numbers game, a lot of this stuff, whether it's going, you know,
10:06toward or against the market or just sort of, you know, leaning into the value of a certain play,
10:10what have you. What's MLB's problem, ultimately, with issues with integrity and the pushback
10:17against people wanting to use this type of approach toward their wagering?
10:23Yeah, yeah. Sort of the genesis of the MLB's argument and kind of everybody who's against
10:29these new prediction models we've seen pop up. These, of course, are the things that look like
10:35sports betting and function like sports betting, but technically do not want to be regulated
10:40as sports betting. These are the prediction markets that companies like Calshi, Crypto.com,
10:45even Robinhood, and another one we'll talk about later, have shown interest in essentially allowing
10:50people to buy into a position of whether or not a team will win something. We saw this first pop up
10:55during the Super Bowl when Calshi and PolyMarket, which have become very well known for allowing
11:00basically election betting, but it's doing it in a way that where it's trading instead of actual
11:06betting. So they're not subject to the same laws. So they've popped up and you have organizations
11:11like Major League Baseball, as well as a lot of the gaming industry, have weighed in ahead of this
11:16roundtable that's coming up where the Commodity Future Trading Commission is going to basically
11:23try to get all their ducks in a row and figure out how to regulate this. Is this sports betting?
11:27Is this market investing? Is it not? And what the MLB is saying right here is, you know, if you allow
11:33this kind of betting to exist that is not technically subject to the same rules and laws
11:38and regulations that our sportsbook partners are, we think it puts the game at risk. We think
11:43basically it allows this market to thrive legally where people are not, you know, adhering to the
11:50same rules and regulations. Of course, we've had a number of scandals in sports pop up throughout
11:56this legal sports betting era. You know, last year it was Shaheo Tani's interpreter was involved in
12:01something sketchy in college basketball. There's been a bunch, but all this stuff gets brought to
12:06the light because we have these rules and regulations for sportsbooks. And what the MLB is
12:10coming out saying here is if we're allowing this to exist without the same rules and regulations
12:14for sportsbooks, we're really worried it can impact our game and open up the door to some
12:18bad actors. The CFTC is going to be holding the roundtable later this month, it's expected. So
12:23we'll see if we get more leagues joining in. But really interesting that a league is actually
12:28chiming in here on the future of this very controversial, recent kind of alternative to
12:34sports betting that doesn't want to be regulated the same way. And of course, one of those books
12:38that you alluded to, DraftKings, where its CEO Jason Robbins has commented recently on the
12:44prediction markets. He's bullish on these prediction markets and is, you know, watching actively just
12:51where all of this goes from a legal standpoint to potentially add this to the DraftKings sportsbook.
12:56What do you expect to see happen here? Yeah, it's really interesting because DraftKings is one
13:01of those companies that basically fought for years to get sports betting legal. They start
13:04off as a fantasy sports platform and they've put in all this work, all this money, all this
13:09investment. You have to go to the states and get legalized, send them fees, taxes, everything.
13:14But now you have this alternative model that's popped up where you don't have to do any of that,
13:18at least so far. You can be in all 50 states and offer a product very similar to sports betting
13:22that is, again, not subject to the same rules, taxes, regulations. So initially,
13:27when this popped up, you had investors thinking about FanDuel, thinking about DraftKings,
13:31thinking about BenMGM, these companies, seeing this as increased competition for them that was
13:35not subject to the same rules. But now what you have here is it came out this week that DraftKings
13:40has actually filed to do this same prediction model where they would be essentially taking
13:46bets, but not legally taking bets. It's allowing people to buy into an investment. So you alluded
13:52to Robin's comments. He said in the past, kind of on the fence, like, oh, it's something we're
13:56looking at. We see it as more of an opportunity than a risk. So if, in fact, these markets are
14:02allowed to persist, we see a company like DraftKings already wanting to get ahead of the
14:07game. We saw a similar thing with fantasy sports last year when pick'em models were under scrutiny.
14:12The game's popularized by prize picks and underdogs, which a lot of people were saying
14:16is basically just sports betting. DraftKings got in on that as well, offering a similar product.
14:21So it's no surprise to see them getting ahead on prediction markets as well. Again, this would
14:25allow them to basically offer sports betting in states like Texas, California, Florida, states that
14:30don't have it where there's a huge market for it. So it's no surprise to see them getting into it.
14:35But it will be very interesting to see how it all checks out at the end of the day. We'll
14:39have to see what the CFTC says. And when, if and when, I guess I should say, one of the major books
14:46like a DraftKings gets involved with this, does it then become kind of a, you know, follow the
14:51leader, floodgates open, everyone else can jump in? I mean, you have another book like FanDuel,
14:57obviously, who we reference here all the time, that's at that same level. But then some of the
15:01other, maybe lesser distributed, lesser known books that, you know, are going to be able to
15:08jump in and be opportunistic with this? Yeah, definitely. I think it's one of those, if you
15:13say this is okay, we're not just going to let our competition do it, we're all going to do it. And I
15:18think one of the ways, one of the reasons that is, is because it's so easy. We saw companies like
15:23Calshi and Crypto.com basically just flip a switch before the Super Bowl, and they took hundreds of
15:29millions of dollars on the game versus a company like BetMGM, for instance, that's just spent $300
15:34million on an investment to try to make their product better. If you can just do this easily
15:39and launch in the States without doing all of that legwork, it's a no-brainer. FanDuel has come
15:44out and said that we want to keep in mind that these are much more rich products we have on our
15:49platform. You can do parlays, you can do tons of things on these sportsbooks that so far you can't
15:53do on these prediction markets. But again, they're very new, and we don't even know if they're
15:56technically going to be legal yet. So we'll have to see how it all shakes out. From a sports betting
16:01standpoint overall, Sam, look, we enjoy it. It's why we're here. It's why we have this content.
16:07We love to be in the space and to have a little skin in the game, a little action, obviously.
16:13Sometimes you always want to be able to curb yourself more than anything else, which is why
16:18all of these books will offer internal options. You could limit your deposits, the amount of
16:28time you spend on an app, whatever types of limits you can put on yourself are right there for you
16:35in terms of just integrity and safety and gaming health, all of it. And it's great that these
16:41things are offered. But what other sort of safe guardrails could be on the way with the sports
16:47betting landscape? Yeah, we saw two lawmakers this week, no coincidence, ahead of March Madness,
16:53which is obviously one of the biggest betting events of the year. You're going to see your
16:57television flooded with ads if you haven't already. These two lawmakers, Paul Tonko and
17:01Senator Richard Blumenthal, reintroduced a bill that they tried to get passed last year called the
17:06Supporting Affordability and Fairness with Every Bet Act. It essentially would add guardrails on
17:11sports betting so they could no longer offer college player props, which we've already seen
17:16a number of states ban and an increasing number move towards. It would limit the use of advertising
17:21between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. to, again, try to restrict its impact on the public. And it
17:27would also not allow sportsbooks to use or it would limit their use of A.I. technology in terms
17:33of how they serve bets. So if I'm a Knicks fan, I always bet on the Knicks. The sportsbook uses
17:37A.I. technology to know that and cater to me bets. So I don't think this act will go anywhere. That's
17:42the big takeaway. But it is a big measuring stick that the federal government wants to push
17:49this out here and try to promote this. And sportsbooks definitely have to stay ahead of all
17:53the responsible and fair gaming practices. So no surprise that they're pushing this again
17:57ahead of March Madness. But here we go. Sam McQuillan is from Leland Sports Report.
18:03Sam, always a pleasure. Thank you, sir.