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SportsTranscript
00:00Let's get to this very bizarre, to me, story that you guys have posted at legalsportsreport.com,
00:09which is a new sports betting bill in Minnesota, which is surrounding responsible gaming.
00:13And again, nothing wrong with that.
00:15See it everywhere, happening all over the country and in Canada as well.
00:19But Minnesota does not have legalized sports betting, Pat.
00:22So what kind of responsibility should people be taking if it's all illegal anyway?
00:27I don't get it.
00:29So this is, you're right.
00:32It's an interesting situation in general.
00:34I mean, Minnesota, as we've talked about a lot in the past couple of years, has always
00:38been one of the states that we're looking at to legalize.
00:40It's very close.
00:41It's come very close a couple of years in a row.
00:43However, there's a lot of parties at play here.
00:45It's a very state with a lot of Democrat control and a lot of Republican control there.
00:51And of course, this is an issue that needs bipartisan support because there's a lot of
00:55detractors on both sides.
00:57Getting into this next session that starts next month, we know there will be a couple
01:00bills, one from a Republican senator who has been a proponent and one likely from Zach
01:06Stevenson, a Democrat who has led this process the last couple of years with full Democratic
01:12control.
01:13Now, the House is now in Republican control and the Senate's pretty much 50-50.
01:18So it's going to be even tougher for this to happen.
01:21What's going to throw in another wrench here is the Senator John Marty's bill.
01:26It would enact sports betting, but he's been somewhat of an opponent in the years past.
01:32And there's been times he's introduced amendments that have been criticized by the industry
01:39and said, this will harm our industry if this actually happens.
01:44And yeah, so like he calls sports betting predatory, but he's admitting that it happens
01:50illegally.
01:51So you might as well legalize it.
01:52Let's put in lots of responsible gambling guardrails, I suppose, for lack of a better
01:57term.
01:58And it does that.
02:00Again, the industry probably is not a fan of this bill.
02:04There's again, a lot of guardrails.
02:05It bans in-game betting, college prop bets.
02:10The taxes rate would be 40%, which it's not New York at 51%, but it's very high in comparison
02:16to a lot of other states.
02:20A lot of it is good, of course, because responsible gambling is something we need to champion
02:24and it is very important.
02:25But it is of note that he is an opponent generally to sports betting and his amendments and likely
02:31this bill have raised a lot of concerns from the industry.
02:36So again, it probably won't even get a ton of play.
02:39The other two bills likely will, and then he'll pull these in and maybe get it down
02:44to some amendments.
02:46But I guess that's the thing to look at.
02:48This has been a very tight process the last couple of years.
02:51Last year, it was supposedly right at the finish line and just didn't get a vote.
02:57And it's going to take a lot of compromise.
02:58And so you have to imagine John Marty's responsible gambling concerns will be addressed at least
03:05somewhat and some of these will get folded into a final bill if it all passes.
03:09We'll see.
03:10Again, it's probably the best chance the state has.
03:13But again, it's come very close and failed the last couple of years, so it might again.