Episode 116

Viral Tax Shock for Sportsbooks: "It's a 25¢ tax on every wager for the first twenty million bets placed. So the first twenty million bets placed on DraftKings in Illinois will face an additional this is in addition to the previous tax that was imposed. An additional 25¢ will be taxed on every single wager. It doesn't matter how big the wager is, 25¢ on the first twenty million. Then it goes to 50¢ for every bet over that 20,000,000 mark."
— Shane Mercer [00:04:19 → 00:04:53]

Highest Sportsbook Tax in the Country: "They're gonna be paying about an equivalent of 57 to 60% tax rate in the state. That makes it the highest, in the country, like, by far."
— Shane Mercer [00:05:56 → 00:06:07]

Illinois Sports Betting Tax Increase Sparks Controversy: "Make no mistake. This discriminatory, punitive, and constitutionally suspect tax increase on legal sportsbooks who have invested more than a billion dollars in the state will be destabilizing for regulated sports betting in Illinois."
— Shane Mercer [00:06:39 → 00:06:55]

Are Casual Bettors Being Penalized?: "Well, then you're penalizing the casual better. We already know sportsbooks don't like the very serious winning players. So who is there? You know, are they gonna just start only focusing on this very specific subset of people who can afford to bet 50, a hundred dollars and lose all the time? And how how many of those people are actually out there?"
— Andrew Pace [00:09:08 → 00:09:30]

Sportsbook Transparency and Limits: "So transparency on their, on their their hold for for their players, has has decreased. And then, FanDuel, a book that has been pretty good to winning players where you get limited to 10%, and you still have money that you can play with. They've limited, that further, in the last month or two here where, you know, if you were able to get 500 down, maybe it's only 250 now, or maybe it's only even 50 now."
— John Wilson [00:10:42 → 00:11:06]

Illinois Betting Limits Could Change: "Yeah, we might see a max, minimum bet size of maybe $10 or something like that in Illinois, rolled out so that, you know, the 50¢ or the 25¢ becomes a little bit more reasonable."
— John Wilson [00:11:55 → 00:12:08]

The Evolution of Sports Betting Taxes: "We wanna legalize sports betting because we know it's an x billion dollar industry where, we are not getting tax. Okay. The tax starts rolling in."
— John Wilson [00:13:57 → 00:14:06]

The Legal Landscape of Sports Betting: "It's the way the company phrases it is that it's, regulated federally by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and that it is a a, a full on financial exchange that offers sports betting, sports sports wagering, or, offers a sports contracts. I think that'd probably be the terminology that they would use. Yeah. That they offer sports contracts. Now right now, it's it's sort of like just main market stuff. They're not offering props and all that others, you know, all all of sort of the derivative markets. But, it's it's it's sort of yeah. It's it's just saying, you know what? We're doing this."
— Shane Mercer [00:16:04 → 00:16:43]

Canada Shut Out: "The whole country, all of Canada can't access it. It's not just Ontario, which for those who know, sometimes Ontario is the one that's just, you know, restricted while the rest of Canada, can participate, but it's actually all of Canada that isn't allowed."
— Shane Mercer [00:16:54 → 00:17:07]

Viral Betting Platform Perks: "A lot of the things that offshore sportsbooks have had for a long time with kind of the, the confidence that, I won't get, screwed by some sort of strange fine print in, like, the selection of the pope if I pick the right pope."
— Andrew Pace [00:17:55 → 00:18:10]

Betting Exchanges vs. Traditional Sportsbooks: "I can go to an exchange for 10¢ less, 15¢ less, of odds, but I can bet almost as much as I want, because there's so much money, especially on some of the major sports markets."
— Andrew Pace [00:19:07 → 00:19:18]

Ohio Cracks Down on Betting Kiosks: "And Ohio's like, why or why do we have these things? Let's get rid of them. And, by the end of this month, they're all gonna be gone. Right? Wow. 93% of them are going to be gone."
— Shane Mercer [00:22:19 → 00:22:28]

Sharp Players and Kiosk Betting: "So the kiosks can attract Sharp players as a general statement. So when you're referencing Ohio and their revenue, well, there's a decent chance that the guys that go and play on them are are clipped on their online accounts. Right? So they go to the kiosk to get to get money down."
— John Wilson [00:24:46 → 00:25:01]

Low betting limits at kiosks in top sportsbooks: "When I go to place a physical ticket on a kiosk at Circa, the limits are so low. And, I personally think that the smaller limits on the kiosk is obviously to to limit risk, for people that, you know, are are are trying to move money through kiosks, making it harder for them for it to be substantial."
— John Wilson [00:25:26 → 00:25:46]

The Truth Behind Sportsbook Commissions: "But if you really know what you're doing, you increase the commission on the markets that you were vulnerable on. You remove the markets that you're vulnerable on or adjust them, but you don't offer minus one thirty on two sides of a money line in a tied hockey game. Like, if anything, as a sports book operator, you should have the understanding and wherewithal to recognize that minus one ten on both sides of that equation, minus one fifteen if you need to, it's okay."
— John Wilson [00:28:12 → 00:28:45]

Sportsbook Bans and Workarounds: "These kiosks are right to be abused by sharp players. And I know I was going to, like, Circa, for instance, even like you said, they have really small limits on the kiosks, but it was faster for me to get 10 different tickets of $200 for something than to go to the guy at the counter who when I when I was betting, like, an obscure college football future. And it's like just trying to get him to get the money in there and find the bet. It was just faster for me to do it that way."
— Andrew Pace [00:29:54 → 00:30:37]

Viral Lawsuit Over Sports Betting Rules: "He's suing them for the $14,000,000 that that he would have won. You know, his name is, Nicholas Babas."
— Shane Mercer [00:32:28 → 00:32:37]

Stanley Cup Showdown: "Florida's got the coaching edge in my opinion in a in a big way. And Edmonton's got the chip on their shoulder. I I don't wanna try to predict this one, but it should be a great series."
— John Wilson [00:38:42 → 00:38:51]

Canadian Talent Shines: "Shay, of course, being from, Hamilton and winning, the season long MVP, which is just amazing."
— Shane Mercer [00:40:54 → 00:40:55]

Can Indiana Outspeed OKC’s Defense?: "The Thunder just take the ball from people, and they have just so many defenders, and they're so good. And they just go on these two minute runs where they the other team can't score, and they score every time. And then there's a six minute stretch where the other team can't score. And the next thing you know, they're up 20 plus points, in what used to be a tie game."
— Andrew Pace [00:45:46 → 00:46:02]

Sports Betting Market Inefficiencies: "So there's five teams in the West, 4 in the East. So I think when they're trying to build out odds to win the title or to make it to the Grey Cup itself, and then they're trying to also put in win totals on that, it just makes it where the market is very inefficient."
— Andrew Pace [00:56:58 → 00:57:11]