0:00 spk_0
Since we last spoke there's been several sports gambling incidents NBA, MLB players betting on sports as an owner of several teams. How, how concerned are you that the integrity of these leagues has been compromised? And then what have you told your teams?
0:19 spk_1
Um, well, certainly we've been, um, front and center in the movement of regulating sports, um.You know, all of this happened in Washington in Washington DC with PASA, uh, Governor Christie was really a central mover on that, and the Supreme Court ruled that you could have legal gaming and gambling.Um, a lot of new tech companies emerged. Some of those we were investors in like a DraftKings, like, um, like, um, Sportradar. And the overall feeling there was that there was a $100 billion of illegal.Gambling being done, and if you could bring that gaming into the sunshine, and you could regulate it, and you could tax it, and you could take care of people who were having issues with, uh, they had a gambling addiction.That it would make this look and feel kind of like Wall Street, right, where you have an SEC and everything is regulated and the technology really is a way to be able to find when there's flaws in the system. That's what I think just happened.I think that the leagues were able to self-report and able to look at anomalies in um in gaming and gambling and that the system worked. Now, unfortunately, because it's such in the spotlight.Um, you know, what happened a couple of weeks ago, it shook us all to the core because fans need to trust that they are seeing real-time competition.And that the outcomes are fair. The outcomes are based on the talents of the franchise and the players and the coaches and that everything is on the up and up. And so I think the way our commissioner and the league responded in the NBA was totally appropriate, but I want to remind everybody, it was our technology that was able to find it and that sports gaming is really moving into the class like Wall Street is where you.Can find something that's happening that is, um, untoward. Um, another part there with the gaming, um, issues in the NBA had nothing really to do with us, and that was the poker games that were being played. Unfortunately, a couple of our former players and a, and a coach had some kind of involvement there, but it had nothing to do with, you know, the actual game itself. So we take this very, very seriously.But this march towards AI, this march towards, um, much stronger analytics, um, I think, um, has proven to beUh, a great prophylactic in the future and certainly the players have to be warned that, um, you know, this is, this is unacceptable and you'll get banned for a lifetime. One of our players, um, who got caught a couple, a year ago, he's banned for life and the dollars that are getting paid to the players is so dramatic. I think that that should be a fair warning to everyone to, uh, play within the rules.