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SportsTranscript
00:00All right, so as we await Missouri's decision on the ballot in November, we get this updated
00:08story that there is a chance, at least a chance, that maybe another state, either at the end
00:14of this year or next year, legalizes sports betting.
00:17Let's focus on Oklahoma today.
00:18Good morning.
00:19Thanks for coming on.
00:20Yeah.
00:21Good morning, Craig, as always.
00:22Great to be here.
00:23Yeah.
00:24I mean, first, let's touch on Missouri for a second.
00:25A new poll came out over the night, 52% of Missouri voters are in favor of the issue.
00:32So that continues to trend in the right direction for Missouri voters who want sports betting.
00:37Now on Oklahoma, I just got off the phone with Senator Bill Coleman, who does anticipate
00:45introducing a new bill again this, well, next year, I guess, this next session.
00:51He has in the past.
00:53He really just said it's to start the conversation, or I guess keep the conversation going.
00:57The bills have not done very much in the past.
01:00One has cleared the House, but there's just a lot of issues kind of in the way.
01:06Most notably is there's 39 recognized tribes in Oklahoma, and everything related to gaming
01:12has to pass through them.
01:14And right now there's a rift between Governor Kevin Stitt and the tribes, and even some
01:20of the Republican lawmakers of his own party, Stitt's own party.
01:24And so this, this Coleman tells me is really just to keep the conversation going, bring
01:28all the stakeholders, keep them all at the table in talking about this and figure out
01:34where it goes.
01:36He doesn't have a ton of details at the moment because it's really a conversation that needs
01:41to be had to fully understand what that landscape is going to be.
01:47He said with 39 tribes, are all the online sports books going to be geofenced to their
01:54tribal lands?
01:55In one sense, the Chickasaw tribe land includes the Thunders Arena.
02:01So does that kind of make other tribes upset that there's this, if anything has to go through
02:07them and then the Thunder, that that's a pretty big partnership in Oklahoma there.
02:11So there's a lot of things to iron out in Oklahoma, but the conversation is continuing.
02:16It is staying active.
02:18And that's Coleman's big goal there in Oklahoma.
02:23He says, you know, money's leaving the state.
02:26That's his biggest reason for wanting to do this.
02:29You know, it's pretty much fully surrounded except for Texas.
02:32And now keep in mind, he is an Oklahoma lawmaker, so he's not fully into the Texas situation,
02:37but he fully expects them to be coming online fairly soon.
02:40They meet again next year, they meet every two years, and he seems to think they're trending
02:45towards legalizing.
02:46So that would be another big push in Oklahoma.
02:49So again, not a ton of details, but the conversation's going and that's more than you can say in
02:55a lot of other states that haven't legalized yet.