@WakeUpCall – Sports Betting Ramping Up

Amy talks with American Gaming Association President and CEO Bill Miller about with CFB & NFL starting, people are betting big.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's say good morning now to the American Gaming Association's
President and CEO, Bill Miller. Good morning Bill, Good morning Amy.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
How are you today doing great?

Speaker 1 (00:10):
So, the NFL season kicks off tomorrow, the Eagles hosting
the Dallas Cowboys, and there's a lot of people who
are going to be making bets on these games. What
are we talking about as far as betting?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, first, thanks for having me on this morning, and
it is really exciting. Anytime the NFL season starts is
a great thing for us in the gaming space. What
we're seeing is in research that we released earlier this
week shows that about thirty billion dollars will be wagered
this year legally on sports in the US, and that's

(00:50):
up about eight and a half percent from last year.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
And do your studies or analyses show why acting a
jump of that much, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
A great question. You know, the sports betting is regulated
at state level. Unfortunately, right now in California there is
no legal sports betting, but we're hopeful that it gets
there at some point in the near future. But I
would say that the most important reason that the continued
growth is people want to have fun. They're sports fans.

(01:25):
They've seen now we've been we've had legal sports betting
in America other than Nevada only for about seven years.
And people who gravitated it because gravitated towards it because
it's a fun way to enhance that sports fans experience.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, it is. It is a lot of fun when
you know you've got a little a little skin in
the game and are when you're talking about the sports betting,
is it the traditional like you know, who's going to
win the Eagles or the Cowboys? Or is it also
all kinds of different bets or do you track that?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
We do track that, and what we are seeing is
that you know the sports better. You know, certainly you
know the traditional dynamic of uh, you know who which
team is going to cover a particular spread is still
the kind of one of the baseline bets and then
the over under a total number of points scored. But
then what people have really started to gravitate towards is,

(02:21):
you know, how is a particular player going to do?
How is a quarterback going to how many? How many
touchdowns is it going to throw? Is there you know
a kicker, is it going to make more or less
field goals? And so we are starting to see more
interesting bets that are based around one the team overall performance.
But also Americans love their stars too, and they love

(02:43):
the stars in the sports, and so we're starting to
see more of those bets, and that is that does
account for some of the.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Growth, and Bill, is it. Some of those are like
individuals because I know that my friend's in a fantasy league,
so she's always watching all of her individual players. But
now you can make a bet just like, say, I
this player, and so I want to make a bet
on them when you don't have to do the whole
fantasy league.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
That's that's correct. Obviously, it has to be in a
jurisdiction that has those legal bets, but most of the
legal you know, almost all of the legal jurisdictions do
have bets that you can make on particular players and
those sorts of things, and so it might be, you know,
is a particular quarterback going to throw for more or
less than two hundred and seventy yards and things like that,

(03:28):
and so it's been, you know, a really exciting development
as we continue to further mainstream sports betting. And I
think that you know, obviously, the American public, they love
sports and they love betting on sports.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yes, yes they do, and sometimes people take it a
little too far. So we should probably mention that September
is Responsible Gaming Education Months.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
So what's that about, Well, thank you for bringing that up.
It's so so important. Our operators take responsibility very very seriously.
We're licensed operators, and those licenses are it could be
at risk if we don't behave in a way that
we intend to, and so our operators this allowed Responsible

(04:12):
Gaming Education Month allows us to continue to demonstrate that
responsibility to the public that we serve and ensure that
the betters importantly understand their responsibility. And part of that
is to make sure that they're having fun. There's no
way that there are very very few people in America

(04:32):
that can make a living or a second job as
a sports betting sharp, and so people should remember this
is about fun, it's not a second job, and that
if you think about what does that mean, it's have
a game plan, it's have a budget, stick to the budget,
make sure that what you're doing, you understand that this

(04:53):
is fun and that at the end of the day,
you want to know your odds. You want to know
that if you're actually going to bet on a parlay
that involves two, three, or four things that all four
of those things have to happen in order to get paid.
That you're betting reasonable and small amounts on something like that.
So Responsible Gaming Education Month gives us an opportunity to,

(05:17):
you know, make sure that people understand that our industry
wants people to bet responsibly, wants people to have fun
and to the degree that people ever have problems, and
there's always a small number of people that have problems
with with gaming or other things that you know that
they one connect with have a gameplan dot org and

(05:38):
if they actually have a problem, that they go to
one eight hundred gambler to get assistance.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Okay, and for more information, what's the website again.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, have a gameplan dot org or one eight hundred gambler.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
All right, that's the American Gaming Association President and CEO,
Bill Miller.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Thanks so much, Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
All right, great day. Football season starts tomorrow.