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SportsTranscript
00:00Okay, so let's start off here. We found out that finally, we're going to have a new state that
00:05looks like they're inching closer and closer to legalizing sports betting in Hawaii. The next
00:11step is going to a conference committee to determine as to how much closer this gets.
00:17You'll have to enlighten our viewers here of what this conference committee actually is.
00:21Yeah, so Hawaii is one of those states that, you know, as we entered the legislative session,
00:26nobody had it on their radar. They're one of two states without any form of legalized gambling.
00:31The industry kind of just kind of puts it on the back burner and just says, if something happens,
00:35something happens. And sure enough, this year, it has taken, it took off. In the past, the furthest
00:41a sports betting bill got was through a house committee. This year, it's gotten through the
00:46house, went to the Senate, got through the Senate. And interestingly enough, now it's back in the
00:51house or it was back in the house and they declined to concur with the amendments that the Senate made.
00:57So now it has to go to a conference committee. What's interesting here is during the house
01:02discussions, you know, they, they stripped the license fee and tax rate from the bill to spur more
01:10discussion. You had a couple of representatives saying, you know, this is too low for an industry
01:16that makes so much money. Like we need to get more money out of this. And so then it goes to the
01:20Senate, they discuss it. And in the final Senate committee, they put back the original tax rate
01:26and license fee of 10%. And I think it's $250,000 for a five-year license. So that goes back to the
01:32house. The house says, wait, we stripped this out because we wanted to talk about this and change it.
01:37And so now it's going to the conference committee. So that's what they're going to be talking about
01:40in the conference committee is, you know, can we bring up the tax rate a little, or can we increase
01:45the license fee a little and get it there? Um, and you know, this is a speed bump in this big state
01:52that we haven't talked about much in the past because it's, it's never gotten remotely close
01:57to this. And this is a big Cinderella story, as I mentioned, uh, for this industry, because again,
02:03just a state that nobody talks about. So this is a minor speed bump, a conference committee,
02:07you know, you have other states where, you know, we've gone to conference committee, uh, you know,
02:13say Alabama, which we'll talk about, uh, you know, later this week, probably again. Um,
02:18and it just dies. Um, I don't think that's the case here. I think there's plenty of appetite as
02:23we've seen it passing both chambers. Um, but certainly some things to iron out and certainly
02:28not a done deal, but governor Josh green does appear to signify that he will sign it if it does
02:34get through the conference committee. So yeah, a few things to iron out, but a huge surprise for the
02:39industry, if this does get through that final, uh, push here. Okay.