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Bill To Ban Sports Betting on Radio

Right, as it's legal in my state, but the feds still claim medical marijuana is illegal...today.
CBD is not equivalent to medical marijuana, It's a hemp derivative that offers the pain relief and relaxation of marijuana but not the high. Medical marijuana is cannabis. It contains THC, which is what gives pot its high.
 
A bill proposed in New York would ban ads for sports betting on licensed radio stations.


Seems to me this is contrary to the purpose of legalized sports betting. The state gets tax money from sports betting that is directed to education, youth sports, and other causes. Ads for sports betting promotes a taxable activity, no different than the state lottery.
Good luck with this, especially when you have numerous radio stations across the country flipping formats to sports betting, which honestly, IMO is a joke, can't sports radio stations handle it themselves?? Also, as a NYer (at least former, having moved to AZ back in July), this is the same state that back at the end of 2015-early 2016 tried to ban DFS which they did for a few months before getting reinstated, so clearly, New York has ppl who seem to want to screw things up to no end!!!
 
This is also potentially a problem in states where CBD (medical marijuana) is legal. Some radio stations have been hesitant to get into CBD advertising.
As already mentioned, CBD comes principally from hemp, not cannabis (although that, too, contains it... but why wast good weed to extract a lower price substance?).

CBD is legal everywhere... although some online retailers, like Amazon, won't sell it even through third parties.

I have lower back pain... my physician at one of CA's best hospital systems, recommended CBD to me for regular relief. My wife asked, "isn't that like marijuana?" and he said, "No, not at all. It comes from the same plant they use to make organic rope!"
 
As already mentioned, CBD comes principally from hemp, not cannabis (although that, too, contains it... but why wast good weed to extract a lower price substance?).

They say it is cannabis. The discussion is about radio advertising, and it's still a vague area, according to this:

 
Money talks, and the sports betting companies are awash in it.
Was listening to a podcast about the evolution of on line sports betting from the NYT, and come to find out, that's apparently not true.
Draft Kings lost almost five billion dollars last year. The other on line sports betting apps had similar losses.
If you go back and look at the beginning, all these sports betting apps started out as fantasy sports betting apps, which at the time, was the way they skirted laws. Eventually through a lot of lobbying, States and leagues began coming around with the promise of new tax revenue. That much lobbying was/is super expensive. Then add in all the TV and other media promotional costs, and expenses skyrocketed over profits.
So, the sports betting apps started out a profitable fantasy sports betting apps, to sports betting apps, and next they hope to evolve into what they believe is the profitable part of gambling; electronic Vegas-style gaming on your phone. Of course expensive lobbying continues behind the scenes with the goal of moving to that next level.
 
I wouldn’t mind if this happened, in my opinion sports betting talk is ruining sports radio. I can’t remember where I read it online, but someone wrote a column with the opinion that when a sports talk host talks odds for a game and a listener bets for or against a team, if the listener loses money they could blame the host and eventually stop listening.
 
They say it is cannabis. The discussion is about radio advertising, and it's still a vague area, according to this:
Who says it is cannabis? It isn't and it does not comes from the hemp plant.

But the broadcast related point is that CBD is not regulated as it has no mood-altering effect. The article is wrong (as is typical for many writings associated with marijuana). CBD is so legal it can be sent by U.S. Mail; I know because I get CBD that way from out of state every month.

A number of pot dispensaries are advertising on radio and TV in my location (Palm Springs, CA market area) but only talking about CBD products. Since the larger user group of CBD is seniors, due to its good arthritis and general pain relief, they are using radio stations with 2mature" audiences and TV news and information shows as well as those channels that can't stop running "Green Acres" and the like.
 
Read the article I linked. It says "cannabis." Not hemp.
And, as I said, all CBD marketed in the US comes from hemp, not cannabis.

Since cannabis is legal in so many states, why would a product you could sell for lots of money be processed to extract a relatively cheap substance while destroying the hallucinogenic properties? (You can't extract CBD from cannabis and leave the narcotic substance(s) to be marketed separately).

As I said, a lot of people do not understand what CBD is, including most elderly state and national legislators.
If you don't believe the article, here is a link to a series of articles written by broadcast law expert David Oxenford:
Oxenford is justn downright wrong, as is typical of many people his age who are sailing in uncharted waters. His article starts by talking about "cannabis" and then mentions CBD. CBD is not a narcotic. CBD in the US comes from hemp... the stuff that non-synthetic rope is made of. It is totally legal everywhere.
Oxenford says broadcasters should wait for a law that allows them to broadcast ads for CBD.
And he mistakenly, five years ago, thought that CBD is a narcotic and is part of marijuana. As marketed in the US, it is 100% legal, can be sent in the US mail and can be sold even in states where marijuana is not legal in any form.
 
The FDA says it comes from cannabis:
Yes, it can be extracted from cannabis, and in not economically productive amounts from several other plants. But essentially all of the CBD sold in the US comes from hemp due to cost considerations.
That article is well on its way to being a decade old. And it rightly says, “This approval serves as a reminder that advancing sound development programs that properly evaluate active ingredients contained in marijuana can lead to important medical therapies."

The reference in the article is to substances contained in cannabis that are medically therapeutic. It does not even consider the primary source of commercially marketed CBD in the US, which is hemp.

In fact, the article is so outdated that it says, "Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), CBD is currently a Schedule I substance because it is a chemical component of the cannabis plant."

Just plain wrong. I need Chuck Barris to come back with his Gong Show and hit the device really hard.

CBD is not a Schedule I substance, and it never has been. In that sense, the article is completely inaccurate in its interpretation of controlled substances. A big "fail" in fact checking by whomever wrote the FDA article so long ago.


Getting back to radio, this means that CBD can be freely advertised on radio. However, many ill-informed stations, as well as even merchandisers like Amazon, stay away from advertising it or selling it due to the enormous misunderstanding of the substance that still exists.
 
This is just stupid. In the 2000s, offshore gambling sites were advertising on TV in the US. Years before online gambling was first legalized in NV and NJ.
 
If all that is propping up Radio is gambling advertising, then it's future is bleak. Gambling addiction is on the rise. Look at communities that have opened casinos thinking it will boost the local economy. It actually hurts other businesses resulting in a net loss.

The professional sports leagues used to distance themselves from gambling. They wanted to protect the "integrity" of the games. Now you have the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. It's very easy for players, referees, and casinos to "shave points" and manipulate the outcome of games & point spreads. It generates huge revenue, so the leagues no longer care...
Gambling is big business, and it's been around for decades. Tribal casinos, many which include sports betting, make their tribes a lot of money (although there have been recent articles in the NYT and elsewhere indicating that sports betting online is cutting into tribal gambling revenues).

Sports betting is big business. The NFL seems to have a partnership with at least one fantasy football operation that includes sports betting. Sports betting ads are on regular Sports Talk radio.

I understand your concern about gambling addiction. But if gambling is legal, then it's legal. Not so sure that gambling will lead -- or has led -- to games being thrown. I suppose if and when that happens that will be big news, and who knows where that could lead.
 
Short proposed law. Pretty wide encompassing. Covers any electronic communication medium under the jurisdiction of the FCC. So it's obviously covering OTA TV, too.

What is interesting to me is that I know I've heard ads for tribal casinos on the local and regional radio stations. How is that any different, really?

And it really comes back to whether the activity is legal or not. And how damaging is sports betting? I heard talk on Sports radio after the Super Bowl that there was betting galore during that event -- not at the stadium itself, but there was plenty of betting off-stadium, as Arizona is a sports betting state. I also read about it in the news press.


Last year, in 2022, there was $180 million bet on the Super Bowl in Nevada alone.:

That's a fairly large chunk of change.
 
I understand your concern about gambling addiction. But if gambling is legal, then it's legal. Not so sure that gambling will lead -- or has led -- to games being thrown. I suppose if and when that happens that will be big news, and who knows where that could lead.
At least so far, professional athletes today are far more honest than their counterparts of 100+ years ago, when there were far more players, mostly in baseball, throwing games for money. The 1919 Chicago White Sox, aka the "Black Sox," were the tip of the iceberg. They just got caught (even though they weren't all crooked). I'm really more concerned about officials being on the take than players.

Kennesaw Mountain Landis is spinning in his grave.
 
Good luck with this, especially when you have numerous radio stations across the country flipping formats to sports betting, which honestly, IMO is a joke, can't sports radio stations handle it themselves??
A lot of sports talk shows include some talk about sports betting. Scott Ferrall did so when he was still on CBS Sports Radio in the mid to late 2010s. And I've heard sports betting talk on some sports talk shows, although they don't get lost in the weeds talking about it. You can also hear ads for sports betting / fantasy football betting operations on some sports talk shows and stations.

KGO San Francisco, when it flipped to sports betting talk, has a lot of regular sports talk programming, so at least some of the sports betting talk stations probably have a mix. They almost have to, because the shows that concentrate on sports betting talk alone are fairly dull to listen to.
 
The UK has bet shops everywhere, dozens of internet betting services, betting not only on sports but on politics, award shows, contests, everything short of whether the sun will rise in the east or west. It hasn't ruined the fabric of society or (AFAIK) cast millions of souls into the lake of fire. It's only our country's Puritanical attitude toward gambling that has kept this profitable and enthusiastically requested and supported entertainment option down for so long. Lawmakers need to stop inserting their own hang-ups and repressions into the lives of other adults. My state of Vermont has yet to legalize sports betting, although it does allow betting on horse racing, which I appreciate. I look forward to the day Vermont joins the movement to send Puritanism to the dustbin of history, where it richly deserves to be.
 
The UK has bet shops everywhere, dozens of internet betting services, betting not only on sports but on politics, award shows, contests, everything short of whether the sun will rise in the east or west. It hasn't ruined the fabric of society or (AFAIK) cast millions of souls into the lake of fire. It's only our country's Puritanical attitude toward gambling that has kept this profitable and enthusiastically requested and supported entertainment option down for so long. Lawmakers need to stop inserting their own hang-ups and repressions into the lives of other adults. My state of Vermont has yet to legalize sports betting, although it does allow betting on horse racing, which I appreciate. I look forward to the day Vermont joins the movement to send Puritanism to the dustbin of history, where it richly deserves to be.
It's not the average person who bets on sports or anything else that's the problem. It's the high rollers who bet tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and may have access to teams, players, and officials. So far, we've had no issues. So far. But as I said, corruption was rampant in the distant past. No reason why such "activities" couldn't happen again.
 
It's not the average person who bets on sports or anything else that's the problem. It's the high rollers who bet tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and may have access to teams, players, and officials. So far, we've had no issues. So far. But as I said, corruption was rampant in the distant past. No reason why such "activities" couldn't happen again.
Major League Baseball survived the 1919 World Series. College basketball has survived lord knows how many point-shaving scandals, many of which likely never were discovered. The NBA survived the crooked ref, Tim Donaghy, and the other-worldly "coincidence" that resulted in 21 straight deciding games in playoff series being won by the home team. The NFL has made sure that any incidents it may have had were buried without a trace. Soccer, tennis, boxing, cricket -- all with histories of fixes revealed, covered-up or still happening today. I've probably bet on numerous horse races that haven't been on the up-and-up in my 50 years of following the game. I'm sure I won more than a few of those bets and thought I'd done so through my handicapping skills and intuition, not because someone fixed the outcome -- because whoever did the fixing forgot to tell me. It's all part of living, you take it warts and all.
 
At least so far, professional athletes today are far more honest than their counterparts of 100+ years ago, when there were far more players, mostly in baseball, throwing games for money. The 1919 Chicago White Sox, aka the "Black Sox," were the tip of the iceberg. They just got caught (even though they weren't all crooked). I'm really more concerned about officials being on the take than players.

Kennesaw Mountain Landis is spinning in his grave.
Not sure what data you used to establish that. 100 years ago, players were paid very little. Even in the 1970s many NFL players had to take jobs in the off-season. It's only in the last 20 years that player salaries have skyrocketed.

Pete Rose was banned for life for betting on his own team.
I'm sure there are many instances of players "shaving points" that have not been exposed. A kicker could miss a field goal on purpose and take home a nice payday from the casinos. That's just one possibility. You already mentioned the referees. It's very naive to think that todays players are more virtuous than decades ago...
 
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