2022-09-12-podcast

    8:53PM Sep 7, 2022

    Speakers:

    Keywords:

    wager

    casinos

    sports wagering

    state

    kansas

    lottery

    people

    gaming

    kiosk

    sports

    players

    number

    platforms

    money

    game

    bet

    running

    bill

    entities

    legislature

    We should feel fortunate, or perhaps lucky to have with us Stephen Terrell, Executive Director of the Kansas Lottery. He's going to help us dive into the onset of legal sports gambling in Kansas. The legislature struggled with this policy issue for years as other states piled on to what used to be the domain of Las Vegas. Now, maybe about two dozen states have sports wagering. Mr. Terrell, welcome to the Kansas reflector.

    Hey, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

    I appreciate you doing this. So Governor Laura Kelly, placed the first wager under the new law September 1. And with the opening bell, she dropped 15 bucks in the Kansas City Chiefs to win the NFL Super Bowl wise or foolish?

    Yeah, I think it's wise. I'm not sure she didn't bet on them to make the playoffs. I didn't know it. I don't remember she wager to make them actually have the Oh, I thought she wager to have them make the playoffs. I was

    hedging. She was hedging on her Kensi cheese fandom.

    She's being a responsible gamer. She's not she's not overdoing overplaying her hand, so I don't know. I'll have to double check on that. But she did certainly place a wager 15 bucks on the chiefs in some capacity. And of course, the $15 was an honor of fit number 15 Patrick mahomes

    The quarterback? Yeah, the franchise quarterback Neva. Alright, so get serious again. So you may have some preliminary statistics of Kansas has interest in sports wagering, legal betting? And what do we know so far?

    Well, you know, we launched you know, we had a soft launch. As of today's date, about almost a week ago, we launched on at noon on the first and trying to come up with an accurate representation in that amount of time of where we are wagering wise and revenue wise, is just really difficult, because obviously with the platform's having a lot of their promotional incentives to try to get people in there to wager, a lot of that would be reflected in the win loss column, essentially, because it counts is money that they're now earning. And that's money that they're spending. So as we get further out, you know, in the weeks up coming, it'll be a much clearer picture of where we are on on wagering and who's earning Watts and how the money is being distributed throughout the statutory requirements. But right now, it looks like you know, wagering is a very healthy venture right now in the state. I heard sort of anecdotally that. In this is just this actually, you know, forgive me for quoting another reporter, but another reporter quoted me today that, like said almost 7% of the population in the state of Kansas is registered to place a sports bet at this point. You're kidding. That's the number that they were thrown around. I don't know if that's true or not. I literally just heard about an hour ago and haven't had a chance to check. But that seems to be the number that's been used by certain certain companies anyway, so we'll have to wait and determine whether or not that's true.

    Okay, that would be amazing already.

    Yeah. I don't know if that's true or not. I mean, it seems like a pretty high number in that first week. But if you think about all the people that were wagering, as we talked about illegally, before sports, wagering became legal, and then all the folks that are now able to wager legally in the state on any number of variety things and the people that are out of state that want to come over and wager, particularly from Missouri, from Oklahoma, from Nebraska and coming over and wagering, just crossing state line placing their wager and going home. That number is pretty considerable, considering the Nebraska Missouri Oklahoma

    I mean, the potential is huge, because you have the Kansas City Market, but also southwest Kansas. You have you have the Pittsburgh casino down there. Yeah,

    absolutely.

    So to clarify, some of these casinos, there are four state owned casinos. Correct. Two of them are operational in this.

    All four of them have their mobile applications up and some of them have more than one mobile application running. The in house sports wagering what you would consider would be a typical sports book like envision in Vegas, those are up and running into the Hollywood casino at Kansas speedway. And then Kansas star casino south of Wichita. Both of those are up and running the other two, Boot Hill and Dodge City and Kansas crossing in Pittsburgh. They are in envisioning getting those done within the next I what we've been told is three, four, maybe five weeks so they're they're definitely rolling towards getting there quickly done.

    Okay. All right. So let's back up a little bit. The law says the for so called state owned casinos can city dodge Mulvane, Pittsburgh, are engaged in the sports betting enterprise, the tribal casinos which exist in Kansas, maybe several they can participate in in this too, but they can they need to negotiate with a state just like their original casinos were brought into the correct there

    are two avenues that we are determining into the the issue. I think that anybody who reads tenability Four will have is there's a lot of gray area instability for and what the legislature intended particularly for casino wagering and then particularly for what they later call marketing entities, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a little bit and then also Kansas City sporting and Kansas speedway. There's a lot of that didn't really drill down down into exactly what they meant. So we're trying to fill in a lot of the blanks as we go with the tribal casinos, they made it very clear that they had to renegotiate the four compacts that the tribes have with the state, okay because they expressly prohibit sports wagering, and particularly, they are prohibited specifically from offering sports wagering traditional lottery and paramutual racing, which is what you would expect when the time that the compacts were created. So the legislature gave the tribes the opportunity if they asked for compact renegotiations to allow sports wagering those they could then in some way, shape or form start to offer sports wagering whether or not it's going to be able to be on reservation at their individual casinos, whether it's a mobile application or via, you know, the entire state. There's, there's a lot of gray area, we're still trying to fill in there, because you know, like anything when you read, you know, when you read something, a lot of people come back with different opinions about what it is that you may or may not be entitled to. So we're trying to work that out. We obviously value our tribal partners as a way to be able to have sports wagering in some way in the future. But exactly how and when that's going to work is what we have to do. Now. If you read the bill that, you know, the if the if the tribes have the ability to offer sports wagering statewide, like you just said, in a way that is very comparable to the for casinos, the state owned and operated gaming at the casinos, but what we call our casino partners, then they have to have a contract that's substantially the same or similar to what the contract with the water gave to the casino has to be so whatever it is that the tribes end up with, if that's the route that we end up going, what you see with other casinos have right now is going to be very similar to with a try

    similar format. Yeah, alright, just to say out loud, who regulates all of this,

    the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission is the regulator of all, all of that gaming. The you know, it's, I'm sure your listeners know, because they're very savvy, the Kansas is very different in that, for gaming to operate in the state gambling specifically, it has to be stayed on and operated. So therefore the state owns and operates the traditional lottery, they own and operate we own and operate the casino gaming with our casino partners being hired to handle the day to day activities, the management of those facilities, the casinos, what you would think of, and now then with sports wagering through the casinos, and then the mobile platforms. So the lottery owns, you know, the state owns and operates all of that gaming through the lottery. So the lottery owns and operates the traditional lottery and regulates the traditional lottery, owns and operates casino gaming, and then owns and operates now sports wagering, the Kansas racing Gaming Commission, who was very good at what they do, and have been very good at trying to get this done in a very short amount of time. Regulate traditional casino gaming, and now they also regulate sports wagering. So they are the regulators, the lottery is the owner and operator. So that's the

    state tax rate on this of the

    tax rate is, well, it's not really a tax rate. It's more of a I mean, I've heard 10% thrown around is sort of the number. You know, the the numbers are pretty clear in how you know, the you know, 95% of of wager money in sports wagering goes back to the players. I mean, that's statistically true across all sports books. That sounds high, it is very high a lie. It's it's a very high return to players in in, in sports wagering probably the highest in in most gambling. So if only 5% is kept as a hold. And so the state gets a percentage of the whole with a percentage and most of that percentage goes into the casinos and or the sporting platforms for running in business. Yeah, running the business and and as the legislature, it's certainly a certain number of legislators said was they didn't want the state to quote unquote, take the risk of, you know, big losses or anything, and that's why the the casinos and or the platforms are are doing the day to day active. Sorry, we can't fix those potholes anymore. Took it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The bond the the Kansas City Royals, the Penn State game on us. Yeah, for sure. But I understand. I understand the legislature is concerned about that. I mean, I think that, you know, there are states out there that the lotteries do run sports wagering, and I think that if you look at any, it's like any gaming, you know, there may be days that are bad days for the casinos, or for the lottery where we pay out, you know, there are days where we pay out, you know, $10 million for the traditional lottery, and we're definitely gonna take a loss that day for a winter horse, you know, but, but in the days that, you know, and so that that day looks really bad. But if you consider, you know, all of the other revenue that we're running the rest of the year, it balances out in the end, and I think that goes the same. That's the same with

    Kansas Lottery pumps money, millions of dollars into the general state treasurer. Yes, for sure. So what is the expectation about maybe the annual rate of state revenue for this maybe more as it builds and grows? Yeah.

    I think that the way that you know, the problem that we had when this whole thing was discussed it back during the legislative session was that the numbers that were expected or proposed were all over the board. Some of them were just ridiculous, some of them were reasonable. And some of them were very conservative. And we always sort of erred on the cost side of conservative because we just don't know what was going to happen. I mean, I think that if you'd asked in 2019, what the, you know, what lottery or what casino numbers were going to be in 2020. The numbers, you know, were considerably, you know, they proposals were considerably higher than turned out to be because unexpected consequences of the pandemic, but COVID Yeah, and so, you know, I think that we always tend to err on the side of caution. And that was, so those are the numbers that we stuck with throughout sort of the process, and we can get you those numbers. That's not a problem. And but we've we have not varied off of the numbers that we originally kind of stuck with during the legislative, you know, our fiscal note and everything, you think a few million dollars a year and yeah, it's not going to be considerable. You know, the the money that the state earns from sports, wagering is not going to be huge. I mean, it's never I don't think it was designed to be the way that the bill was designed. It's it's, it's pretty, you know, again, you know, with risk, comfort reward and the legislature made the decision that less risk, less reward.

    Yeah. So part of the motivation of this was that there was so much black market, sports betting true. Any idea how much illegal gambling is going on? Well, I can't

    I mean, you hear numbers, you know, worldwide about, you know, you know, multibillion dollar a year industry. And I think that there was clearly evidence that there were the illegal wagering going on in the state, prior to Senate Bill 84 being passed, and then before becoming online, and I'm sure there's still illegal wagering going on now with people that don't want to go through the state system or go through a traditional casino or, or platform. So what it is in Kansas? I don't know. And I think that we are definitely going to make a dent in that for sure. But I don't think that any, you know, there's no reasonable way that illegal gaming is going to go away completely. But I do think that there is a reassurance in for the player in that if you place a wager with the four plat or the six platforms or the four casinos, you know, you're gonna get paid if you win, as opposed to some of the offshore, you know, industries out there that you know, you may get paid, you may not get paid. And so I think that there's

    that too much of a risk to that offshore business to me. Yeah, I'm pretty conservative. I for sure. I'm not a I probably bought five lottery tickets in my life, what I won 10 bucks once and then forgot to turn it in.

    We had to work on come on, you know, we'd have to work on your traditional lottery. That's the will. Before we get done, we'll have a conversation about you know, some of the fun games that we've got. Yeah. So

    I fantasize about winning millions of dollars. But absolutely. So let's explain what it would be like the experience of somebody engaging in sports wagering, let's start with the in person, let's just say I walked into the Hollywood casino up in Kansas, Kansas, and I walk up to a counter, I presume that's a way to where there

    are I have not been to the Kansas City casino yet their grand opening was last Thursday, and I had a prior commitment when I had agreed to be on a panel discussion. I agreed two months ago. So it was like one of those things I just couldn't get out of. And so I have not been in the casino yet. But we did have people there. And of course the governor was there. And then of course, Kansas star as well as open but will the way in their grand opening, by the way is tomorrow the eighth and they're going to have a ribbon cutting I think Jordy Nelson K State, you know, football player. I've heard of it. Yeah, I figured he probably had. But the way it works is is that they have a number of kiosks where you can go and you can place your wagers or you can use the Barstool Sports app that they that they have at hospitals just

    not not lose people here. There's a kiosk, right? So it could be done electronically without actually talking to a person at a kiosk. Correct. And what I'm familiar with is more of the Vegas, I bet you could walk up to somebody and say I want ABS I want to put $20 on the Dodgers winning a World Series and the guy punched out a couple tickets. Right. And that was it.

    Yep, absolutely. And I think that some of the casinos as they open are going to have actually and I think that there are definitely help desks you know, for people that don't want to use the kiosks as they go forward. There's actually counts for help if they want to. And you of course have what you would typically envision you know, for the Las Vegas style sports book, you know, there's TVs everywhere there's some nice seats and we had a conversation with them on gosh, I guess this is Wednesday. It was just yesterday we had a conversation with them about you know over the weekend they had so many people in person there that wanted to sit and watch the games that they're going to have to expand the number of seats and their TVs and that sort of thing. So it it definitely

    might be a kiosk now all right all right so let's just stay inside the casino you could electronically bet on sports sir while standing in a scene, right so so right now it's isolated to those buildings if you want to do this in person thing correct. If you if you're not a big tech now Would you person, you might do it through online methods true. So explain how that online part might work.

    There are three the four casinos there are six platforms that the state has approved as online sports wagering vendors platforms, and they were chosen by the casinos and they had to contract with the casinos. For that purpose, the state's job in that in this situation, we had three duties, we had to come to a contractual agreement via an amendment to the contracts to allow sports wagering with the casinos, then we had to approve whatever agreements that casinos had with the sports platforms to make sure that they weren't somehow, you know, trying to bind the state as an example to some you know, unholy you know, Alliance of, you know, the state shall pay all our losses kind of thing. And nobody did, of course, and so all the agreements were fine. And then the key of this receiving Gaming Commission had to pass backgrounds on all of the six vendors. So provisionally, they did that I think, the same week that they went live on the first so all three of those things happen and so we were ready to flip the switch and we did and so if a player wants to play they can go to any one of those six platforms and they are keep having to remember these off the top of my head FanDuel DraftKings Barstool Sports. Let's see here. Bet MGM Caesars and points back. And so they can pick any one of those six or multiple versions of those so that any that we have players, I know they would have an account. Yeah, you just have an account, you sign up like you would any other application. And you depending on the application, there are certainly incentives that people could be offered, you know, if you, if you play $5, with us, we'll give you X number of dollars to play or if you play, you know, we're going to give you X number of dollars just for signing up. And you so right now,

    there's a lot of Yeah, competition among these entities to try to get a brand loyalty. Absolutely.

    And but if you notice, I mean, the interesting thing is, is that, like I said, a lot of players will sign up with multiple platforms for the opportunity to wager on any number of different things. Now, a lot of the platforms are bound by what is known as the betting library or the gaming catalog, which is what the state is approved for. The types of games and the wagers that can be placed as an example,

    talking about the distinction between I bet on this team to win or in game betting, like that, the next play will pass.

    Yeah, and even more than that, it's wager, you know, type sports leagues from around the world. I mean, I, one of the things that I discovered was that there were a heck of a lot more sports leagues and types of games out there that people wanted to wager on than I ever imagined. And, you know, Korean and Japanese baseball was a lot more popular as a wagering entity than I ever realized. But yeah, people that are placing wagers obviously on Premier League Soccer, for sure, Britain, you have European soccer, you have Spanish, but it goes all the way down to, you know, regulated leagues in you know, in Far East Far East, in Eastern European countries and places like that. So that's a part of the gaming catalog. And you know, so we had to go through that process of, okay, are all of these regulated leagues or all these things are just not some guy in his backyard calling, you know, balls and strikes for a game? So it's, it's worked out well, and we weren't sure that that was going to be done by the first but it was and so we all so people can look at that when they get on the sports book, when they get on their app, and they can make you know, most people are going to make the determination that we're going to wager on what you would expect major league baseball, college football, pro football, pro basketball, NHL, that sort of thing. But there are other people out there that really want to wager on other things, and they they find it entertaining to Okay, I'm gonna lacrosse. Yeah, I'm gonna Yeah, exactly. I'm going to wager on something and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna find a way that I can watch that game and it's an entertainer. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get on my computer. I'm gonna find a way to watch that game live. I don't care if it's at 330 in the morning, I'm watching that game. You know, there are people that just enjoy that as a as an entertainment,

    say some of the limitations. If you're placing an online bet, do you have to be on Kansas soil to do it? You can't necessarily bet from Florida.

    No, you can't even if you're a Kansas resident, you actually have to be physically located within the state. So we've already had AP AP know that. Yeah, it does. geofencing actually knows that. And it's so sophisticated that it knows exactly where you are across the country. Yeah, pretty well. I'll give you a fun story. And this is this is a true story that we had and that is another anecdotal story. But we had a guy who is located over on State Line Road on the Kansas side and he called and said, I can't I'm having trouble wagering he says I can only wager if I go to my backyard where I'm away from, you know, from State Line Road and it's like well watch Gotta turn down the volume because, you know, he was just he was so close to the state line, the geofencing was saying, No, you have to be in Missouri. Sorry. And so the he would be, he'd just literally get up, walk through his back of his house, far away, and then he could place it. Alright, but but there are I will say, you know, along that line there, you know, apparently and this was reported by another news agency that I haven't again, no verification of this. But I mean, there was like 16 or 17,000 people in Missouri that tried to place wagers over the weekend on the on Kansas apps, either just to see they could do it or they didn't understand how it works.

    Right. Yeah, sure. There's a lot of people don't understand the rules. You're gonna have to drive across a straight line. Yeah. Age Limit. $21 cap on bid.

    That's it depends on the on the application, you have to look on the application. There are some that definitely have dollar wagers they have minimum wage and they have a maximum wage. It depends on the wager, it depends on the on the platform. And it depends on the sport. Some will accept wagers up to, you know, example $500,000 on a sport some will say it takes two now way out of my league, but there are people out there that you know that have that that money expendable income. Yeah. And it's like, yes, you're

    gonna bet that kind of money, you gotta be willing to lose every now now. Yeah, it's,

    you know, it's a course. And it's, you know, people out there, you know, we view this sort of stuff as just like every other entertainment resources and entertainment, it's a span of an entertainment dollar if you you're trying to spend it to, you know, cover your your rent.

    Not a good idea. Don't mention marketing entities. And I think what are you talking about the potential of having these kiosks at Sporting Kansas City?

    Yeah, the bill authorizes each one of the four casinos to have what a 250? What are called marketing in both Yeah, okay. And they also then include on top of that, Casey sporting and in the Speedway and in that so there's two other

    talks about like the American Legion could Yeah, affiliate with one of these casinos.

    Correct? And yeah, you're right, exactly, that there's a percentage of those, those marketing entities that has to be attributed to fraternal organizations. So again, this is one of those things that in the law is a bit it's a bit gray, how that's supposed to work. And so, you know, the restaurants and the bars and the taverns and that sort of thing that want to work with the casinos to have a marketing agreement to offer sports wagering in house for them, whether it be a kiosk in certain occasions, or through the mobile app, just through a, you know, hey, if you want to come to the restaurant on Thursday nights, we're working with Hollywood, and you know, we'll give you you know, they're gonna pay for, you know, a round of drinks, and we're gonna pay for you know, and an appetizer and we're gonna give you a certain amount of percentage on using the barstool sporting book app.

    So that'd be it'd be a big thing in sports bars.

    Yeah, it depends on you know, we're just, again, we're trying to figure out how it works, because there's only 200 of them. And, you know, how do you then, you know, shoehorn all of the people that, you know, entities that might want to be interested in this into that 200? You know, group, how do we do it? And so we're, we're trying to drill down with that. But the problem is that the law was very clear that the casinos had to be up and operating first, because all of those marketing agreements go through the casinos in the agreements go through them. So

    you want the the baseline organization to function properly before you start at zero in the

    spiderweb? Absolutely. Yeah, it was, yeah. Didn't want to overcomplicate it right away.

    So opponents of all this raised arguments that were raised no doubt when the Kansas Lottery was approved many years ago. And that's about problem gambling, or is there a concern about exacerbating those addictions?

    I think that that's a reasonable concern that you need to be you know, anytime that you are, you know, yes. I mean, there's you should have to be concerned about, you know, problem gaming in any sort of environment, whether it be traditional lottery, whether it be casino gaming, or whether now be sports wagering, there's always a potential for that, and I can give the state credit and the fact that the lottery the casinos, and now sports wagering gives a percentage of their income to the problem gaming an addiction, it's fun to have those resources available to people that are going to hit that level of okay, maybe this is something I shouldn't be doing. Maybe I need to research a way to try and not do this as much. And also then of course, there is at the traditional casinos, you have the voluntary exclusion list, which you can sign up for, you can opt out yourself. Me right and you can opt out right now you can opt out of sports gaming at the traditional if you're on the exclusion list at Hollywood and Kansas star, then you're automatically on the sports wagering list for the sports books that are in house you have to sign you'll have to sign up separately if you want to try to do it online. So we're working towards that slowly but surely to getting people those resources

    to refresh my memory if I'm if I put myself on that list. Can I not get into the casinos? Or do can I just not wager you? Can

    you what the way it works? And this is a Racing and Gaming question because they're the ones who are responsible for handling the voluntary exclusion list. But the way I remember it understands this is sort of a decade ago, that you put yourself on the exclusion list. And you are basically agreeing that if you go into the casino that you can be charged with trespassing, oh, after the fact. And so you're agreeing not to come and you're not to play and you can then also be asked to forfeit your winnings. Should you have any, and so they try to keep you out by removing the incentives for you being there. And so it might be good, but not that good. Yeah. And there are a number of people and again, we can get you a list of you know, that's again, it's more of a racing gaming question. But we do get sort of statistics from them every year about how many people and where they are, and how, you know, the age ranges of people who are on those lists.

    So developments law took a number of years, other states bypass started and finished for Kansas. So what were some of the political hiccups of this just, it's complicated. It's it is very private business. It's government. It's,

    I think, all of those things. And I think that, like I mentioned before, you know, that Kansas being very unique that we have to own and operate the gaming. And then of course, we have, you know, existing relationships with other casino partners that have gone on for, you know, well over a decade now. And of course, they felt that they wanted to have a, you know, a stake part of the pawn in the sports wagering arena. And so there was a debate back and forth. And there were still people over in the statehouse that are that felt like the lottery alone should have been the ones that should have been handled sports wagering, because there are other state lotteries that do that. But they then eventually made the decision that he should be run through the casinos. And the state will continue to own and operate it and make the decisions on what types of wagers can be placed and what kinds of leagues can be weighed bet on and that sort of thing. And then, you know, the state will take a percentage of the whole

    one of the things that didn't happen was there's some people that wanted to allow dog and horse racing. I don't think that was included in the legislation was

    it wasn't. And I think that there's I've heard that there are questions now about whether that was an unintended consequence, or whether it's not, but I think that, you know,

    the legislative process can be a little bit hazy. It was late night sessions, what's in the bill?

    That's a very nice,

    it's in there. Trust me. Yeah. And

    I think that, well, it's like everything. And like I mentioned, you know, there's some definite gray areas and sensibility for and I don't know, whether or not horse and dog racing, or some of the issues that revolve around the marketing entities is something that a cleanup bill might happen next. Right.

    So it would not be unusual to have a trailer bill, say in a 2023 legislative session that addresses some of the problem points, although they I think they try to avoid that on really controversial issues, because you're opening a can of worms,

    right. And I think that there was enough. You know, it seems like there's anytime there's a wagering bill or a gaming bill, there's always something that comes up that gets stuck on it, that maybe, you know, guys a question about whether it should be there or not. And that's always seems could be helpful

    or it could be a poison pill. Absolutely. Okay. Before we wrap up, I know you gotta think to do what's next for the Kansas Lottery, the traditional lottery,

    traditional lottery. You know, it's it's funny, this is sort of our busiest weekends of the year right now is well, you know, this weekend is our is the Kansas Speedway their NASCAR race on Sunday. And we also we the lottery have been sponsors, the speedway since it opened, it was originally lottery money through the economic incentive fund that helped create the Speedway and so we sponsor the Friday night race, and then the two Saturday races and of course, then the big NASCAR races sponsored by NASCAR on and Hollywood casino on Sunday. So we have players that we give away Second Chance drawings to the players want to come and go do that. So we're we're handling that all all through, you know, starting tomorrow night with our meet and greet for our players. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That's our our Speedway, but of course, it's also this year, because the speedway moved up the weekend. We also have our experience at the fair. So we have we have a number of folks out at the fair that are doing that this weekend, and I'm talking about the state, the state fair, yeah, they're out in dear old Hutchinson. And so we have a number of folks that are trying to cover that for two weeks. And then we also we take players to we have a very good relationship with our universities in the state. And so we we take players to K u and K State events and so they're we're sponsoring the K State, Missouri game in Manhattan on Saturday. So we have players at that and we have staff at that. So it's just a busy time. But also then, right now is also our Holiday Millionaire Raffle launched the same day sports wagering and it's doing exceptionally well for this year too. So we're happy about that.

    I want to get into my pet peeve about these mega winnings where there's a you know, $800 million available if you broke it into 20 pieces. Yeah, and 20 people could win a chunk of that might play. You know, that's not how big lotteries? Well,

    you know, it's interesting. And there's, and I will tell you that that is ongoing. And this is probably far beyond the scope of what you want to talk about today. But that's an interesting topic of discussion that is always up when you talk about and I'm on the board for multi multi state lottery association for because I'm an executive director for Powerball. So we talk about it all the time. And then Mega Millions, which is run by a different organization, they talk about it all the time. Everybody always says, Well, maybe we should break it up and have one big jackpot and then a bunch of smaller jackpots. And people say they want that. But when it comes down to having games that actually do that, it never happened. I

    know people always want to work out people don't spend the money on the tickets. That's that's your right, you're

    exactly right. People want to you know, it's the, you know,

    somebody may say, Oh, if I was in charge, I'd probably kill the lottery in America. So Joseph threw it up. So

    he made the joke that everybody wants the, you know, the multi distribution into multiple winners the day after the drawing, you know, it's the day before the drawing, they always want just one mega winner. And then after the drawing when they don't when they want the everybody just mean

    how many hundreds of millions is one person need? That's fair. Yeah. So all right, we're gonna wrap it up there. Even Terrell, Executive Director of the Kansas Lottery. Thanks for bringing us up to date on all this.

    I appreciate your time. My pleasure. It's been great being here. It's great to see you again after all the COVID adventures and yeah, in person and everything. But thanks for having us. Anytime you have any other questions about what it is we do? We'd be happy to come back. All right.

    Thanks so much. Appreciate it.