The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, Welcome, welcome. It’s Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. Great to be together. Thank you for tuning in. Please feel free to go over to America Report. Excuse me, proamericareport.com ProAmericaReport.com and check out there. My lengthier, I write in more detail greater length. Over there, but also visit phyllisschlafly.com and sign up for the Daily WYNK Daily WYNK. What you need to know and every day, every morning. 8:00 AM East Coast, 5:00 AM Pacific. You get an e-mail in your inbox with a couple of links. Couple of stories, a couple of things, and one specific WYNK. What you need to know to check out things. So I am had a long. You can hear my voice is shot. A little bit. I was.
I spent much of the day on Thursday driving up and back to Pittsburgh, PA, where our Phyllis Schlafly Eagles hosted another great event. Honorees from across Pennsylvania and across the country. Great speakers and a lot more. And I loved it. It was a long day, though. I drove up in the morning. I drove midday, got there, and then spent about 5-6 hours on the ground and drove back. I needed to be back for an appointment this morning. So very cool, very exciting. I encourage you to visit phyllisschlafly.com and find out more about the work that we do at the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles and and get more engaged. Hats off head tip head tip. Hats off tip of the cap to the organizers. Our main Phyllis Schlafly Eagles leader up there is a man named Stan Casacio. You’ve heard him on the show a number of times. He’s a businessman, philanthropist and radio host himself up in the Philadelphia area and a great leader across the state of Philadelphia. For America First policies, for putting the people first, super guy. And Stan was the emcee and runs the show. His his sidekick, Andy Teitelman. They do a radio show together. A big, very good lawyer, very successful and especially Karen Taylor in this point. He has a board. MJ Costello is on this board. Incredible. Incredible talent and generous person and so much going on. She does a great job. Liz Dehl is one of their key folks anyway, it’s just a great group. I know I’m probably leaving people out. We think Nikki Watson helps them out immensely. She’s great. So just an unbelievable set of people.
And they had great speakers, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, both of them, two key leaders in True the Vote and lots of other efforts were there to receive an award. John Mills. Colonel Mills was there especially gave a lecture and gave a talk on what’s going on. It was spectacular. Spectacular Mark Houck, man running for Congress. In Pennsylvania, who was targeted. He was he was protecting his son at a pro-life protest, and a man came towards his son. He pushed the guy away and then he got charged with assault and he went to trial and he won. He was acquitted. He’s running for Congress now. He’s a great guy. So it was a great event. Great event. Congratulations to our Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, all that they’re doing. Eagle Forum of Pennsylvania. Extraordinary. I just was so pleased to be there. And it was a great time. But you can see here. I lost my voice. A little bit. So that’s never good, but let me get to what today’s WYNK is. It’s gonna be a little surprising. I’m writing about it right now over on my substack. Phyllis schlafly.com. Excuse me, proamericareport.com. Because this is the Pro America Report with Ed Martin, and here’s my focus is tongue in cheek.
I’m a big fan of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, and other conservatives aren’t supposed to do that. I I love all of it because my daughter loves the music and we have loved the Kansas City Chiefs and my sons. And I have a bit of a debate. Especially my older who says I’m a late fan to the Chiefs. I was more of a floating around. We were Rams fans where I was until they abandoned Saint Louis. And then of course Kansas City is on the other side of the state of Missouri, so about 10 years ago I would say I about 15 years ago, I went to some games there and I fell in love with the fan base. Great fans anyway, so we loved We loved Kelce. Before he became famous for dating this woman. But it’s going to be great fun. It’s going to be really fun Super Bowl and I hope people will be excited about it and. Energized about watching football and having fun, especially with family. I’ll be making chili using grandma’s chili recipe and it’ll be a blast.
Having said that, I do want to pause and I want to point out how crazy the world has gotten and how quickly, how quickly. What do I mean?
Well, it wasn’t long ago. Two years, maybe three, that you would have had the NFL be adamant. There, there would be no gambling on NFL games. And certainly 20 years ago or 40 years ago, there would have been, you know, absolutely there would have been no chance you could even get the teams to travel through Las Vegas, let alone move a team there. The Raiders and build a stadium and have the Super Bowl there.
And the growth in the use of technology. To allow people to bet, to gamble has has matched up with the money behind it. Behind gambling, there’s always been lots of money in gambling. Go to any state where they started in the ’80s and ’90s. Legalizing gambling and you saw massive influx of money, huge amounts of money being spent and and gained.
And and in my opinion, the problem with gambling is not you have every right to lose your money the way you want you can buy dumb cars you can buy cool cars, you can buy fuel efficient cars. You can buy, you know, gas guzzlers. Who cares? It’s up to you. You can buy property that you think is a good risk and maybe it’s a bad risk. You you should be allowed to do what you want with your property.
Having said that, the casinos and before they we got to this situation where these gambling apps and the gambling services were so common, the casinos learn how to target what are called the problem gamblers and they make by their own description they make the most of their money. They make the majority. Well, I shouldn’t say that I’m not an expert on the numbers, but I will say they they know that they need the compulsive gamblers. They know that. And and they have to build towards targeting.
In other words, their goal is to get you to lose money, right? Their goal is to get you to have fun at their place, have meals at their place, have a good time at their place. I’m not saying any of those are bad. If you, if you wanna spend $50 and lose $50 gambling. But you have a great hour. That’s up to you. Right. I know. But what they know. And the gambler, the casinos knew was how to target people. And so you used to have to go play blackjack or play craps or whatever. And then in some of these places in the casinos, there would be a sports book over there and certain games were allowed to be bet on. But not everything.
Now the NFL and the NFL resisted because why? Because they didn’t want the money to be possibly corrupting. They didn’t want to bring that up. Whatever the reasons, lots of reasons, those. Were all reasons. They didn’t do t.
And then suddenly in the last couple of years, it’s massive growth of gambling. And the reason why is the apps, the smartphone. And now we have a situation where it’s not only the casinos who are saying, hey, how do I make the casino? How do I make the lighting? How do I make the air? How do I make the temperature? How do I make the drinks and food conducive for people to stay and gamble? You ever go to casino? In the old days? I’m not sure it’s the same way now, but in the old days you go to casino. You wouldn’t. You couldn’t find a window because they didn’t want you to know what time it was. You couldn’t find a clock. They didn’t want you to be thinking. Ohh. It’s midnight. It’s dark. I’m going to go to bed. I know. I’ll keep going.
Now the common the the the usage of the apps and now the technology makes it so It’s not just about the drinks or the buffet or the temperature, it’s about rewiring your brain and knowing that if I can give you the hits, if I can give you free money, I can let you win every now and then. I’ll keep you back. I’ll keep you back. I’ll keep you back.
And here’s my last point. What you need to know is this. This is another aspect of our lives that certain sets of people end up targeted. Who do I mean?
The people who end up gambling on the NFL, for example, and losing lots of money, are who? Young men, young men for whatever reason. Well, no, it was pretty good. Here’s a young men. We’re told that young men, you know, young men are bad. They tell you that. Then they white, young white men are bad. You especially and suddenly you’re gambling and you can’t afford to, and you have no real jobs. You have jobs that have changed and shifted overseas. You have jobs that have changed and shifted out of the things that you could do and suddenly you have a cycle. And the in the cycle of of of, of, of sliding downward. And you watch these apps, these massive companies, that make so much money and they target young people. I, look, I actually don’t like gambling. I’ve never liked it very much. I’ve only been to casino. I don’t know, 10 times in my life and I just. I find it very I I if I lose a hand of blackjack, I I lose my mind at losing $20.00 so I never could do it so and I don’t enjoy that rush. But there’s a lot of people. There’s other things I do I like to eat big meals. And I used to like to have. You know, glasses of wine and I don’t you you you can find as I often say. Find you something is going to be your addiction, for lack of a better term, something is going to be the thing that you want to do. That’s probably against your best judgment some of the time. And when the big money. Apps and and and and sports books and all are targeting our young people. Wow. Wow. Something to worry about. Hey, listen, all of this is in part because John and Andy Schlafly’s column this week. Is on this very topic and on how the NFL shifted dramatically. You need check that out. PhyllisSchlafly.com. You’ll see John and Andy’s column on gambling. I think it posted on on on on February 7th. Could have been 7th, 6th or 7th. And so you’ll see it there. So check it out. That’s what you need to know. Enjoy the football game. Hope you have chilli. Hope Kay tray. Travis Travis. Sorry. Travis. Kelce, Trey. OK. Trey K wins. Hope Trey Kay wins. And hope Tay Tay has fun. And I hope America has great time. And man.
I’ve gotta run now. It’s. Ed Martin here in the Pro America Report we’ll be back in a moment.
