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Is there legal gambling in Tennessee? 2021 January update
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does tennessee have legalized gambling - win
GMBL- UP OVER 50% from my last post 5 days ago
This was given an 11 price target (closed over that today) but I think this will be a good long term hold and here is why. The CEO/founder has been involved with online gambling since 1996(!!!). Also, their CIOJohn Brackens was an Activision Blizzard networks manager. They've been in purchase mode recently and bought ggCircuit, a B2B cloud-based management for LAN centers, a tournament platform, and integrated wallet/point-of-sale solutions for enterprise customers. ggCircuit has over 1,000 connected locations and has worked with enterprises such as GameStop, Dell, Best Buy and Lenovo as well as universities such as Ohio State, Syracuse and North Carolina. Their ggLeap product has over 60 million hours of usage by over two million unique gamers on tens of thousands of public gaming screens inside centers worldwide. Also, they bought Helix esports. Helix eSports owns five esports centers, including two of the five largest centers in the US, where they deliver world-class customer service, esports programming and gaming infrastructure. ALSO, they bought Esports Gaming League (EGL). HAS OVER 350K registered gamers. "EGL is a great addition to our growing operations and further strengthens our ability to execute on our three-pillar strategy," commented Grant Johnson, CEO of Esports Entertainment Group. "EGL technology underpins the esports programs for some of the world's best-known sports franchises, including the LA Kings, Philadelphia Eagles, and Arsenal Football Club. We plan to build on this strong foundation moving forward, driving near-term revenue growth and long-term shareholder value improvement." You see the trend, and there is more companies than I listed purchased in the past twelve months. Another thing to consider: -$4.3 Billion in Bets Placed on Super Bowl LV Online bets skyrocketing up by 63% with no signs of slowing -36 million more Americans can now legally bet compared to one year ago, with the addition of Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Montana, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington, DC. How does this translate to this company? People are showing a willingness to bet and it's available to a wider audience than ever before. Here is what I posted before: Business: egaming platform for gambling and tournaments. They also have other gambling functions, I believe egames you can gamble on is something they just bought (lucky dino). They also partnered with the Philadelphia eagles to provide esport tournaments, last month I believe, first partnership with a professional team and an egaming gambling site(this was prior to SKLZ). More partnerships could lead to growth as no other professional franchises have a partnership yet for tournaments. Financials: heavy dilution this past year, just started generating revenue in Q3, negative net income. The company they just bought is internet gambling site they just bought had 21M in revenue last year, est 28M for 2021. Company has very low debt, biggest liability is warrant liability of a few million. 8M of cash on hand, could get through at least 2 quarters without any additional positive cash flow (potentially some more dilution i would imagine). Small institutional ownership (1%) but large insider ownership (35%) Financials drop Feb 20th, so some DD on this let me know what you think. This company is worth around 150M(on 2/8), for comparison draftkings is over 46B and cathie wood also entered this sector buying draftkings so this could be on her list also.
Andrew Louis Smit has been variously described as “a legend”, an “ace”, “superhuman”, an “American hero”, and a “delusional old man”. Everyone who met him seemed to consider him the consummate gentleman. Here is a photo of Smit with a couple of red herrings. Who was this guy who showed up three months after the crime, in a three-piece-suit, with a toothpick in his teeth, and re-investigated the entire casefile? How the hell did that happen in the first place, and how did he reach such a wildly different conclusion to the police? The Myth The Lou Smit myth is best encapsulated in this obsequious documentary from 2002. Here is the basic narrative (with a few quotes taken from that documentary):
It was three months after the crime. The District Attorney, Alex Hunter “feared the police investigation was getting nowhere. To help, he decided to bring in the best homicide detective he could find.” Legendary Colorado detective Lou Smit was pulled out of retirement. Though he thought that the Ramseys were probably involved (based on what he had seen in the media), Smit kept an open mind. When he began studying the crime scene photographs, he noticed a few things that made him start questioning the media’s narrative. Gradually, he found more and more evidence of an intruder that police had overlooked. “The police were angered at Smit's increasing suspicion that they were wrong - and angered, too, that prosecutors in the District Attorney's office were beginning to listen to him.” Smit’s objective consideration of all the evidence eventually led him to conclude that an intruder must have committed this crime, leading him to openly support the Ramseys, resign from the case in protest, and make all his evidence public.
This narrative is repeated in countless TV interviews and books by the Ramseys and others. As you can see from some of the comments made on this subreddit (1, 2, 3) a lot of people genuinely believe this is what happened. The key message is that Lou Smit was extremely experienced, and therefore trustworthy. The police did not have homicide experience, but Smit did. Unlike the Ramsey-hating cops, he was a “seasoned investigator” who “knew his stuff”. Even Lawrence Schiller, the most respected historian of this case, is open about his personal admiration and affection for Lou Smit. The fact is, Smit was experienced, there is no denying that. But that doesn’t explain his involvement in this case. The trouble with the Glorification of Smit is that it hugely simplifies the circumstances of Smit’s hiring, it misrepresents the actual status of the case at that time, it misstates what his role really was, and tells us absolutely zero about how he actually approached this case. Smit did not just identify “new evidence”--he removed a huge amount of evidence from consideration, with little or no good reason for doing so. He changed the entire conversation, he treated the Ramsey case as though it was a totally different case, and succeeded in changing the definition of what could and could not be considered “relevant evidence”. He did all this at a time when the two most credible suspects in the case had not even been formally interviewed. It was a devastating sleight-of-hand trick played on the American justice system. This post is an attempt to show exactly how that happened, to separate the facts about Lou Smit’s involvement from the mythology. The District Attorney’s Office The myth tells us “the DA feared the police investigation was getting nowhere. So he brought in Smit to solve the case.” In fact, the Boulder District Attorney’s office had been attempting to steer the police investigation away from the Ramseys for three months before Smit was hired. Their behavior was highly unusual: In the real world, the police’s job is to investigate, then the DA’s job is to prosecute. Once a suspect is charged, the DA can start plea bargaining and negotiating with the suspect. But in this case, the negotiations began the day after the crime, long before the Ramseys had even been formally interviewed. During those first three months, the DA’s office handed over police reports, the autopsy report, and crime scene photographs to the Ramseys. The DA’s office invited the Ramseys’ defense team to inspect key pieces of evidence. The DA’s office refused to provide police with search warrants for basic pieces of evidence such as clothing items and phone records. When evidence testing began at the CBI, Pete Hoffstrom from the DA’s office immediately informed the Ramseys, and then actually attempted to halt testing until “arrangements [could] be made to allow a representative from the Ramsey family to be present”. When Patsy gave handwriting samples, she did so at an informal meeting at Hoffstrom’s home. By February 1997, the DA’s office was meeting regularly with the Ramseys’ lawyers to “build and maintain trust”, while aggressively urging police to investigate “intruder suspects” like Bill McReynolds. The behavior of the DA’s office only makes sense if they were working on the assumption that the Rameys were innocent from day one. They simply would not have done the things they did, if they were not working on that assumption. We know for a fact that Pete Hoffstrom was speaking with John Ramsey’s lawyer Mike Bynum on December 27th, the day after the body was found, and that Hofstrom immediately called police to lobby on behalf of the Ramseys that very same day. Mike Bynum was a former employee of the District Attorney’s office, and close with many in the office. Another one of John’s lawyers, Bryan Morgan, was a close personal friend of Hofstrom. At one point in the investigation Hoffstrom remarked:
”I’m not stopping my breakfasts with Bryan. I’ve known him for 20 years.”
There is no way that the involvement of several friends and respected colleagues in the Ramsey legal team did not influence their approach to this case. It is also difficult to imagine, based on the number of mutual friends they had, that Hofstrom did not know or at least know of John Ramsey and his family prior to the crime. Let me be clear - I am not suggesting any kind of coverup. I think Pete Hoffstrom and the others in the DA’s office, who had received a biased, emotionally-charged picture of the “brutality” of this crime from the Ramseys’ lawyers, genuinely believed the Ramseys were not capable of the crime. Therefore they believed that by trusting the Ramseys, they would eventually uncover the evidence that led to the intruder. They would then catch that intruder, the police would be humiliated, and the DA’s office would ultimately be vindicated for their early vote of confidence in the parents. By February 1997, the DA’s office was clearly frustrated at the lack of “intruder evidence” being produced by the police. None of the DA’s favorite suspects could be connected in any way to the crime scene, or had anything like a coherent motive--Linda Hoffmann Pugh, Bill McReynolds, Jeff Merrick, Joe Barnill, etc.--nobody known to the family had turned out to be a credible suspect. Police were just not finding anything to connect a single “intruder” to the crime. Though they were finding a significant amount of evidence connecting the Ramsey family to the crime--fiber evidence, physical evidence like the pineapple, handwriting similarities between Patsy and the note, indicators of a dysfunctional family environment--these and other details were slowly building up to a picture of the reality of that night. In the real world, successfully eliminating some suspects and zeroing in on others would be viewed as progress. But the DA’s office did not view it that way. When that documentary says “the DA was unhappy police were getting nowhere”, what it means is, the police investigation against an intruder was getting nowhere. The DA was unhappy that the police were getting somewhere he didn’t want them to be, and weren’t finding the intruder evidence the DA had expected them to find. The DA’s bright idea: “Cataloging” the casefile In February 1997, after their repeated attempts to interfere in the investigation, the DA’s office did not have access to the full casefile. They (and the Ramseys’ attorneys) believed the Boulder police were wrongly focusing on the family, and wanted access to that casefile. The DA, Alex Hunter, approached police about gaining access to the complete casefile. Hunter made out that his reasons were purely administrative. He proposed hiring somebody to “catalogue and index” that casefile as a way of “preparing the files for eventual transfer to a prosecutorial team”. As Schiller tells us:
Hunter told [Police Chief] Koby his plan, and the chief agreed, as long as the DA’s personnel did not interfere, second-guess, or reinvestigate.
When testifying under oath in a later case, Alex Hunter was asked what Lou Smit’s job actually was, and he again repeated this idea of “compiling” and “indexing” information, clarifying that Smit was not hired as a “field investigator”.
I advised the police department that I was going to hire an investigator to help me compile information coming into my department from the Boulder police department and from the various labs that were working the case and from other areas that were involved in the investigation … I hired Lou Smit to be “my” investigator in the sense of fulfilling the DA’s job, which would be … getting a case sort of ready for trial. Um. Lou set up I thought a sophisticated indexing system … He was not hired to go out into the field to do field investigation. [Hunter adds in passing that he also hired another investigator, Steve Ainsworth, at the same time “to look at the evidence coming into us with a defense attorney’s eye”.]
The Smit myth does not really line up with Hunter’s stated purpose here. If he really hired Smit because he thought “the police investigation was getting nowhere” and he wanted an experienced homicide detective to crack the case, he never actually said that was what he was doing. In fact, he pretended that it was all part of the administrative function of his office, “getting the case ready for trial”, and specifically assured police he would not be second-guessing or reinvestigating anything. The way Hunter describes it, Smit was hired as a kind of filing clerk. Smit’s background If, theoretically, you wanted to hire somebody to catch an “intruder”--if you wanted to look at kidnappers, drifters, serial killers, psychopaths and social outcasts--Lou Smit was the ideal candidate. Smit prided himself on his ability to “profile” psychopathic killers, his past cases included abductions, spree killings, and kidnappings. At the time he was hired, Lou Smit was widely known because of one case, a case that he completed in 1995, just a year before Jonbenet’s death. This was the case of Heather Dawn Church. It was Smit’s greatest claim to fame, and he had solved it in a heroic fashion. The Church case had been unsolved for three years when he was hired by the El Paso Sheriff's department to reinvestigate. From a Denver Post article:
El Paso Sheriff's Detective Tim Shull worked under Smit on Heather's murder and recalled Smit's focus on the casebooks. "Lou prides himself in the organization of the casebooks, and that's how he gets a lot of his cases solved. He would take all those case books - and there were 18 of them - home and read them at night. He reorganized the case, and labeled it a "burglary gone bad.”
Eventually Smit discovered “a crime scene photograph showing a window screen slightly out of alignment and a set of fingerprints taken off the window that had never been identified”. Smit suggested running those fingerprints again--a wild gamble, since they had already been tested unsuccessfully years before--but this time, the prints were traced to the killer--a disturbed serial killer who Smit characterized as a “violent sexual predator, pedophile and psychopath”. One article notes that “The conviction exonerated the father, Mike Church, who had been under suspicion in the case.” The killer’s confession aligned exactly with Lou Smit’s prediction that it was a “burglary gone bad”:
[The killer confessed that] he had entered the home through a window, and Heather had surprised him. He strangled her there in the house and took her body out to dump it in a remote location.
What a coincidence! That’s what supporters of Smit say about this--what a coincidence that there was this other child homicide five years earlier, that also involved an intruder who left very few traces, that also involved a window in the home that police had overlooked which contained crucial evidence, that also involved an intruder who didn’t originally plan to kill the child, that also involved a thorough “reorganization” of the casefiles by Lou Smit. What an incredible coincidence that this case happened so soon before the Ramsey case, and was similar in so many ways! Here is my whole point. It’s not a coincidence that we view these crimes as “similar”. If you take a step back and look at it rationally, it is easy to see that the “similarities” between the two cases are not coincidental at all. This is a very clear example of an investigator trying to fit the later crime into the mold of the earlier crime. If you stop trying to do that, if you take Smit’s theories out of the equation--you will see there are several obvious differences: Heather’s body was found thirty miles from her home. In Heather’s case the motive was straightforward--burglary, followed by murder to protect the killer’s identity. There was no carefully-hidden sexual assault. There was no redressing of the victim. There was no ransom note pointing to a fake terrorist-ransom-kidnapping that never happened. There was no use of household items to create elaborate weapons. In Heather’s case the parents were cooperative, even though they were suspects. There was a reasonable indication of forced entry--a bent window screen--with an unidentified fingerprint directly on top of it. The circumstances of the reporting of the kidnapping and the discovery of the body were totally different. The only real, proven similarity between the two cases is totally superficial: they are both cases of a young girl murdered in her home. The idea that there is any more meaningful resemblance between the two crimes only makes sense if you accept several of Lou Smit’s unproven theories as fact. This is what Lou Smit did in this case. He stopped us from looking at the Ramsey case on its own terms. He made us look at it according to a formula--according to a set of assumptions predicated on its perceived resemblance to Lou Smit’s “experience”. In order to do that, we have to be extremely selective, we have to filter out all the suspicious circumstances in which the body was found, and all the evidence pointing to the family, and simply pretend that Jonbenet’s death was a straightforward kidnapping case. Smit’s initial view of the case A big part of the Lou Smit legend is the idea that when he first joined the Ramsey case, he thought the Ramseys Did It. He has said this in multiple interviews, and his story is always the same. Here’s the version he gave when testifying under oath in 2003:
Q: When you first came on board with the Boulder District Attorney's office, what were your initial thoughts about the case? Smit: It was just things that I had heard on the news. I hadn't -- I had paid somewhat attention to it because it was a high-profile case in our state, but the very first thing that you heard on the news was that there was a little girl that was brutally murdered in her home, and that there were no footprints in the snow. I remember that as being part of the newspaper articles. And also that there were no signs of forced entry; that a ransom note had been written inside the house. And my initial impression was that, if I was going to initially look at the case, I would look at someone inside the house. That was my initial feelings on it. I didn't have any idea who killed JonBenet. And even if it was somebody in the house, I was thinking, How do you determine who it was in the house to do that? So these thoughts were in my mind initially when I came to work for Alex Hunter.
Read carefully: “I didn't have any idea who killed JonBenet [...] If I was going to initially look at the case, I would look at someone inside the house.” This is carefully qualified, conditional language. He puts himself in the position of a detective on the scene on day one (though that is not exactly the situation he was in in March 1997) and says in that situation he hypothetically would look at a resident of the home. But if you look for his actual answer to the question he was asked, he carefully avoids saying what his opinion was. “I didn’t have any idea who killed Jonbenet”. Its a non-answer. Dodging the question. This would, of course, be a perfectly acceptable answer if Lou Smit really had been totally undecided at the time of his hiring. What he consistently fails to mention (and what Alex Hunter also fails to mention) is that Lou Smit had already expressed at least one firm opinion on the case to Alex Hunter before he was hired. And that opinion ran strongly against the theory of the Boulder police. From a 2001 Rocky Mountain News interview:
[DA Alex Hunter] wanted [Smit] on his team. First though, Hunter asked for Smit's take on the now-infamous ransom note found in the Ramsey home. "I told Alex, 'Look, I don't know if you're going to hire me, but I'll give you a freebie," Smit recounted. "Whoever wrote this note did not do it after the murder."
The notion that the ransom note definitely could not have been written after the murder obviously contradicts any theory that the parents were involved. It obviously contradicts any theory that the note was “staging”. It obviously contradicts any theory that the killing was not premeditated. This is an opinion Smit and Alex Hunter specifically discussed before he was hired. We also know that Lou Smit was already at this early period, comparing the Ramsey case to the Heather Dawn Church case. Detective Steve Thomas met Smit before Smit was introduced to the other officers, and notes, “[Smit] spoke at length about Heather Dawn Church, as if the murder of that little girl might be the blueprint for this case too”. In an article from the Denver Post, entitled New Detective Joins Case, published March 14, 1997, the day after Hunter asked Smit to work for him on Ramsey, and three days before he actually starting work at the DA’s office, Smit is again commenting on the Church case:
”The answers [to the Church case] were in the case books, when you went through them and really analyzed the case file."
So while Smit may claim he was thinking about the case the way the media told him to--the historical record indicates he was already at odds with the RDI theory, he had already made up his mind about certain key details--he had made up his mind it was an especially “brutal” crime, that the note could not have been staged after the killing, and that the Church case could be his blueprint--he had made up his mind on all of these things, before having reviewed a single police report, before having seen a single photograph. And he and DA Alex Hunter specifically discussed this before his hiring. What Work Did Smit Actually Do?
Katie Couric: You went into this case thinking the parents had committed this crime, or think there was a good chance they had. Lou Smit: Yes, but I still had an open mind the other way too, Katie. Couric: What was the first thing that you observed or saw in your investigation that lead you to believe, “Hey, maybe there’s somebody else who did this?” Smit: You know Katie, it was the second day I was on the case. The very first photograph that I’d seen of that basement window—the window was wide open. And I said, “Wait a minute, take a look at that.” That was one of the light bulbs that went off, and one of the red flags that I’d seen.
So, according to the Smit myth, as he settled down to begin his indexing and cataloging, he first considered that the intruder theory may be true on his second day of the case after viewing a crime scene photo. Lawrence Schiller’s book Perfect Murder, Perfect Town tells us what actually happened:
On March 13, Smit agreed to work for Hunter. That same day the DA walked upstairs to the sheriff’s office and asked Epp to lend him Steve Ainsworth for his investigation [this is the person Hunter says he specifically hired to look at the case from the point of view of the Ramseys’ defense]… Lou Smit and Steve Ainsworth formally joined Hunter’s team on March 17 ... That same afternoon, Smit and Ainsworth began examining a list of suspects the police might not have investigated fully.
Smit and Ainsworth were hired on the same day, started work on the same day, and immediately started working together investigating intruder suspects. One of these “suspects” was Kevin Raburn. Schiller goes on to describe Smit (who Hunter tells us was “was not hired to go out into the field to do field investigation”) visiting jails, bars, clubs and restaurants, to investigate Raburn. This is how he spent the first weeks and months of his involvement on this case. Smit was also promptly introduced to the Boulder Police Department. He announced to them, in this very first meeting: “I don’t think it was the Ramseys”. In the summer of that year Smit investigated an unnamed “transient man”, a lead which he says “was obtained from the Ramsey attorneys and their investigators”. Later that year Smit, who “was not hired to go out into the field to do field investigation”, flew to Tennessee, arrested Kevin Raburn, and brought him on a private plane to Colorado, in handcuffs. (Raburn was eventually cleared. As were many other “intruders” nabbed by Smit that year, such as this suspected intruder from California). The police (the same police who supposedly were on a "witch hunt" against John Ramsey) faithfully investigated all of Lou Smit's new "suspects" - not one was remotely credible. Note just how different this is from the Smit Myth. The myth paints Smit as completely undecided, “open minded”, patiently investigating the photos and gradually beginning to doubt his own beliefs in the Ramseys’ guilt. In reality, he was investigating “intruder suspects” on the first afternoon he was hired, and when first introduced to the cops he was informing them of the Ramseys’ innocence. Smit himself has admitted that his “indexing and cataloguing work” did not take place until later. Under oath he clarified that when he first arrived at the DA’s office “the only information they had was the ransom note itself”, and that “initially” his work consisted in “help[ing] any investigation”. When he finally did get around to his indexing, the result was a highly selective compilation of “intruder evidence”. He did not simply “compile, catalogue and index” the files. In fact, he reorganized and shifted the emphasis of the casefile toward an “intruder”, adding significantly to the casefile with several entirely new theories that he himself came up with. Smit was obviously applying the exact method he had used to solve Heather Dawn Church--picking out random details from crime scene photographs and taking a gamble on the assumption that they were the clue that would break the case. The intruder’s footprint (actually Burke’s), the intruder’s pubic hair (actually from Patsy’s maternal line), the intruder’s scarf (John’s), the intruder’s bike tracks (Burke’s), the intruder’s flashlight (John’s), the “scuff mark”, the “ruffled bedcover”, the “stun gun burns” (actually abrasions)--all these things and many more were inserted by Smit into the case as “important pieces of evidence” [See my posts on the Carnes ruling for specific rebuttals of Smit’s various theories]. Actions speak louder than words. No matter what Smit says (or carefully implies), no matter what Hunter says, no matter what his defenders say, Smit’s actions speak for themselves. Smit was hired to “sort of prepare the case for trial”, and that’s what he did - prepared the case for the trial against an intruder. It is very clear, from day one, he was building a case against a hypothetical intruder. He never once pursued or identified a single “lead” that did not point to the “intruder theory”. This is not something that emerged gradually over time - this is something that he worked on religiously from the very first day he was hired. And it is exactly what the DA’s office hired him to do. Why was Smit so Biased? The obvious question is why? Why was he so committed to the intruder theory? How could a supposedly diligent, respected investigator be so profoundly wrong in so many different ways, and also so confident in his own errors? A common answer is “Smit was paid off”. I disagree. Though Smit was, obviously, hired on the assumption that he would find “intruder evidence”, I don’t think he ever took part knowingly in any conspiracy to cover up the truth. There are four factors, in my opinion, that influenced Smit’s misguided approach to this case. 1) The first is obviously his background, particularly the Heather Dawn Church case. Catching lone-wolf psychopathic killers was Smit’s speciality. This was his job. Smit caught the bad guys. He had been through the experience on more than one occasion of bringing closure to a grieving family--and this would have to influence him. We know Smit was discussing Heather Dawn Church in relation to the Ramsey case before he started work, and he was still discussing Heather Dawn Church in relation to the Ramsey case years after his resignation. Just look at Smit’s enthusiasm, his genuine optimism, when he said, in 2002:
Smit: We will be able to positively identify the source of that hair. And if it belongs to our killer, that will be the most-- that will be the strongest piece of evidence. Just like the fingerprint in the Heather Dawn Church case, that could be the strongest piece of evidence in this case. One hair.”
The hair has been identified as belonging to Patsy ramsey’s maternal line. 2) The second reason was that Lou Smit had personal reasons to sympathize with the Ramseys. Patsy Ramsey was a cancer survivor. When Smit became involved in the case his wife Barbara had recently been diagnosed with cancer. A man like Lou Smit would not have missed such a coincidence. He spoke on more than one occasion of the Ramseys’ religious faith, and said repeatedly that God had guided him onto the case. On June 6, 1997, he met privately with the Ramseys and invited them into his camper van to pray with him “that someday this nightmare will end and we will find the killer of our daughter.” John Ramsey said many times in interviews that he believed Lou Smit had been sent by God, and I am sure John Ramsey made a point of saying that to Lou Smit. As police chief Mark Beckner said, “Lou was a nice man and very religious. I believe he became emotionally involved with the family and in my opinion this clouded his judgement to the point where he could not accept the possibility that the family was involved.” 3) The third factor is the environment of the DA’s office, whose employees were also, for their own reasons, vehement supporters of the Ramseys. This created a dangerous dynamic--the DA’s office was not a place of rational discussion, but a group of “yes men”, encouraging each other’s hunches and intuitions, no matter what. That sort of environment is not at all conducive to a murder investigation. 4) The fourth factor, which may seem counterintuitive, is Smit’s intelligence. Lou Smit was, by all accounts, even according to his enemies, a smart guy--a good, solid investigator, not an impressionable person and not a person who could be hoodwinked easily. Though that helped him in earlier cases, it harmed him here. Let me give an example: a man called Linus Pauling. Pauling was one of the most intelligent and best scientists of the 20th century - without question. A founder of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology. A Nobel Prize winner. New Scientist ranked him as one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. Yet late in his life, Pauling chose to aggressively endorse a theory of Vitamin C as the cure for all kinds of ailments, including cancer, the common cold, AIDS, cardiovascular disease, etc. Though his views were thoroughly discredited by clinical trials, Pauling continued to come up with ways of disputing those who disagreed with his theories. It reached the point where Pauling was advocating highly-questionable studies, while turning a blind eye to more sensible ones, dismissing them as some sort of conspiracy by the medical establishment against his theory. This well-respected, talented, charismatic scientist was ignoring the hallmarks of his own profession, due to his devotion to this specific cause. A theory--that he obviously considered to be extremely compelling--led him to abandon the objectivity and restraint that his profession demanded. He even wrote very persuasive books like How To Live Longer and Feel Better, though countless medical experiments have conclusively proven that there is no actual evidence to support his claims. This is simply something that can happen with people who are mavericks, who build a reputation on being right when everybody else is wrong. Someone very bright becomes fixated on an idea, and precisely because they are bright, they are able to constantly rationalize their own position. Their confirmation bias feeds on itself, and everywhere they look they see confirmation that they are, indeed, correct. This is not a rare phenomenon. It’s something we see in politics every day. Whatever side of the political spectrum you are on--look at the people on the other side, look at how profoundly they hold their beliefs. We can recognize, I think, that there are perfectly intelligent people who just happened to get it really wrong. The Ramseys were Lou Smit’s Vitamin C. I dont think Smit was “paid off” by the Ramseys any more than Pauling was paid off by Vitamin C companies - a combination of factors in his background simply made him view the Ramseys in a specific way from the very beginning, and they encouraged and supported him, until it developed into a cycle in which they encouraged each other because of mutual interests. How to live longer and feel better? Find a good cause, and fight for it. That’s what Lou Smit tried to do. I confess that I am always very hard on Lou Smit. Though I doubt it would bother him that I, and so many others, criticize him so strongly. In a way, it is a testament to Smit’s intellect that he was able to be so creatively wrong in so many different ways. He had so little to go on--a leaf, a “scuff mark”, a couple of tiny abrasions--and he worked his magic. Lou Smit was a guy who made something out of nothing. A less intelligent, less courageous person would not have been able to do that. And like Linus Pauling, he did it because it was something he profoundly believed was right. So you have to credit Lou Smit for his guts and his commitment to this case. But please do not confuse that with thinking he was right.
Originally, I was going to write up my midseason mock draft, but a comment on the sub made me pivot to a crazier concept instead. The COACH DRAFT. What is the "Coach Draft?" Well, it's about what you'd expect. Teams will decide whether to retain their current coach, or yankee swap over to an available coach instead. Who's "available?" Any coordinator or assistant who's been on the (NFL) sidelines at some point this year. They MUST take the job if offered; no negotiations, no "happy where I am" nonsense. You cannot defy the Coach Draft. So without further ado, let's get started. (1) Cincinnati Bengals The Bengals were clearly desperate to find a young offensive coach to call their own, and ended up reaching on Zac Taylor. With all due respect to the likable Taylor (who was a prime OC candidate), his resume was perhaps the thinnest I've ever seen for an NFL head coach. So far, that gamble hasn't paid off. With the coaching draft allowing a mulligan, the Bengals swing back to a more decorated pick in Josh McDaniels (OC-NE). Yes, there are concerns about his douchebaggery and his runaway bride act in Indianapolis, but he'd be legally obligated to come to Cincinnati per the rules and regulations of our Coach Draft. As an OC, McDaniels has continually proven to be one of the best in the game, constantly adjusting strategies season to season or even week to week depending on matchup. And while we may all love to hate on McDaniels' failures as a head coach, that came in 2009-10. Presumably, we can all relate to the idea that you learn and grow from past mistakes, especially when they happened a decade prior. (2) Washington Redskins Sorry, Bill Callahan. We're replacing you. According to the rumor mill, Daniel Snyder and the Skins are quite high on current OC Kevin O'Connell. And no doubt, O'Connell has a bright future (regardless of this "lost" season.) But do they need to promote him to head coach right now? That premature promotion didn't work for Zac Taylor, and hasn't worked (so far) for Freddie Kitchens. If Washington can retain O'Connell as OC and find a more seasoned head coach, that could be the best of both worlds. To that end, I like Mike Pettine (DC-GB) for this job. Like Josh McDaniels, Pettine bombed out as a head coach. But like McDaniels, he's had a great resume as a coordinator virtually everywhere he's been (NYJ, BUF, GB.) And again, we're hoping that Pettine learned from his past missteps (like allowing his front office to trust Johnny Manziel as a franchise QB.) In fact, there could be some natural fit here. Kevin O'Connell worked on Mike Pettine's Cleveland staff as a QB coach. Best of both worlds? Maybe not. But pretty good of both worlds will have to do. (3) New York Jets Starting with his very first press conference, Adam Gase's Jets run has been a disaster. It's very tempting to axe him and replace him with another OC who can get the most out of Sam Darnold. But that said, I'm more reluctant to do that than most. If the goal is to turn Sam Darnold into a true franchise QB (going into a critical Year 3), then giving the kid his third head coach doesn't sound like the answer. Darnold needs more seasoning, more confidence, not more change. To me, continuity represents his best chance of success. (4) Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are so awful that they should work their way back into contention for the # 1 pick when it's all said and done. 1-15 is very much in play. But for coach Brian Flores, that wasn't only expected; it was almost the job requirement. It'd be unfair to blame him for anything that happens this year. (5) Atlanta Falcons I don't know if I'd say this out loud in polite company but (pssst) I kinda like Dan Quinn. But hey, results are results, and his defense has been dog shit for several years now. He's not only the head coach, but he's technically the DC as well. The buck needs to stop with him. Wish ya well, but you're gone. While the obvious "fix" would be a defensive coach, I'm not sure that anyone out there has a measurably better resume than Dan Quinn did himself when he got this job. Given that, I'm going to look in the other direction and go offense with Kevin Stefanski (OC-MIN). With a limited resume, Stefanski is a gamble, but he's smart and likable and should be ticketed for a head coaching job sooner or later. This year working with Gary Kubiak is a huge feather in his cap, as he's learned the principles of the best zone running game in the NFL. And hey, wouldn't you know it, but Kubiak's system is the same one that Kyle Shanahan ran so well a few ago for these Atlanta Falcons. If Stefanski can get the running game back on track, then the sky is the limit for Atlanta's offense again. (6) New York Giants I haven't been bowled over by Pat Shurmur's work with the Giants, but I'm falling back on my philosophy that young quarterbacks benefit from coaching continuity. Without an OBVIOUS upgrade out there, I'll keep Daniel Jones' staff in place. (7) Cleveland Browns Hey remember what I said about young QBs and continuity? Forget all that. Or at least, read the fine print. If an OBVIOUS upgrade exists, go with that. And unfortunately, that appears to be the case here. Freddie Kitchens had been the breakout coaching star of 2018, but that hasn't translated into 2019. In hindsight, we should have all been more skeptical of a coach who'd never been an OC before (Todd Haley's mid-season firing.) He appears to be in over his head here. So who's the obvious upgrade? A few possible names come to mind here that could all fit the bill and get this talented offense clicking again. But more than anything, I believe that the Browns need overall leadership. So with that in mind, I'm going with Dave Toub (ST-KC). Arguably the greatest special teams coach of all time, Toub is well overdo for his first head coaching shot. And while we do need a strong OC, there should be plenty of candidates for that job. (8) Tampa Bay Buccaneers I'm not nearly as high on Bruce Arians as most (his offense leads to WAY too many sacks), but firing him after one year would be hard to justify. Let's keep him, and encourage our QBs to grab some life insurance. (9) Denver Broncos John Elway and the Broncos are going to regret "the one who got away" (Kyle Shanahan) for years and years now, especially given how karmic that hire would have been. Instead, they wound up with Vance Joseph (ugh) and Vic Fangio (meh, so far). But again, it's hard to justify replacing him right now; there's no OC candidate out there that looks like a sure thing. (10) Chicago Bears Okay so maybe continuity doesn't help every QB break out. Year 2 of the Matt Nagy - Mitchell Trubisky marriage looks even rockier than the original. Still, if I had to pick sides in this squabble, I'd lean to faith in Nagy. I'd like to see what he can do with a QB that he handpicks himself. Remember, he wasn't around when GM Ryan Pace made the decision to trade up for Trubisky (in favor of Deshaun Watson and Pat Mahomes.) (11) Arizona Cardinals The Cardinals got ridiculed when they hired Kliff Kingsbury (fresh off 5-7, 6-7, and 5-7 seasons at Texas Tech), but that bold move has looked solid so far. I'm intrigued to see how Kingsbury + Kyler Murray develop down the road. (12) Detroit Lions Whatever magic that Bill Belichick bottles in New England does clearly not leave the facility. Matt Patricia has been OK -- but at some point "OK" can't be good enough for the Detroit Lions. They've been mired in mediocrity for years and years and years now. Still, can we be sure that we can upgrade on this coaching staff? I'm not positive. Patricia has been underwhelming, but OC Darrell Bevell has been better than old disgruntled Seahawks fans would like to admit. The running game is a perpetual work in progress, but Matt Stafford is currently registering a career high in QBR and QB rating. Let's "stick" with these two, for now. (13) Jacksonville Jaguars Like Matt Patricia, Doug Marrone has done an OK job in Jacksonville, but he isn't a particularly inspiring leader right now. With the defense taking a step back and Jalen Ramsey gone Rams-ing, the Jags don't have much of an identity right now. Even the Gardner Minshew magic may be wearing off. However, there's one coach on the staff that's impressed me, and that's OC John DeFilippo. Minshew may or may not be the long-term answer, but he's done much better than an unheralded rookie has any right to. In the past, DeFilippo has gotten flak for not running the ball well, but here's Leonard Fournette (4.8 YPC) having a career season as well. DeFillippo is earning his buzz back as a rising star. In fact, the Jags are going to promote him here rather than risk losing him. (14) Los Angeles Chargers I'm not a big fan of Anthony Lynn as a head coach, but we have to be practical here. Lynn has gone 21-11 prior to this season, and his team has suffered quite a lot of injuries in 2019. To justify a firing (even from a PR perspective), we'd need to have a lot of confidence in his replacement. My Chargers had been eyeing Dave Toub as a possible replacement, but with him off the board in our Coaches Draft, they're going to stand pat and keep Lynn instead. (15) Tennessee Titans Similarly, the Titans were keeping their peepers open on a few possible replacement coaches, but at this point in the draft, they don't see anyone that's a huge upgrade on Mike Vrabel (whose defense has been solid.) (16) Oakland Raiders Jon Gruden may not be the wunderkind of his youth, but he's still a solid coach in a league starved for offensive minds. We're not dumping him. (17) Pittsburgh Steelers There's a lot of smoke behind the scenes about Mike Tomlin's departure, but let's snuff out the fire and keep him in place. (18) Philadelphia Eagles Obvious save here for Doug Pederson. The roster has some holes, but he's still a good man for the job. (19) Carolina Panthers Ron Rivera will continue to survive here in Carolina, thanks in large part to a revitalized defense that he's had a major hand in this season. While the QB issue still looms large (if Cam Newton's health problems continue), Norv Turner is a trustworthy steward on the offensive end. (20) Los Angeles Rams Let's not waste time here. (21) Dallas Cowboys Okay let's waste a little time here. Jason Garrett is hardly safe, but he benefits from this format where most of the top names have already been taken off the board. In fact, Garrett must be doubly pleased by the results so far. With "defensive coaches" not being a huge priority right now, the Cowboys have managed to retain Kris Richard so far. (22) Indianapolis Colts Similarly, coach Frank Reich is quite pleased that DC Matt Eberflus hasn't been picked away yet. Eberflus (and Richard) are fine head coaching candidates, but there's just not a huge demand for defensive coaches anymore. (23) Minnesota Vikings Mike Zimmer lost his OC, but he has a fill-in who is more than capable. In fact, Gary Kubiak may be one of the best OCs of all-time. If his health is up to the task, the Vikings would love to plug him right in there. (24) Kansas City Chiefs Keep him, obviously. (25) Houston Texans Keep him, slightly less obviously. (26) Buffalo Bills I'll spend a little more time here for a mea culpea. I was not high on Sean McDermott when he was hired. I was not high on him after a good Year 1. Or Year 2. And even now, I'm still skeptical of the true strength of this Bills team. But time and time again, they have overachieved based on my expectations and made me look dumb as a result. My "under" 7 wins bet is particularly embarrassing right now. Always check schedules before making those bets, kiddies. (27) Green Bay Packers Matt LaFleur is a good example of why teams tend to give young OCs the benefit of the doubt. LaFleur only had 1 decent year on the job at Tennessee, but has largely done a good job here in Green Bay. He's one of the reasons that I'm hiring guys like Kevin Stefanski and John DeFilippo who fit similar profiles. (28) Seattle Seahawks Pete Carroll is an ageless wonder (at 68 and still chewing gum and kicking ass.) (29) Baltimore Ravens This has been a great year for John Harbaugh, especially since valuable OC Greg Roman didn't get swiped away by another team in our draft. I'm a big believer in Roman's creativity, but his system does take a very specific personnel and QB that not many other teams have in house. (30) New Orleans Saints I'm starting to think this Sean Payton guy may be pretty good. (31) New England Patriots This dude, too. Forgot his name. (32) San Francisco 49ers And him as well. Obviously the teams in the top 10 aren't firing their coach, but we include them for the sake of completion. And to shout out the Niners keeping DC Robert Saleh. He's a hot name in coaching circles, but again, suffers for being a defensive coach. Not only is offense more en vogue, there's a clearer correlation/causation to coaching whereas defense can often be more talent-dependent. Coming up tomorrow: ROUND TWO! Did you think we were done with this madness? You naive fool, you. We will go TWO more rounds to fill out the coordinator spots as well.
Online gambling status: There are no forms of legalized online gambling in Tennessee There are no Tennessee casinos or gambling other than the state lottery. Charities may not hold bingo games but may spread low limit raffles for prizes but not cash. That is the only other form of gambling if you can call it that. Tennessee gaming laws make no distinction between playing poker on the internet or in person; any poker game played for real money is illegal. Participation in any poker game anywhere in the state is illegal if real money is involved. Legally, you cannot bet on sports with your friends in Tennessee. The state does not permit social gambling on any level. Tennessee Code §39-17-501 through §39-17- 509 discusses gambling definitions along with offenses, and there are no exclusions for social gambling. That said, you and your friends can easily join an online sportsbook where you will all be able to choose from thousands of wagering options on TN and US sports each and every week. Tennessee has no casinos of any sort inside its borders. So, it came as a bit of a surprise when the Volunteer State moved forward with a bill to legalize sports betting in May 2019. Tennessee is now the first state with sports betting as an online-only enterprise. Sports betting launched in early November 2020. Three sportsbooks – DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM went live as the first gambling sites in TN. Online Gambling Laws in The United States. Gambling laws can be a rather complex topic these days as there are several US federal gambling laws to account for such as the UIGEA, and the Federal Wire Act, as well as, several individual state gambling laws. The reason for this is because the United States DOJ has said that states have the authority to determine their own destiny concerning both Tennessee governor to allow sports betting to become law without signature. Despite being opposed to the legalization of gambling, Gov. Bill Lee says he will allow a Tennessee sports betting bill... No, the state of Tennessee has not authorized state-licensed casino gambling activities anywhere within its state borders. Therefore, there are no casino games legally available to play on within TN. Nonetheless, licensed offshore online casinos can lawfully offer casino gambling at the convenience of the player. Tennessee legalized sports betting in 2019 and you soon will be able to place wagers in the state. It launched on Novem. TN sports wagering began after the state authorizes and vets sportsbooks who apply for licensure. The only restriction is you will not be able to make in-play wagers on collegiate events. Follow this link for full answer. In addition to this, is online gambling legal in In 2019, a bill was proposed that would have legalized sports gambling at the state's two horse-racing tracks, its 21 tribal casinos and potentially through mobile devices. That bill did not pass... The simplest way to describe Tennessee gambling law is if an activity hasn’t been specifically legalized with new legislation, it is probably illegal. Tennessee law maintains a strict definition of the word “gambling” that does not leave much leeway for games that have not been authorized through the legal process.
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