Congress Wants to Ban Prediction Markets & Clear Scores from TSA Chaos

So we Anton, the grade is a new Borene tochter in the arm-held.

Your gluczene is for you the beautiful Geräusch der Welt. That means, you're the best Geräusch the beautiful von allen. Good morning, Brudeli Show. I'm Neil Friamen. And I'm Toby Hall. Today, the airport chaos has been horrible for everyone except this one company.

“Then, why is the US banning foreign-made Wi-Fi routers?”

It's Friday, March 27th. Let's rise. Good morning and happy Friday. Toby successfully made it through airport security yesterday and is coming to us live from Florida, which is sad because I won't be able to watch the college basketball games with you this weekend.

Last night's men sweet 16 games had a couple of epic finishes and tonight should also be fascinating.

In one of the matchups, St. John's is playing Duke and here's a wild stat about that game. The Duke men have won five national championships and then every one of those seasons, they've defeated St. John's on their way to the title. So if Duke wins tonight, it does vote well for the Blue Devils. Toby, what's the latest on the MBD bracket?

Yeah, and our March man is pool. Our leader is still the guy with the name, the real Neal Fry Man,

“which is maybe in his view at this point, Neil. I don't know, actually.”

He might go a wired wire at this point. My own bracket has its way up to 28th place. Thank you, Illinois. My women's bracket, though, has plummeted unfortunately. That MBD pool is still being led by Payne's picks. So shout out, Payne. But we all pale in comparison to eighth grader Otto Schellenhammer. He is 14 years old and he still has a perfect women's bracket.

He has started out 48 and has Texas winning it all, which I do as well. So I hope I'm not a jinx. So the AP pointed out that Schellenhammer has a long way to go. The best start in the ESPN women's competition ever is 57 correct picks in a row, which actually happened last year. So good luck to Otto, good luck to the real Neal Fry Man, and Payne's picks. And you know what good luck to me too.

And now a word from our sponsor at LinkedIn Ads. Toby, do you ever think you've seen a billion

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and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com/mbd that's linkedin.com/mbd terms and conditions pay apply. If you are so over hearing your unemployed friend talk about prediction markets, Congress is with you. Multiple bills are filtering out of the Senate and the House proposing different methods of cracking down on an industry that many think is more akin to gambling than events based contract trading. A new bill called the Stop Corrupt Bets Act

would ban contracts on election sports, government actions and military moves. That comes on the heels of a bipartisan bill coming out of the Senate on Monday that would ban any prediction contract that resembles a sports bet or casino style game. And it goes along with the predict act from the House that seeks to explicitly bland members of Congress, the president, and high ranking officials from trading in certain prediction markets. Now, it's not often that

you have bipartisan support for anything these days, but after suspicious activity around the Maduro raids and Iranian war, Congress is mobilizing. The platforms themselves are obviously against these measures and Tauzi has pushed back saying in a statement that prediction markets offer a fairer choice to consumers than sports books, adding that we should let politician run its course instead of protecting monopolies. The bills themselves will face an uphill climb,

even if they make it to the president's desk. President Trump's appointed CFTC chairman has shown support so far for the industry, while Donald Trump Jr. is a strategic advisor to both calcium and polymarket. There are a lot of ways you can attack this industry right now from insider trading allegations to the fact that many see them as unlicensed sports books operating under a legal loophole. Feels like there's a concerted push right now to rain them in.

Yeah, the heat is totally being cranked up. There are multiple layers to this backlash. Shrek would be very proud. On the one hand, you have states saying, "Hey, you're offering what is essentially sports betting in our state, but we haven't legalized sports betting. You can't do that." 19 states still haven't allowed sports betting since that big Supreme Court decision

increasingly, you have this tsunami of federal bills, three this week alone, three were released,

which basically argue prediction markets are destroying democracy in the fabric of our society

by being right with insider trading and allowing Americans to wager on, literally anything that ever happens, which is ruining their lives. So the heat is being turned up.

“I think the two factors of attack, as I kind of call them, were states getting bad about sports”

books, but then also people getting bad that maybe insiders within Congress or insiders within the government apparatus are trading off of information that is not materially available to other people. Let's go back to the loophole that people are describing that allows them to offer you know contracts based on sports. Sports books are regulated by the state's prediction markets are monitored federally by the commodity futures trading commission, the CFTC, because technically

what is happening is an event-space swap, not a bet. Again, that is a legal difference. It's essentially the same exact process, which is why sports books are mad. And sports is where all the money is on these platforms. No matter what, calcium or polymarket say about what they offer, like you can trade on anything. Most people are trading on sports. Calcy reported that 90% of its trading volume during the 25 NFL season was on a sports sports was the most traded category on polymarket

“all of last year. If you just look at March, madness alone, they have seen their volume spike”

to over $2.67 billion on calcium alone. It is definitely a platform that is being used primarily

to bet on sports, which is why sports books and states are mad. So there's this turf war that's going on between the states and the federal government. But there's also this more moral backlash to gambling more broadly. It's not just focused on polymarket and calcium, but also draft King's Fandle and our culture of just literally gambling on everything. Recently, majorly baseball signed to a deal with polymarket and Alexandria, Ocasio Cortez, the representative from New York,

had this tweet that went absolutely viral quote posting this particular deal between MLB and polymarket saying pervasive gambling is not good for society. It turns life into a casino traps people in addiction and debt, surges domestic violence and fosters manipulation. What was interesting about that particular post is that a bunch of conservative people also said, "I don't agree with AOC on literally anything, but I agree with her here." So there does seem

to be a ground swell of support to reigning these companies and not just the prediction markets, but also draft Kings and Fandle and this culture that America has developed in recent years of gambling on sports and everything else. I have one more anecdote that just speaks to exactly what you talked about. What are sports books up to these days? Draft Kings just introduce a way to gamble on hundreds of pitches from old MLB games. So literally you open the app. It's called

DK replay. It looks like an arcade game and you have 15 seconds to bet on a simulated pitch being a ball or a strike or in play. There's no game that you're watching. They've just stripped away any pretenses of actually enjoying the sport. Now you just see an animated picture and an

“animated strike box, a strike zone and you have to guess if what the ball is going to do,”

based on a full-old pitcher versus batter match-up. So it's literally exactly what you're talking about. It is the financing and the gambling epidemic if you want to call it that is just absolutely encapsulated by the fact that we're betting on old baseball games at this point. So we're seeing prediction markets get more in the hot seat, but who knows whether anything will happen as you said earlier. It's going to be an uphill climb because they still enjoy support from the

top echelons of the Trump administration. Miami is the new San Francisco. That is the conclusion drawn by economist Jed Coco after new census data release yesterday showed people are leaving Vice City like it was SF during COVID. In the year through last June, 114,000 people left the Miami area for other parts of the country, the highest out migration rate of all large American metros. But Miami isn't alone. A number of the largest US metropolitan areas are shrinking the

census revealed, largely the results of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. New immigrants often come to large cities where they're existing networks and plentiful jobs. Without that influx, these urban areas are having trouble holding onto their populations, which sustain their economies. Los Angeles is another city that's losing people. Last year through June the LA region gained 38,500 people in net immigration,

lost a whole lot more, 131,000 to other American cities. San Diego County's population also fell by about 5,300 people and New York City shrank for the first time in three years. This is the most comprehensive view so far on how the immigration curves are impacting the country's demographics. From a previous census release, we already knew that the US population in total grew by a

measly 0.5 percent. The data out yesterday drilled down into the county and metro level to reveal

Are you sure about that, Neil? Only 83 of the nation's 387 metro areas shrink.

That is up from 52 the prior year. In about 75 percent of all counties overall population growth,

either slowed or turned negative. That means only 25 a quarter of the counties in the United States are growing. Four in 10 US counties shrink last year. So you are absolutely right. The great shrinkage is upon us right now and it's not just affecting big metro areas to the peace called out to that immigration is leaving a mark on smaller metro areas. Of course, along the southern border, so it really is counties big in small. We will dive into the only places

“that are growing which I think many can assume are in the south. But right now, a lot of the”

big population centers are absolutely shrinking. Okay, so let's go to that good second. I said, yeah, if I say, you said, yeah, where is growing in the United States which populations, which areas are seeing more people and that is mostly in the south among counties with

populations of at least 20,000 people. Nine of the ten fastest growing were in the south. I guess

not Miami, which you can say you can debate whether that's the south or not. But the cities that are growing at four times a national rate or more are places like Austin, Texas, Raleigh, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Florida, Birdle Beach, Wilmington, North Carolina and then others that really aren't in the south, but are more in the mountain West Boise, Idaho and St George Utah. So they're bucking the trend. But overall, this this these curbs on immigration are really

denting the population growth and even for the most large cities, they're sending their populations downward. And how do you grow a population? There's really only three ways. One, there is domestic migration, which is when you move from, you know, I move from New York to L.A. There's international migration where you move from another country into the United States or you can have more birds than deaths. We have talked a lot about how the birth rate is falling.

That doesn't look to be reversing at any time soon. So you can't necessarily rely on growth from that leg of the stool. Then you have less people kind of moving into these big population centers in general or they're just moving to, you know, a little bit smaller versions of large population centers like Austin Texas. And then, of course, obviously policy impacts international immigration as well. So that is a very wobbly three-legged stool, which I

actually don't even think is physically possible. Even if legs are different sizes, it's not wobbly.

“But in this metaphor, you are looking at a very wobbly stool. Right. Well, here's the thing.”

The United States has always had this immigration cushion. We've talked a lot about

demographic crisis facing places in East Asia, like South Korea where deaths are outnumbering births and are not having enough babies to replace their population. But they don't have the immigration that the United States has always had people have always flocked to the United States from other countries. And now it looks like that is drying up. And we were relying more on people having more babies as opposed to dying. And that is not doing well in the United States. So

it's something that demographers are going to be watching closely. Welcome to Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week. The segment where Toby and I pick one stock that's blooming like a cherry blossom and another that's wilting like an uncaered for house plant. I won the pre-show a hopscotch competition. So I get to go first. And my stock of the week is clear because when chaos rains at airports, clear is the beneficiary. Shares in the company have jumped more than 60% over the last

“month and are up 13% this week alone. As more travelers by memberships to avoid dystopian”

security lines at TSA checkpoints. For more than 40 days now, the Department of Homeland Security has not been funded, leading TSA agents to call out of work because they're not being paid. This airport may have been a huge windfall for clear aviation business, which lists travelers through security using biometric scans, a service it offers for more than $200 per year. Since the beginning of March, passengers have downloaded the clear app $2809,000 times

triple the number from a year ago according to the Wall Street Journal. Not a few of them are signing up for clear on the spot in the terminal, anxious that they'll miss their flight if they continue to languish in the standard line. While clear's airport service still brings in most of the companies revenue, investors are also excited by clear's expansion into new areas like its ID verification platform for businesses that brought in record bookings last

quarter. It's also making a big push into health care, striking a couple of deals with health companies to streamline patient check-ins. So, be clear, pitch is indeed crystal clear, pay us, and you'll wait less, and it's pretty compelling in this age of long lines everywhere. I really do think that the reason why we saw the stock do the jump that it did this week is not because, you know, very long lines were appearing at airports. That definitely exemplifies,

you know, the story that we're trying to tell, but it really was this expansion beyond airport security that got investors so excited. I mean, integrating with Epic, one of the country's biggest medical record platform. I didn't even know they had a health care business to begin with. They signed a contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. So, I do think that the diversity case in the story beyond just long airport lines and people, you know, jumping out of

know that the only company that's doing well during these chaotic times at airports.

“Rental car companies are absolutely crushing you right now. Hertz stock rose 8.6%”

on Thursday. Hey, this had its biggest one-day gain since June up 17% so people are turning to rental cars instead of wanting to wait and line at these airports. It looks like do have some good news. It looks like this national nightmare might be coming to an end and perhaps this clear stock rally as well overnight Center Republicans Democrats agreed to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA. They're leaving out immigration currently,

but they are the Senate did pass a bill to fund DHS, including TSA because right now TSA agents

today are going to miss their second full full paycheck. The earlier this week TSA director

came on and said these are the longest wait times in history. So you're not matching it. These are the longest wait times in history. 480 agents have already left this particular workforce to look for other jobs. So it looks like the house will take this up today and hopefully present Trump will sign this soon. So airports can turn back to normal or whatever normal was before this. I made my flight and I didn't even have to chat and cut to do it. So that's the good news, too.

All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with our dog a week right after this. This episode is brought to you by Apple. There is nothing like your first Mac. When I got mine, I was heading into freshman year at the University of Maryland. A lot was uncertain that fall, but I knew I had a dependable sidekick for homework, connecting with other students, and devouring blogs about our basketball recruiting class. What about you, Toby?

For me, it was right as my sister started to get recruited to play soccer in college. I was given the very important task of making her a highlight tape and I movie was my best friend.

“She ended up playing at Georgetown. So I'd say it was all worth it. That's how we felt with”

our first Macs. How will you? Check out the all new MacBook Neo in amazing Mac and a surprising

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disconnected tools, you've got one. Price ship station free for 60 days with full access to all features, no credit card needed. Go to shipstation.com and use code mbds. That's shipstation.com, code mbds. Toby, how do you wake up in the morning? Well, I asked our producer to slap me across the faces, how does they can? Or drink coffee. Have you considered ultra pouches? They're

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proven new tropics and adaptogens to deliver immediate focus and smooth energy that lasts one to two hours. In fact, 90% of users saw significant improvements in their overall focus levels with zero cheap paint. Way better than my slot method. Get some for yourself at take ultra.com. That's take ultra.com. My dog the week is your Wi-Fi router because it's going to be really hard to get a new one if you're roommate. Accidentally mistakes it for the toilet after a night out speaking from experience there.

This week, the FCC ordered a ban on the import of any new models of foreign produce wireless routers calling them in unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States. Now, you don't need to go ripping out any cords. If you have a foreign made router right now, you can keep using it, but it's going to make shopping for a new non-yurn-filled router, a major headache sense. The ban is in place regardless of the nationality of the parent company.

Even if you're buying from a US company like Cisco, if the routers are made outside the US, banned. The idea behind such a wide sweeping crackdown is that the same piece of hardware that brings you an episode of Love's Blind is also a perfect vector for cyber criminals. Recent attacks on American communications, energy, water and transportation infrastructure, all involved routers produced abroad. But Uncle Sam slamming the door on foreign routers

is going to seriously disrupt the market that doesn't have the domestic producers to pick up the slack, TP link, Amazon, Google and others all build their routers overseas, and will need time to set up or expand their manufacturing preferences in the US. Now, this is pretty odd brand for the US smartphones and drones from Chinese companies have been greeted with similar restrictions, but routers are a different story because of how ubiquitous they are and how few domestic

options are available. All right, that is some Toby lore that I'm not sure we needed to hear, but yes, it's been a total freak out because it's like detonating a nuke on the consumer market

basically no routers that anyone buys, that you buy, that I buy, that anyone has in their homes,

by an American company like Cisco or Starlink, but if it's made abroad, it, you know, the future

“versions won't be available to buy on the consumer market. I think that's another point to emphasize.”

The one you have now is perfectly fine and have to switch it out. And if the product is currently available in the United States, it's also fine. It's, it's basically targeting any future device that is made abroad. And the way they're justifying this, the United States government issued this document saying that routers have been targeted in previous hacks. They name a couple of them salt typhoon and phlact typhoon are few in the past few years where China backed SV&H groups

hacked into routers and other telecom systems. And at least in the phlact typhoon one, they said that 126,000 devices in the United States, including thousands more around the world, were infiltrated

by these China back groups. The question is, are U.S. made routers safer? And the answer is,

not inherently because a routers vulnerability to attacks doesn't really depend on where the exact components are manufactured. It really depends more on its cybersecurity protocol. So just making a, just having a made in USA sticker on a router doesn't inherently make it safer for national security concerns. That is one thing that a lot of industry watchers were pointing out. If you're looking for some bright spots in this dog of the week segment, net gear stock actually rose this week

because it is a U.S. company. And some of its routers are made outside of China. So investors are saying, hey, maybe that is going to give it a competitive edge in this new router landscape. And then you mentioned that Starlink Starlink does make some of their routers inside the U.S. They also make some in a Vietnam. So Starlink could be a winner as well because some of its routers are actually assembled in Texas. Yeah, it's going to happen now. It looks like all these companies

are going to file for exemptions because the United States government also will allow exemptions.

“We saw this with what happened with drones earlier. I think it was in December. They,”

the US government is something very similar with foreign made drones. And then all these companies applied for exemptions and a couple of them were actually granted exemptions. That's one of the reasons that neck year stock is going crazy is because they think there's going to be an exemption and critics of this policy. And there are many say this looks a lot like a shake down like we've seen from the United States government during the Trump administration. Like remember when they

banned in video from selling AI chips to China said it was all about national security. And then all of a sudden it was actually okay unless in video pays 25% of the proceeds to the United States government. So they think that they're so the critics of this policy saying we're going to see something very similar. All these exemptions that are going to come perhaps will come with some sort of payment or give to the Trump administration to make sure that they can sell in the United States. But yeah,

“as a consumer, this is definitely something to watch. We all buy routers and need them to have fun at home.”

Let's run to the finish with some final headlines. First round is on your banker friend at Happy Hour. The average Wall Street bonus came to a record 246,900 last year up 6% from 2024 according to the

New York State Controller. The total bonus pool came to 49.2 billion dollars, a 9% jump from the

year before and also a record. Wall Street has been living large thanks to volatile markets and a resurgence in dealmaking following Trump's inauguration. But one thing to note, bonus on Wall Street doesn't really mean bonus the way the rest of us use it. In 2024, for instance, bonus is accounted for almost half of the average bankers total compensation fluctuating year to year to reflect the company's performance. And banks are doing really well at the moment. Wall Street

profits rose more than 30% last year to 65.1 billion dollars. Yeah, they really have their trading desks to think as well because they brought in a record 134 billion dollars in trading revenue across the industry last year. And to be fair, it was a pretty good year in the market. That's be 500 rose nearly 18% in at 2025. So that is where the lion's share of the elevated profits came for. The one other angle that is often talked about when we are discussing, you know,

increases of bonuses on Wall Street is it is a major driver of New York City's economy. Like again, most people say like, oh wow, you are, you know, logging these big bonuses. But it does drive 19% of New York state's tax revenue between 2024 and 2025. So if the bonuses are bigger, that means tax revenue is going up as well. Yeah, people in New York City City Hall and in all beneath watched this every year because it just depends because they have to build their budget

entirely around it almost 20% of their total tax revenue. Okay, Netflix is raising its prices.

Again, after this latest price, like the second and less than two years, Netflix's cheapest ad

supported tier will cost $8.99 up from $7.99 previously. The standard plan is going up by two dollars to $19.99 a month and the premium will now cost you $26.99 up from $24.99 previously. Back in January, 2025, Netflix also raised prices on a similar scale. Netflix wants to bring

it's planning to lay out more than $20 billion on entertainment this year. And the thing is,

“it sees no reason to stop raising prices because y'all don't cancel even after years of substantial”

price hike. Netflix still has, by far, the lowest turn of any streaming platform. People just can't bear to live without it. The issue, too, is that Netflix kind of sets the bell weather for the entire streaming industry. So if they raise prices, a lot of other companies then feel like they have the permission to go ahead and raise prices as well. So when you see Netflix's price hike, that just means your entire streaming suite is going to get a little bit more expensive.

And many were pointing out, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, that Netflix just got a $2.8 billion

payout from Paramount for its failed Warner Brothers deal. Now they turn it right around in

“raise prices. I don't think those two are related in any way necessarily. They probably have this”

price hike plan. Well, before that, but, authentically, it does not look good for Netflix. Finally, the 999 challenge, where you eat 9 hot dogs and drink 9 beers in 9 innings of baseball, it's supposed to be a physical and mental test of gastrointestinal fortitude. After all, that's a lot of beer in beef product entering the system. But what started as a social media challenge where you had to buy and consume all the fixings yourself has become a little

corporatized. 6 MLB clubs this year have rolled out their own version selling all the atoms involved in the challenge and one fell swoop to endeavoring fans. But those same fans are calling out their clubs for serving up a water-down fraudulent version in Oracle Park out in SF. You're given one course tall boy that is supposed to add up to 9 flight size beers and don't even get me started on the hot dogs. They are mini dogs and it's not cheap either. The 999 challenge

will set you back 854-99. No, it's not just Oracle and the giants that are being dragged. The Met's have a small box. The fillies have a small box, string inflation has come to the last bastion of American culture doing stupid drinking stunts at baseball games. Yeah, Americans do not like getting ripped off, especially at a baseball game where everything

“is already expensive. But here's the thing, I'm actually okay with this because I don't think”

I could do the standard version 999. So if I'm going to the baseball game, I'm probably going to order that mini version because that's the only one that I can complete. 999 box with full size hot dogs and full size beer for $90. So if you want the real experience, go check out Amario's "Saud Poodle" screen. Do you think you can do it?

Absolutely. I think four dogs would go down in the first inning and the beer is just kind of

drink themselves as that's just a baseball game. That's a normal baseball game for a lot of people. The last five dogs might be a little bit of the fight, but I think really loaded up early and then you can make those last five dogs stretch out across to look the remaining eight innings. Sounds like we got to try it. We got to try we have six months of the baseball season left. So I will definitely try it with you. I don't think I'm going to get that far personally.

Okay, that is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend. If you'd like to reach us, send an email to [email protected] or DM us on the Instagram @MBDailyShow. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our supervising producer. Raymond Loo is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake.

Her make-up is down bad after attempting 999 the real version. Devon Emory is our president and our show's a production of Morning Brew. Great show Daniel. I wish you all well.