Cowboy State Daily Video News: Thursday, October 8, 2026

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, October 8th.  I'm Mac Watson.

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Many Wyoming bar owners are shutting down their shake-a-days and football pools because of a new law tightening gambling restrictions. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports one bar owner said lawmakers have "tilted the favor completely to casinos," and leave little bars struggling to compete.

"So gambling has been illegal to certain degrees in Wyoming for years, several years. We started the legislature started to legalize certain forms starting like five six years ago, specific forms, and we have quite a few now that are legal. But the general rule is, if it's not specifically called out as legal, it's illegal. But now, as prosecutors beg for clarity as they try to enforce gambling crimes, the laws are getting sharper and clearer, which tends to put more of an alarm on people."

Wyoming Gaming Commission Director Nick Larramendy told Cowboy State Daily shake-a-days were already illegal "for years" even before the passage of SF 44.

But the bill clarified the ban, he noted.

Read the full story HERE.

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A bull moose that got stuck in a skate park in Red Lodge, Montana, prompted an hourslong, multi-agency effort to get it out Wednesday that ended when the tranquilized animal was pulled out. Cowboy State Daily's Andrew Rossi reports that one resident said, "It's been an exciting day in Red Lodge."

"There was a multi-agency effort to try to figure out how to get it out. So Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, the Red Lodge Police Department, and the Carbon County Sheriff's Office. They tried to coax the moose out of the half pipe. That didn't work. They ultimately decided to tranquilize it and put a harness around it. Once it was tranquilized, and then lift it out of the half pipe and into a trailer and get it out of town, where they gave it something to rejuvenate it, and then it was allowed to wander free. And thankfully, it was uninjured as a result of its ordeal at the skate park."

Don Hardy, who grew up in Cody and now lives about two blocks from the skate park, tells Cowboy State Daily the moose rescue also follows a summer and autumn