Published: February 14, 2022

Legal sports betting in California? Scrimmage to legalize sports betting heads to November ballot

Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day for sports gambling across the U.S. and it's a billion-dollar business, but in California sports betting is still illegal.

All eyes will be on California come November as the scrimmage to legalize sports betting heads to the ballot. KCRA traveled across state lines to Reno, Nevada, where sports betting has been thriving for decades.

Nevada legalized sports gaming in 1949. Grand Sierra Resort and Casino was built in 1978 and has had a sportsbook ever since. Nevada was the only state to allow legal sports betting up until a Supreme Court decision in 2018.

Now, at least 30 other states have legalized sports betting since that ruling. Grand Sierra Resort and Casino's Andrew Diss is following California's push to legalize sports betting.

"It's the new modern day gold rush to California," Diss told KCRA's Andrea Flores. "You have the population; you have more professional sports teams than any other state. I've seen several polls that speak to the popularity of sports betting in California, so it's a matter of what form it's going to take."

In Reno, prop bets and money lines are all fair game. "You can bet on how many fumbles or interceptions are going to be in the game," Diss explained. "If you just think the rams are going to win, not by any number of points, basically you would have to bet $195 dollars to win back $100, and if you're betting on the Bengals, you would bet $165 to win back $100."

One initiative to legalize in-person sports betting at tribal casinos has already qualified for the November ballot. Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation is just one of many California tribes to support the initiative.

The initiative, if passed, would also allow sports betting at certain horse racing tracks and crack down on existing laws in card rooms and non-tribal casinos around the state.

"For the last two decades we've been supported to play Nevada-style games in California on our sovereign land and through that we've been able to give back to our local communities and our own communities," said Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation Tribal Chairman Anthony Roberts. "We're highly regulated, we play the games the right way, and we don't bend the laws or skirt the policies."

That initiative faces some opposition from cities because it could put local businesses, like Stones Gambling Hall in Citrus Heights, at risk. Citrus Heights police Chief Alex Turcotte says the issue is bigger than betting.

"The card room that we have here is a good actor within the community and provides jobs and a good business anchor to a retail shopping center," Turcotte said. "If that were to go away, or dramatically diminish, it would bring the problems associated with any abandoned business, or the impact from any job loss or negative economic impact to the neighborhood."

The tribal sports betting initiative also excludes online gaming, made popular on sites like FanDuel and Draft Kings. A competing online gaming initiative is gathering signatures.

"Californians already spend billions of dollars on illegal offshore online sports betting marketplaces. These are offshore sports betting websites that are based in Croatia, Latvia, and the Bahamas," said online gaming initiative spokesperson, Nathan Click. "They don't have any consumer protections, they don't have any age verification, and what our initiative would do would take on the black market and follow the path of 21 other states that legalized online sports betting."

As proponents bank roll the initiatives, Diss says the odds of legalized sports betting in California are high.

"I would expect the legislature to try to step in and bring all the players to the table and craft an inclusive solution that allows tribal operators, commercial operators, tracks, card clubs, everybody, to participate in some form," said Diss. "Should that fail, we're going to have the voters making a decision between multiple initiatives and whichever gets the most votes is the one that will win out."

In addition to the tribal and online sports betting initiatives, there are two other initiatives still in the works to qualify for the November ballot. One would allow sports betting for licensed gambling facilities, including online betting. The other would limit it to online and in-person through tribal casinos.

https://www.kcra.com/article/legal-sports-betting-california-legalize-november-ballot/39069144#

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