Tribes Reject Sports Betting Proposal in California
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SportsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - I thought we would be coming on the show
00:04 with a great update from the state of California
00:07 and the potential for having us maybe be,
00:11 having all of our viewers on the West Coast
00:13 being excited to be able to watch us
00:15 and use some of our tidbits, advice, et cetera, to bet.
00:18 That ain't happening anytime soon.
00:20 - No, it sure isn't, Craig.
00:23 And let's be clear, it was never going to happen.
00:25 This is simply the folks behind this initiative
00:29 accepting what was going to happen
00:32 and not wasting millions of dollars to do it.
00:35 To recap, we had a couple of gentlemen
00:37 that wanted to build a sports betting platform
00:40 that would essentially be given to the tribes in the state
00:43 and would kick back like 25% to tribes
00:46 that are not gaming tribes.
00:48 And it was never met with approval
00:52 from the tribal industry in California.
00:55 There were a couple of small tribes that bought in,
00:58 but the overwhelming amount of tribal interest,
01:02 they just said, "No, we don't want in on this."
01:05 And look, they're being smart about it, right?
01:07 We can do this a couple of ways in California.
01:09 They want to do it through the ballot.
01:10 They want to get it approved by voters.
01:12 So you're looking at this year being an off year
01:15 after 2022 when the tribal interest
01:18 and the commercial interest,
01:19 they spent record amounts of money
01:22 and it was just ugly for everyone.
01:25 And it left a bad taste in everybody's mouth
01:28 when talking about sports betting.
01:30 And so when this initiative was proposed
01:33 and it was supposedly on the backs of Indian country,
01:38 well, there was a lot of people
01:39 that took exception to that.
01:41 And finally now, one of the proponents,
01:44 Casey Thompson, told LSR that he said
01:47 that if the tribes did not come together to back this,
01:51 that he would step out.
01:52 And he said, "I'm a man of my word
01:54 and I won't create any more division."
01:56 But again, he wasn't really creating that much division
02:00 because while there were a couple of tribes
02:02 that wanted to back them, it was never going to happen.
02:06 The California tribes, the majority of them,
02:10 they were ready to fight back against this.
02:13 They were gonna spend some money to make it clear
02:15 that this was not what they wanted to happen.
02:17 The commercial operators who went against the tribes
02:21 in 2022, they came out to say this year,
02:24 like, "Whoa, let's be really clear.
02:26 We are now working with the biggest tribes in California.
02:29 We wanna support the way that they wanna do it.
02:31 So we are clearly not funding any of this.
02:34 We have no interest in this."
02:35 And so when you hear those kinds of things,
02:38 you start to wonder why they would spend $25 million
02:43 trying to get the 1.2 million signatures they need
02:46 just to get on the ballot.
02:48 And you're scratching your head,
02:50 wondering, "Alice Gaya has this much money to burn
02:54 and it looks like it's not going to happen now."
02:57 And so it's surprising to say,
03:00 but not having sports betting on the 2024 ballot
03:03 in California is a win for everyone
03:06 that wants to get sports betting legalized
03:09 and set up the way that they want it in 2026.
03:13 So that's the way that we're looking at it now.
03:16 This was just a blip in the radar,
03:18 but we're back to the way things were supposed
03:21 to be in 2024 now.
03:22 And now we have two years of the commercial operators,
03:27 the big guys and the tribes, the big guys in California,
03:31 getting together,
03:32 figuring out what they want this to look like.
03:35 The commercial operators understand
03:36 that they will be a vendor to the tribes in this situation.
03:40 And so we'll see what the formal request looks like in 2026.
03:44 But for now, no, we're dead in the water.
03:48 It didn't even get off the dock, Craig.
03:51 (upbeat music)
03:53 [MUSIC]