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SportsTranscript
00:00All right, so sports betting in California, that's the topic of our next discussion here,
00:07Mike.
00:08And certainly a lot of what's going on in California is trying to emulate or mimic what
00:13happened in Florida, which is the Seminole Tribe took over sports betting and now have
00:17exclusivity for a number of years.
00:20It just doesn't seem it's that simple in California, Mike, where I'm sure the tribes would love
00:25to have it.
00:26But there's a lot that's going to have to happen before this gets legalized.
00:29Right, Craig.
00:31So there was the Florida sports betting ruling where Wes Flagler's challenge was turned down
00:36by the Supreme Court.
00:37They decided they would not take this case.
00:39And so there's a question of, OK, now that this Seminole model is in place for 30 years,
00:45is this hub and spoke model something that other states can emulate?
00:48And everyone obviously looks at California because if it legalizes, eventually it could
00:51be the number one sports betting market in the country.
00:54And there was a financial analyst who said, OK, because of this ruling, it seems like
00:58Florida can just change it.
01:00I mean, excuse me, California can just change its compact and not have to go to the ballot
01:04initiative, so not have the public vote on it.
01:05They can just amend the compact and that'll give sports betting to California.
01:09But I talked to a tribal attorney, Scott Crowell, who has been with the tribes doing gaming
01:14for decades, and he said that's not the case.
01:17I also talked to an industry source who reiterated the same thing that, you know, there's no
01:21real shortcuts here.
01:23You're still going to have to have all parties moving in the same direction.
01:25It's not going to be FanDuel and DraftKings versus the tribes.
01:27It's going to be tribal led.
01:29And then you hope that all the operators get on board, the major politicians like Governor
01:33Newsom, who have a very good relationship with the tribes, everybody pulling in the
01:37same direction.
01:38And then you still have to turn a public that voted 82% no on this Proposition 27 in 2022,
01:46which would legalize online sports betting.
01:47So there's a lot of moving parts here.
01:49The tribes with 110, you've got the big tribes, the small tribes, the major gaming tribes,
01:54tribes that get the revenue sharing from gaming, that don't participate, they're in rural areas.
01:58There's a lot of parties that need to get on the same page, or at least most of them
02:02need to get on the same page.
02:03And so I think we're miles away.
02:05James Siva Sinaga, the chair, said on a recent podcast with Victor Rocha that he would not
02:10commit to 2026 for California sports betting at this point.
02:14That's obviously the next time they could get something done.
02:16So I think there's a lot here.
02:19We hope that California sports betting gets done, but the steps still need to fall into
02:23place as they would have before this ruling in Florida.