Californian Gambling Ballot Ads Confuse Voters

As Californians prepare to take a historic vote on the November ballot on whether they should legalize online sports betting in the state, and how, not many campaigns sit to be hitting the mark. In fact, the campaigners who are trying to impose their point of view are causing more confusion than they are answering any questions and that is an issue.

What Californian Sports Betting Measure Is Best

Many of the online and television advertisements broadcast in California today focus on explaining why other proposed ballot measures are bad. In doing so, campaigners miss the point of presenting voters and informing them of the merits of their own ballot initiatives.

The advertisements use all sorts of language to oppose competing ballot measures. “We ask voters to vote no on the only eligible tribal gaming initiative on the November ballot,” a commercial says but fails to explain what this is all about.

And yet, the warring camps seem to be mostly split by where they stand on the California Sports Wagering Regulation and Unlawful Gambling Act. Nobody is denying the need to regulate sports gambling. It’s just about how it should be regulated.

Native American casinos want to see this ballot passed and secure the bulk of the sports betting rights. Not only are Native American tribes looking to secure the rights to sports betting – but they are also willing to restrict the access of other businesses to it.

The most worrying issue shared by those opposing the tribal measure is that they want to eliminate cardrooms that are using the “player-banked” system to compete with tribal properties in the first place. Fears are that should the California Sports Wagering Regulation and Unlawful Gambling Act measure pass, it will give tribes the legal means to go after cardrooms and shut them down.

An Alternative to Tribal Measure

But shutting those cardrooms won’t have the cleansing effect that tribal casinos expect. Opponents to the measure argue that should cardrooms be shut down as tribal casinos want, entire communities would be impacted. That is where the California Solutions to Homelessness and Mental Health Support Act comes in.

For the most part, this initiative just looks to address social issues, such as homelessness, and believes that by legalizing online and in-person sports gambling in the state – without granting exclusivity to either party – the state stands to benefit the most.

Right now, there are millions if not billions of dollars leaving the state because sports bettors and gamblers cannot make legal wagers online. This ought to change with the passing of a sports gambling bill that works for all. Tribal Sovereignty and Safe Gambling spokesperson Rob Stutzman offered a comment in which it called out the California Solutions to Homelessness and Mental Health Support Act as hardly efficient to tackle the problem of homelessness in the state.

According to Stutzman, through many cuts, the final amount that would go to addressing the issue would come to no more than 3% of the current levels.