Two California card rooms announced March 7 they filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court to challenge a ballot initiative promoted by nine California Indian tribes, alleging the initiative violates state law.
The Hollywood Park Casino and Cal-Pac Rancho Cordova, called on the court to bar the ballot initiative—the California Sports Wagering Regulation and Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act—from the November ballot as it allegedly violates California’s “single-subject” rule, which prohibits citizen-led ballot initiatives from involving multiple topics.
The ballot initiative would legalize sports wagering in California, allow roulette and craps at Indian casinos, and grant one-way permission for tribal casinos to sue their card-room competitors, according to Hollywood Park Casino.
Under the current California law, sports wagering is illegal, and federally recognized tribes are only allowed to offer slot machines, lottery games, and banked card games on their lands subject to a negotiation with the governor.
“What this sports-wagering ballot initiative really does is to surreptitiously destroy competition with California’s cardrooms by granting more rights to Tribal casinos, including the right to file a stream of lawsuits against card rooms,” Deven Kumar, general manager of Hollywood Park Casino, said in a statement.
If passed, the ballot measure would allow the tribal casinos to monopolize the sports wagering without paying taxes into urban areas, according to Hollywood Park Casino.
The California Gaming Association, a trade association of dozens of licensed cardrooms and vendors, is also against the initiative.
So far, sports wagering is legalized in 26 states including Michigan, Florida, Oregon, and New York.
