The extremely rich and politically powerful gaming tribes in California are spending nearly half a billion dollars this year to win the right to have sports betting.
Or, I should say, they are throwing away their money on a fatally flawed initiative, which the voters will reject in November.
And it is the tribes’ own fault.
Proposition 26, if approved, would authorize sports betting only in-person, and only at the state’s four privately owned racetracks and 66+ tribal casinos. It would also give tribes the right, for the first time, to offer roulette and craps.
But it also has an unnecessary provision designed to hurt their most hated competitors, state-licensed cardclubs.
California’s largest Indian casinos have 5,000 slot machines, each, making them among the most profitable in the world. The cardclubs have no slots or house-banked games. They are even expressly prohibited from offering “21.”