2020 expected to be the year California legalises sports betting
Jonas Riis Vestergaard
Published 27/01-2020
This week a number of people descended on the state governance in California in order to argue the positive aspects that legalising sports betting would offer. With economists and market researchers all offering their opinions that the new sports betting market would offer the state access to around $200 million in tax revenue. They also said that offering mobile betting would be the right decision as it would allow the state to further increase revenues.
One of the many people who offered their opinion was the VP of William Hill USA. He spoke about ensuring the sports industry retains its integrity while also allowing sports betting as a positive.
Opponents to the move
It’s not easy for the state to see whether legalising sports betting is a positive move amongst the legislators. This is because no sports betting legislations have made it that far yet. The VP of William Hill is not confident though as he felt the people at the meeting we not convinced by the argument.
Too much of a split to pass
One of the biggest issues that is facing the legislation is that the tribes who operate the land based casinos and the operators of card rooms are often at odds with what they want. This is a similar situation for sports betting as everyone seems to want different things so a compromise is often hard to find.
The intention this year is for the tribes to go around the legislative procedure and use their influence to get sports betting put on a ballot. They will need to get almost a million signatures in order to get it put to a vote, but with the amount of people who visit their casinos combined with their wealth and power this shouldn’t be too difficult for them to achieve.
The tribes intend to get sports betting passed but have no intention of including mobile sports betting in their proposal. This would freeze out competitors from the market and put them in a strong position.
It means that if the right number of signatures are collected then sports betting could be passed as soon as November of 2020. This of course could be challenged if the state legislature put something to oppose it to voters.
