California State Senator Roderick Wright introduced a sports betting bill for the state’s legislature to consider. The bill is identical to last year’s version that failed to pass before the 2012 California Legislative session adjourned for the year.
The bill would allow card clubs, reservation casinos, horse racing tracks and companies that offer internet wagering on horse racing to accept bets on sporting events. The wagers would have to be made in person by players 21 years of age or older. No internet or phone wagers would be allowed.
All professional sports would be available to bettors. There would be restrictions on amateur sports. No wagering would be allowed on amateur sports that were played within the California borders. Amateur California teams playing outside of the state would also be off limits.
There is one problem with this bill. It violates current federal law.
The bill has one interesting clause that addresses this issue. Unlike New Jersey, where the state was going to launch sports betting in violation of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act until the sports leagues filed a lawsuit, California would wait until the federal law banning sports gambling in most states is repealed or ruled unconstitutional.
While sports betting would not go live immediately, the bill would if it passes. That is because Senator Wright has introduced the bill as an urgency statute. This is done because he feels that getting the bill passed now is important so that the state can be ready should New Jersey prevail in its lawsuit with the sports leagues.
There are several issues that bringing sports betting to California may bring. Sports leagues are less likely to work with the state when it comes to moving franchises there or holding major tournaments. The NCAA has already told New Jersey that no college sporting events will ever be held in New Jersey as long as their sports betting law in on the books. They did the same thing when Oregon had sports betting through their Sports Action Lottery, even though Oregon did not take action on college sports at all.
The NBA forced the Provincial Lottery in Ontario to drop all NBA betting as part of the deal that brought the Raptors to Toronto. The NBA also forced British Columbia to do the same when the Grizzlies played in Vancouver. NBA betting came back when the Grizzlies moved to Memphis. Oregon Sports Action did not accept Portland Trailblazer wagers, but did accept NBA wagers during the early seasons.
The NFL would be likely to not allow California to host a Super Bowl. They may also rethink allowing a team to move to Los Angeles.
As you can see, a lot of thought must go into whether California wants to create a rift between the state government and the sports leagues. These are issues that Nevada and Delaware, the only two states with legal sports betting, do not have as neither state has professional sports teams or major collegiate tournaments.
It will be interesting to see if this bill can receive any debate or if it will die without any discussion like last year. Senator Wright is also the main sponsor of an online poker bill that has been introduced to the state legislature. It is likely that there will be just as much opposition to those bills this year as there was last year.
A copy of the bill may be found here.
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