The state of California is another step closer in terms of making sports betting legal within its territory. Just this week, a coalition of 18 Native American tribes was given approval by the state to start circulating petitions for a statewide ballot initiative about allowing sports betting in tribal casinos and horse race tracks.

California won’t be the first state to try to legalize sports betting. In May 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 that disables most of the states from allowing local betting.

Basically, this concerns the local operations of sportsbooks in each state. However, there’s no law that really prohibits Americans from betting. Wagers can still be placed with bookies that are operating offshore or on bookies in states like Nevada, Delaware, Oregon, and Montana.

These four states have always been allowed to regulate sports betting as it has laws that protect them from the clause that PASPA had regarding this. Anyhow, Americans have always been placing their bets online through offshore bookies.



For sure, doing this can be a bit risky and this is why it’s encouraged that people make sure that they only place their bets with reputable online casinos. It helps to read reviews on online casinos. This website has great reviews of the best casinos and bookies online.

Now, California may have to keep on placing bets offshore in the future, but it’s still uncertain. What’s happening now is that the state is taking more steps towards legalizing sports betting with the help of the tribal communities.

Mark Macarro, the tribal chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians that operates a casino in Temecula talked about this. He said, “This is an important step in helping ensure sports wagering is restricted to adults over 21 at highly regulated and experienced locations. The measure will also result in new revenue for mental health programs and vital services like public safety and education.”

The legislation of sports betting in the state is much-awaited as California could possibly compete with Nevada and New Jersey in terms of the number of tax revenues it could bring in. According to research conducted by Eilers and Krejcik Gambling LLC, California could make up to 250 million to 500 million US dollars each year. This depends on how much tax rate the state will charge the operators.

The legislation of sports betting in California appears to be easier compared to other states with tribal communities that run their own casinos. Other states are having a hard time legalizing sports betting because the tribal community won’t agree to it.

However, it is different in California because the tribal community is all for it. The only challenge here is that they don’t really want mobile or online betting to be a part of the legislation. The owners of the existing tribal casinos are concerned that if mobile betting goes live, people may no longer have to drive to their casinos to place their bets.

There is truth in this as it is likely that the locals of California would just rather place their bets online. Aside from how it could affect their businesses, the tribal operators are also concerned with how betting can be then more accessible by the youth and gambling addicts.

Now, not legalizing mobile or online betting can surely affect the possible revenues that California can make in betting. This is exactly what New York is facing at the moment.

New York has already launched local sports betting last year, but it’s not really doing great as many were hoping. The lack of mobile betting can be blamed for this as New Yorkers will still have to drive upstate to go to land casinos and place their bets.

In fact, New York is still losing betting revenues. It’s New Jersey that is benefitting from New York’s lack of online betting. Many New Yorkers are finding creative ways to place their bets legally in New Jersey. It’s much easier for them to ride the train and get off New Jersey to place their bets with their mobile devices.

Now, New York knows how much they are losing from this, and so they are already working on making online betting legal locally.

For sure, California is still losing more than what New York is at the moment. California’s chairman of the Senate Governmental Organization Committee Bill Dodd believes that betting should already be legalized.

He said, “Though sports betting remains illegal in our state, the fact remains that Californians have and will continue to wager billions of dollars every single year on their favorite sport. “I for one believe we must bring sports betting out of the shadows in a manner that provides the best deal for the state of California and provides maximum protection for our constituents.”

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