Legislative Clock Ticking In California

The California bill AB831, which would ban dual currency casino-style sweepstakes games in the Sunshine State, is cutting it awfully close. The Senate passed it late Monday night with a unanimous 36-0 vote, though there were four abstentions. The end of the California legislative session is less than a week away, and the bill has to return to the Assembly for concurrence.

It was amended for the second time this past week as well, as dissent around the bill seemed to intensify. While the usual sweepstakes lobbying groups like the Social and Promotional Games Association (SPGA) and Social Gaming Leadership Alliance (SGLA) have been quite vocal, there has been a sort of odd coalition of the unwilling that has joined together against the legislation as well.

The California ACLU came out strongly opposed, stating that criminal penalties and vague wording in the bill might ensnare innocent individuals. The Association of National Advertisers had concerns about language that would potentially have held advertisers at fault for even unknowingly aiding sweeps operators with advertising campaigns or showing their ads on digital devices.

Sweeps adjacent industries like Publisher's Clearing House, World Poker Tour, and the California card room lobbying group, California Cities Gaming Authority, have made their opposition heard.

And then in the last few weeks, a very small but vocal group of California Tribes have partnered with sweeps providers and spoken out about what they feel are the voices of the larger tribes with established land-based gaming operations drowning out their concerns and needs.

Many of these much smaller tribes, in out-of-the-way locations, which will never have the ability to see casino projects, have recently been courted by the sweeps industry. This is almost certainly about optics, as they hadn’t exactly beaten a path to these tribes’ doors before the larger tribes flexed their considerable political muscle and put AB831 front and center on their Sacramento wish list.

But even three or four dissenting tribal voices have been a powerful antidote to the consensus tribal effort to paint all Sweeps casinos as bad for Indian Country. The fact that the first and loudest of these voices, the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, also received market access and economic ties with VGW, the owner of Chumba Casino and LuckyLand Slots, is probably not coincidence, however.

Recent amendments to the bill, which address some of these concerns, have brought it back to the assembly floor. If the Senate's unanimous ratification is any indication, these changes ensure that no individual players will be punished and clearly establish a legal space for gambling sweepstakes contests, effectively removing the last remaining concerns for legislators.

With a Friday, September 12, deadline fast approaching as the legislative clock ticks down, the Assembly will have to act fast if it wants to get this legislation on the governor's desk this year, though bills still in limbo when the session ends can be taken back up in 2026 after the mid-session recess.

It seems likely that the bill will be passed before the deadline, at which point Governor Newsom has until October 12 to veto or sign. This is less clear, but Victor Rocha, conference gaming chair for the Indian Gaming Association, is on record saying that he believes not only that they have more than enough votes in the Assembly, but also that he believes that the governor will indeed sign.

As the deadline looms, AB831 has momentum but no guarantees. The next few weeks will decide whether California moves swiftly to curb sweepstakes casinos or leaves the fight for another year.