1

California Sports Betting: Endorsements Roll out against Proposition 26

solomon8756960 edited this page 2026-04-28 19:45:17 +02:00

On Friday, the No on 26 campaign, largely sponsored by California's card space owners, provided a declaration announcing that "every significant California paper" is opposed to the legislation sponsored by a broad coalition of native tribes.

The release included excerpts of editorials from the following major news outlets:

Los Angeles Times San Franciso Chronicle San Diego Union-Tribune Sacramento Bee San Jose Mercury News

Plus a handful of other papers from throughout California that have asked voters to decline Proposition 26, which would enable in-person legal sports wagering at tribal gambling establishments and racetracks.

The bill is backed by a union of 51 native tribes seeking to keep their long history of control over video gaming in the state, which saw more than $200 million in TV advertisements assaulting the rival sportsbook legislation.

Naturally, much of these exact same newspapers have likewise been recommending their readers, in a lot more stringent terms, to vote no on the online sportsbook-backed Prop 27 - the No on 27 statement is merely the most recent in what has actually been a long summer of dueling attack ads ... which resulted in alienating California citizens entirely.

California voters shut off by ads on both sides

The total ad invest for and against Props 26 and 27 has topped $500 million - a brand-new record with respect to state legal steps in the U.S. The cash was mainly lost, however, as Californians resented the saturation of TV campaigns where sportsbooks and native tribes were constantly attacking each others' reliability.

The bitter legal campaign has actually seen the sportsbooks missing the mark by labeling Prop 27 as a "Homeless and Mental Health Solutions" expense - owing to funds that would be assigned to such efforts from the 10% tax on operators' incomes - however citizens may well have actually felt insulted by a misleading marketing campaign that failed to discuss the main intent of Prop 27 - to legislate online sports betting.

That was definitely the interpretation advanced by numerous members of the No camp. Kendra Lewis, Executive Director of the Sacramento Housing Alliance, criticized operators' intentions in assistance of the No on 27 campaign.

"Prop 27 is an essentially flawed measure that will make the homeless crisis even worse in California," said Lewis. "The reality that Prop 27's backers are using this really real humanitarian crisis to sell their misleading online betting measure is outrageous."

A poll conducted by the L.A. Times and UC-Berkeley earlier this month exposed that voters who reported seeing the dueling attack advertisements about Props 26 and 27 suggested they were far more likely to reject both expenses, compared to those who prevented seeing any of the TV areas.

"I think it's the negative advertisements that have actually sort of been turning citizens away," said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the UC-Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) survey. "People who haven't seen the ads have to do with uniformly divided, however individuals who have actually seen a lot of ads protest it. So, the advertising is not assisting."

Polls confirm voter discontentment

The LA Times/UC-Berkley poll was one of two significant surveys that suggested the basic public's animus towards the sportsbook-sponsored bill.

In addition to that poll assuming that likely voters were extremely opposed to the sportsbook-sponsored legislature by a 53% to 27% margin, the October 4 survey also exposed that Proposition 26 just had 31% of likely citizen favor.

The UC-Berkeley survey validated the findings of a September 15 survey carried out by the Public law Institute of California that had most likely voters declining the sportsbooks' bill by a similarly decisive margin (the poll did not voter opinion on Prop 26).

More just recently, a SurveyUSA poll released in the 2nd week of October provided a smattering of wish to native tribes by revealing that the support for Prop 26 had actually improved - albeit the survey carried a much smaller sample size than the PPIC and UC-Berkeley polls.

Tribes brought in broad coalition of groups, sportsbooks left by themselves

From the very start, the native tribes were figured out to use long-standing public sympathy for their standard control of retail gambling establishments and horse tracks, where legal video gaming could take location.

Over the course of the summer, the No on 27 project saw 51 native tribes find allies in the California State Association of Counties (CSAC), which represents all 58 counties in the state, the California League of Cities, both state Democratic and Republican celebrations and their leading legislative leaders, as well as the major teachers' unions.

Even organizations tailored towards assisting the homeless - Step Up, Goodwill Southerm California, and the Corps of The Salvation Army - signed up with the No project although they would have seemingly taken advantage of the sportsbooks' self-imposed profits tax.

For the a lot of part, it was the major sportsbooks (headlined by FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetMGM) that were left twisting in the wind from a basic lack of assistance - only three native people in the state were prepared to back Prop 27.

Major League Baseball announced it was backing Prop 27 in August, tossing the sportsbooks a lifeline ... and recognizing the marketing advantage to the 5 professional baseball franchises operating in California.

But that was basically the degree of operator assistance, apart from a couple of isolated homeless shelter groups and the mayors of the towns of Oakland, Sacramento, Fresno, and Long Beach.

Most tellingly, California's major homeless shelter operators were never ever on board with the sportsbooks' "homeless options" messaging. In a September 22 statement provided by the "No on 27" committee, severe doubts were cast on the sportsbooks' bona fides concerning homelessness.