California’s biggest Indian tribes weighed in Thursday on a pair of sports betting initiative proposals and are calling on a commercial group led by businessmen Kasey Thompson and Reeve Collins to abandon their idea.
“Now that the sponsors have heard directly from tribes that their efforts are not supported, we call on them to drop the initiatives as they have pledged to do if tribes were to oppose them,” California Nations Indian Gaming Association President James Siva said in a press release.' “Our opposition could not be more clear and is irrevocable.”
The proposals, filed in late October, would make a hub-and-spoke digital sports betting model legal in California and would give the tribes a monopoly on legal wagering in the biggest U.S. state. While the tribes may eventually embrace the concept, Siva said in the press release that they are “offended” at the commercial group’s methods and are tired of “outside influences trying to divide and conquer Indian tribes.”
In 2022, California’s tribes spent about $250 million to kill a statewide mobile betting initiative brought forth by a group of seven commercial operators, including the three biggest nationally, BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel. The tribes, by their own admission, continue to talk with commercial operators about what legal California sports betting will look like and would welcome commercial operators as management service providers, but not as branded operators.