Wanna Bet?
So there are 85 calendar days until the mid-term elections. Any day now we should be seeing a major uptick in political ads on TV (and radio, I guess). But here on the Left Coast we’ve been subjected to an avalanche of ads for months now on one ballot proposition, Proposition 27. We even had ads before they knew what the proposition’s number was. That was new. Not so new is the subject of the proposition: legalizing online sports betting. We’ve seen that one before.
Many states have legalized online sports betting, but California, the sugar plum that the gambling industry has tried to pick before, has not. And the “Yes on 27” campaign has vigorous opposition from the “No on 27” campaign. Hundreds of millions of dollars in TV ads are being spent across both campaigns. It could go as high as a half a billion.
See, California has lots of native American tribes that have enjoyed the profits from our many, many “Indian Casinos”. They’re big here. Seeing a cut in casino profits, the casino tribes are behind the “No” campaign and huge out-of-state online gambling concerns are behind “Yes”.
So this should be an interesting tug-of-war in this deep blue state. Vote “Yes” and the taxes levied on online sales go to help house the homeless, and vote “No” to protect the sovereign rights of California’s casino tribes. A conflict worthy of the California Woke to mull over.
I guess ultimately I’ll vote for the cause that tells the fewest lies.