Hollywood Park Casino and Cal-Pac Rancho Cordova have filed a lawsuit with Los Angeles’ Superior Court to bar the California Sports Wagering Regulation and Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act from the November ballot.
They claim it violates California’s constitutional rule that ballot initiatives may only involve a single subject. But more directly, Hollywood Park said the tribal operators will use “hidden provisions” within the initiative to undermine their competitors — the cardrooms.
“What this sports wagering ballot initiative really does is to surreptitiously destroy competition with California’s cardrooms by granting more rights to tribal casinos, including the right to file a stream of lawsuits against cardrooms,” said Deven Kumar, General Manager of Hollywood Park.
“This is not what the initiative process was designed to do, and certainly not what this initiative is advertised to do.”
Among the nine tribes backing the ballot initiative are the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians, the Sycuan Bank of the Kumeyaay Nation and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.
Under California’s constitution, federally recognised Indian tribes may enter into agreements with the governor to offer slot machines, lottery games and banked card games on their lands.
However, the state’s constitution does not permit “casinos of the type operating in Nevada and New Jersey,” including roulette and dice games.
But Hollywood Park claims the initiative would “create a special carve-out for the tribal casinos — and only the tribal casinos — to offer those games.”
