At long last, California tribes might just have the ability to do something they’ve been trying for decades now — have their day in court against card rooms.
It’s a battle that’s been brewing for a long, long time. Now the tribes are at the one-yard line. The last obstacle? A signature from Governor Gavin Newsom.
Let’s take you into the legal battle that could have massive ramifications for California’s betting market. Keep reading for the must-know details!
SB 549 Passed In The Senate
An amended version of SB 549 was passed by the California Senate with a 31-2 vote on August 31 — the final day of the 2024 session. This came on the heels of the General Assembly passing it two days before. That means the bill is officially going to the desk of governor Newsom, who is expected to sign it.
What does this bill do, you ask? It gives Californian tribes the right to sue card rooms over whether the latter have the right to offer table-game gambling. The tribes believe they don’t, the card rooms think they do. Either way, the courts will be allowed to decide once a lawsuit is filed.
Before the amendment, the tribes were considered sovereign governments and lacked the legal standing to bring the case to court. The amendment effectively changes that.
Once the bill is approved by Newsom, the tribes will have until April 1, 2025 to file a lawsuit. Furthermore, the lawsuit can not seek any momentary damages.
“This legislation is about doing right by California’s Indian tribes, to whom Californians made a binding commitment in 2000 by passing a proposition which explicitly gives them an exclusive right to certain games in recognition of the historical harms to which they were subject,” bill sponsor Josh Newman said via press release.
The bill, dubbed the “Tribal Nations Access to Justice Act,” was first filed by Newman in February of 2023. It went nowhere until this past summer when lawmakers began seriously considering it.
Undoubtedly, some of you are reading this and asking some very important questions like “what the hell is going on?” or “what are card rooms anyway?” Allow us to explain the complicated issue in simple terms.
You’re likely aware that tribal casinos are prevalent in California. This is due to that 2000 vote Newman mentioned in the quote above. California voters gave the tribes exclusivity to Las Vegas-style gambling in-person only, not via mobile apps. This has been a boon to native populations up and down the state, who’ve profited big off this exclusivity. The tribes can only offer casino gambling though, not sports betting. The tribes tried to legalize sports betting a few years ago but voters rejected it. That’s a topic for another day though.
But… here’s the meat of the issue: California has an abundance of “card clubs” that, for now, legally offer betting on card games. The tribes are contending this is a violation of their exclusivity agreement and want to sue on this basis.
Card Rooms Face Extinction If They Lose
The card rooms have argued they could be bankrupted if this lawsuit goes against them. And here’s the thing: they predate the tribal casinos by decades. The first-ever licensed card room was the California Club — which is still alive and well in Los Angeles— came in the early 1930s when America was fighting off the Great Depression.
Of course, the tribes aren’t buying that. Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians attorney-general Tuari Bigknife said this recently:
“The cardrooms have been in existence over 100 years, they have only been doing this illegal gaming since 2007. So there is no reason that they cannot go back to the way it was before instead of trying to do it on the backs of tribes.”
What is Bigknife referring to exactly when he says things changed in 2007? Welp, that’s the heart of the matter — who is the “bank” in these card games. You see, California law only allows house-banked card games with tribal casinos. Everyone else, including these card clubs, must bank via the players themselves, rotation style .
In 2007, card rooms found a workaround. They began to use third-party providers of proposition player services (TPPPS) as the bank. The TPPPS stand next to the dealer and are even dealt a hand of their own. Welp, the tribes are saying this TPPPS model is a direct violation of their agreement with the state of California. It’s essentially a house-banked system that’s being masqueraded as player-banked, when it’s not. That’s the tribal argument at least.
The tribes, ever the opportunists, say this issue is bigger than gambling. It’s about their rights not being honored over and over again.
“All too often throughout history, tribes in California were promised certain treaty rights and even large tracts of fertile land that were taken away from us,” said California Nations Indian Gaming Association chairman James Siva. “In those cases, we were stripped of our ability to defend those rights as we were denied access to justice. If this bill becomes law, it will reflect a new day in California history in regard to the civil rights of this state’s tribal nations.”
We have no dog in this fight, we’re only here to explain the arguments being made on both sides. And with that, we wait Newsom’s impending signature and the landmark court case that’ll soon follow after that.
