{"id":4176,"date":"2024-12-27T17:21:37","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T18:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/?p=4176"},"modified":"2025-01-09T13:42:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T13:42:27","slug":"cali-cardrooms-spent-3m-attacking-lawmakers-who-supported-gambling-bill-after-it-passed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/2024\/12\/27\/cali-cardrooms-spent-3m-attacking-lawmakers-who-supported-gambling-bill-after-it-passed\/","title":{"rendered":"Cali Cardrooms Spent $3M Attacking Lawmakers Who Supported Gambling Bill \u2014 AFTER it Passed!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an extraordinary display of political vengeance, California cardrooms spent more than $3 million this year punishing lawmakers who supported a bill allowing their competitors, the state\u2019s tribal casinos, to sue them for offering illegal card games. Senate Bill 549, also known as the Tribal Nations Access to Justice Act, was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in September<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Gardens Casino, a cardroom in Hawaiian Gardens, Calif., spent a reported $9.1M lobbying against SB 549 before its passage in September, and is believed to have contributed to the $3 million spent by cardrooms to punish legislators who supported it. (Image: Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three of the four legislators targeted by the cardrooms lost their reelection bids even though two were vacating their Assembly seats and running for nonlegislative positions that rarely deal with cardroom issues.<\/p>\n

What is SB 549?<\/h2>\n

SB 549, which becomes law on January 1, allows tribes to ask judges to legally challenge whether cardrooms are allowed to operate blackjack, pai gow poker, and other table games. The tribes claim that California voters gave them exclusive rights to host those games. But, until the new law, they have been unable to sue cardrooms because tribes are sovereign governments.<\/p>\n

\n

California is home to 84 licensed cardrooms where versions of popular casino games are modified to adhere to the state\u2019s ban on commercial house-banked table games. The games take a rake from each hand while allowing players to play in the dealer position, just like in a regular poker cash game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The cardrooms also hire third-party companies, which must be state-licensed, to \u201cshill\u201d in the dealer spot because regular players don\u2019t always want to act as the dealer. The tribes argue that these companies are the de facto \u201cbank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardrooms insist that their games are legal, but worry the cost of court battles could bankrupt them. Cardroom advocacy group the California Gaming Association estimates that the bill could cost the industry around 32K jobs.<\/p>\n

The new law could have even wider implications because city governments, some of whom receive nearly half their budgets from taxes on cardrooms, also worry that the measure could force budget cuts for police, firefighters, and other essential services.<\/p>\n

The Targets<\/h2>\n
\"\"
When Sen. Josh Newman lost his bid for reelection in November, it was the first time since 1980 that a Republican flipped a Democratic senate seat in a presidential election. (Image: newmanforsenate.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The targeted lawmakers included Fullerton Democratic Sen. Josh Newman, the bill\u2019s lead author, who lost to Republican challenger Steven Choi by 6,075 votes of 458,615 cast. \u00a0Cardrooms spent $900K on ads and mailers portraying Newman as tolerant toward crime and benefits for illegal immigrants, according to CalMatters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Cardrooms spent $500K on ads attacking outgoing Assemblymember Evan Low (D) of Cupertino. Low, who had a cardroom in his district, lost the race for California\u2019s 16th Congressional District to fellow Democrat Sam Liccardo.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And cardrooms spent $443K going after termed-out Assemblymember Brian Maienschein (D), who lost his bid for San Diego city attorney to fellow Democrat Heather Ferbert.<\/p>\n

Only one candidate, Laurie Davies, survived the cardrooms\u2019 vengeance. Despite the whopping $1.3 million they spent trying to align the Republican from Oceanside with \u201canti-choice radicals,\u201d \u201cMAGA extremists\u201d and \u201cBig Oil,\u201d she won reelection against Democrat Chris Duncan.<\/p>\n

But only by 3,870 votes out of 230,546 cast.<\/p>\n

Cardrooms Can Play the Same Game<\/h2>\n

Tribes have long outspent cardrooms in state politics, donating more than $23.5 million to candidates in the past 10 years \u2014 many times what cardrooms spent. Indeed, Newsom himself received more than $7.1 million in donations from California tribes since he first ran for governor in 2017, whereas cardrooms gave only $252,400 to his committees during the same period.<\/p>\n

Cardrooms clearly intended this spending spree to send a message to lawmakers, and it\u2019s highly unlikely that message will be ignored.<\/p>\n

\n

Any time you have a group essentially announcing to the world that they are going to do vengeance spending, it does cause lawmakers to pay attention,\u201d former Democratic Assemblymember Mike Gatto told CalMatters.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

However, Newman told CalMatters <\/em>that he sees no logic in the cardrooms spending money on races after losing a legislative fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question really is: If you shut the barn door after the horse is out, who are you really punishing?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The post Cali Cardrooms Spent $3M Attacking Lawmakers Who Supported Gambling Bill \u2014 AFTER it Passed!<\/a> appeared first on Casino.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an extraordinary display of political vengeance, California cardrooms spent more than $3 million this year punishing lawmakers who supported a bill allowing their competitors, the state\u2019s tribal casinos, to sue them for offering illegal card games. Senate Bill 549, also known as the Tribal Nations Access to Justice Act, was signed into law by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4181,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions\/4181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}