Proposition 27, Mobile Sports Gambling: No

If you could possible write a worse sports gambling proposition than Proposition 27, the mobile gambling app companies BetMGM, DraftKings, and Fanduel managed to do it. This is a blatant money grab, an “investment” of more than $100 million by a few companies that hope to corner a market or potentially billions.

And they wrapped the proposition in a veneer of social responsibility, claiming that the tax portion of monies raised would go to help the homeless, certainly a hot-button issue in this and most every election year. This is nothing but performative politics. Don’t fall for it.

These companies are spending their tens of millions of dollars to buy a California law. Don’t let them.

Make no mistake, if this passes, the beneficiaries won’t be California tribes, California communities, or California homeless. The beneficiaries will be the sports gambling companies who will have their monopoly codified into law. Don’t do it.

Even if this was a good law, which it is objectively not, it should not be supported. As the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out, this is law that should be worked out by the state legislature, to make sure that the state’s interests are maintained and that the law is fair to any entity that can responsibly enter the market.

But the purchasing of California laws by deep-pocketed corporations is reprehensible. Repudiate it. Vote No.