Mark Macarro, chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, which operates what may be the largest California Indian casino, Pechanga, last week said that the effort to push legalized sports betting is being “oversold,” and that much more research data is needed.
Macarro made the comments during a G2E panel that was exploring the issue. He said that while he thinks legalizing sports betting would benefit tribes, the wants to explore all such issues with skepticism.
“There were wild estimates out there about the world of liquidity of these things, and by last year Internet poker estimates were down by 75 percent,” he said. He added that reports from casino operators that sportsbook players tend to also spill onto the casino floor, that this is largely anecdotal.
He added that many of the figures being used are based on 20-year-old data. “We’re all looking at the same limited amount of data, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot there. We need some new studies, we need some analytics, we need something quantifiable.”
Robbie McGhee, vice chairman of the Poarch Creek Band of Creek Indians in Alabama, who was also on the panel, added, “You keep hearing about that $150 billion that’s being illegally wagered, that money that’s just going out, that money that’s not being taxed. But when you look at it, you’re really only talking about a five percent benefit to the actual tribe or whoever is doing it.”
He doesn’t oppose tribal participation but said, “Casinos are not actually getting that much off the actual sports betting itself, and these are things that we’re not going to want to comp. You want your sportsbook to be able to bring in people to your bricks and mortar buildings.”
Assemblyman Adam Gray has introduced a bill that would authorize sports betting in California if the federal government should ever repeal the ban against it, or if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the ban is unconstitutional.
Tribal casino operators are wary of sports betting because it might involve their rivals, commercial casino operators, as well as requiring that they renegotiate their tribal state gaming compacts.
