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California tribal gaming leaders have reinforced their belief that daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sweepstakes companies are operating illegally in the Golden State, and say they are taking legal steps to protect their gaming exclusivity.

“We’ve been keeping an eye on daily fantasy and DFS 2.0 and sweepstakes and whatever other title they’ve been putting on it going back to the end of 2023,” James Siva, chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association (CNIGA), said during a webinar hosted on Wednesday (October 16) by the Indian Gaming Association.  

“Coming off of that, we had our eye on it, but we probably weren’t paying as much attention to it as we should’ve,” Siva said.

What first caught the tribes' attention, Siva said, was Attorney General (AG) Rob Bonta taking up a request in October 2023 from a California lawmaker to provide an advisory opinion on the legality of daily fantasy sports. That opinion has not yet been released.

“I think that’s probably a good sign,” Siva said. “I think if it had gone fast, it would have been bad for tribes, but now that he’s getting pushback, I think he’s thinking about this law more deeply.”

Regardless of the opinion, Siva did not mince words about the tribes’ belief about the illegality of daily fantasy in the state.

“DFS is illegal, the state has allowed it to happen, but it’s illegal, there’s no other way around it,” he said. “We can talk about the different forms of daily fantasy, but the fact alone is, according to the California constitution, daily fantasy of any type is illegal.

“Now they’ve tried to find these nuances and things like that, but with everything happening right now, they have made sure that the radar of California tribes is on, so this is going to be another big push for us.”

Siva was also critical of California officials for not being as responsive as other jurisdictions to address daily fantasy and sweepstakes operations.

“I think this has kind of been the status quo for leadership in California, whether it’s the governor's administration or the attorney general, if there’s a new form of gaming that the public responds positively to, they’ll not look at the legal area or regulatory portion of it, they’re like, oh the public likes this, we’re going to push it, or we’re just going to ignore it, which I think is as bad as them advocating it,” Siva said.

“It allows [fantasy sports and sweepstakes operators] to get into the market, to establish themselves in a market, and then when we have to come and do the work of the AG, which we’ve done multiple times, it’s that much harder to remove them from the market once they’re already established there.”

Webinar host Victor Rocha said the companies operating in California were effectively “mocking us into our face”.

“This is gambling on training wheels,” he said. “This is a bunch of lawyers that are spitting in our face and looking at grey areas and thinking we’re not going to act.”

“The end game is exactly what happened in fantasy sports, the DFS companies became a big player in sports betting, but this strategy is now they want to come in and become the big players in online gaming, so they want to get between us and our customers.”

Siva said that one formal step tribes are planning to take this week is to try to get applications for daily fantasy and sweepstakes operations removed from app stores available in California.

“We’re sending a letter this week to Google, because all those apps… are now in the Google Store, and we’re like, you guys are advertising illegal operations in the Google Store,” he said.

“It’s not just a technical violation of the law, so we’re making sure that they’re aware we’re going to do the same thing with the Android store, the Apple store, because the longer they’re here, the more entrenched they get.”

Rocha acknowledged that some fantasy sports operators had approached California tribes to try to work with them, but added that many of those appeals fell on deaf ears because those conversations came after they had already launched in the state.

“They’re already here taking money, so to me, that is a transgression against the tribes to come in after the fact and look for permission while you’re already here taking money out of California,” he said. “That’s not how it works.”

“I think the big argument here for them is that the tribes aren’t moving, so we’re going to do it, they know they’re supposed to do it working with the tribes, so now they’re working backward looking to get tribes,” he continued.

“But if the tribes aren’t ready to go online, they need to sit on the sidelines and wait with everybody else.”

The Indian Gaming Association-sponsored webinar was hosted the week after the legality of sweepstakes gaming platforms was also the dominant topic of conversation at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas.