If the gaming industry has to settle for state-by-state legalization, California represents the Holy Grail of online gambling in the united states. It’s the most populous state in the union with a $2 trillion economy that would rank number 8 in the world if it was its own nation. International gambling sites have gone out of their way to acquire licenses in countries much smaller than California.
All eyes are on California as states mull legalizing various types of online gambling. If California does go the method of legalization, it would by default be the norm by which gaming is measured in the USA. If the state does eventually dominate gambling and it is successful, other nations will certainly follow suit. We might even see something finally happen at the federal level.
Various pieces of legislation have been released, shot down and reintroduced in recent decades. We do not have anything important to report yet, but most observers are cautiously optimistic that California will sooner or later make a significant move toward legalization. Here is why:
The country has a pro-gambling civilization The country has legal casinos and card rooms
It’s home to numerous Indian tribes That Are experienced in gambling California has a spending problem and the potential tax revenues must surely be enticing for state lawmakers
Current List of Betting Sites in California
We are going to discuss the different betting options in California in greater detail below, however I’d like to start with a quick list of gambling sites which are available right now in California. If you came here searching for a place to gamble online, these are the websites that will let you play with and wager real money today.
Sports Gaming:
RankBetting SiteBonusRatingVisit
1
100% up to $50
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Fantasy Sports:
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Up to 4 Free Entries
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2
Free Contest Entry
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Horse and Greyhound Betting:
RankBetting SiteBonusRatingVisit
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$20 Free + 100% up to $100
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100% up to $100
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Wager $500, Get $100
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Online Lottery Tickets:
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No Bonuses Offered
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Games of Skill:
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Daily Offers and Specials
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Sports Betting in California
Lawmakers in California have shown some interest in legalizing sports betting of late. A bill introduced at the 2017/18 session suggested amending existing gaming law to allow the California legislature to authorize sports gambling contingent upon the Supreme Court overturning the federal sports gambling ban (which it did).
ACA 18 itself didn’t seek to legalize wagering; it rather provided a constitutional amendment that would enable lawmakers to legalize and regulate sports gambling in the future. When he introduced the bill, Assemblyman Adam Gray said,»The decision isn’t’should we have sports wagering or never possess sports wagering.’ We do have sports wagering.»
The point he was making is that sports betting is currently a massive black market in California and throughout the United States. The American Gaming Association estimates Americans wager at least $154 billion each year on sports with online sportsbooks and local bookies in contrast to the law. The present state prohibition isn’t functioning, the logic goes, so the wise thing to do is legalize it, regulate it and tax it.
A report by Eilers & Krejcik Gambling published in 2017 considers California is likely to legalize sports betting within five years from the date of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn PASPA. California has plenty of potential to become a major sports betting market, but as you’ll see in another segment, competing interests in the state have a tendency to complicate matters.
Assemblyman Gray introduced the exact same legislation in 2018 and 2019 as he continues to push the issue. Finding the tribal groups on board has been exceedingly difficult since they control an $8 billion gambling industry and are highly reluctant to get on board with sports betting at risk of opening their profitable compacts with the state to negotiation once again.
Online Poker at California
The pursuit for internet poker in California is being fought in the courtrooms because you read these words. Bills seeking to control internet poker have been released every year since 2007. Not one of those bills have made it all of the way through the legislative process because of vying factions on either side of the matter, but every year brings us closer to finding an arrangement that satisfied all parties that are interested.
In fact, much of the difficulty can be attributed to competing interests in the nation. It seems everybody has an agenda and it isn’t easy to find consensus among the Indian tribes, Cuban operators and existing online brands. One group or another always feels left out or targeted by the wording of legislation. And to be fair, that’s often a valid concern.
To increase the difficulty, there are still strong lobbying groups that actively combat the legalization of poker or another kind of online gaming in the united states. Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson has pledged to fight legalization across the country. In California alone, he spent over $300,000 to lobby against poker.
Not a single one of the bills introduced during the last decade-plus has made considerable progress thanks to the various competing interests in the state. The next bill is Only One of many attempts to make something happen in California, but it serves as a typical example of how complex and difficult it is to make progress in California:
AB 2291: Promising Start but Died in Committee
Meeting Bill 2291 was introduced back in February 2014 but not made it beyond the committee period. It was reintroduced in 2015 and 2016, but was still unable to gain the traction it needed to make it much in the legislative process.
The bill sought to legalize online poker just and issue 10-year licenses to operators. The proposed fee for licensing was initially set at $5,000,000, with this charge being used to offset future taxes. Lawmakers bumped that fee up several times before the fee hit a high of $12,500,000 without offsetting taxes.
Early versions of AB 2291 included several clauses which have caused tension between various factions competing for a piece of the poker pie. Most controversial among these is a»bad actor» clause. AB 2291 initially sought to require prospective licensees to get a minimum of five decades of gaming experience in California. Additionally, it required every aspect of a procedure, by its own workers to its gear to its bank accounts to be held in state.
Essentially, AB 2291 would have prevented all of current internet poker providers and newer local casinos in California from competing. The wording of the bill very clearly favored a few recognized California casino classes at the expense of honest competition.
Another issue with AB 2291 was that it would have prohibited California from entering arrangements with other nations to unite player pools and enhance liquidity. In other words, you’d only see other Californians at the table however many sates legalize poker. To top it off, and the bill will require the state to opt out of any legislation passed at the national level allowing internet poker.
Some progress was made in 2016 with a suggested amendment that would significantly alter the lousy actor clause. Previously, the bill would have barred all online poker companies which operated after the passage of the national Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Such limitations would have banned established brand for example PokerStars from entering the marketplace.
The last amendment proposes to rather transfer the chalk date to the bad celebrity clause up to the end of 2011. In other words, sites such as PokerStars that functioned after the UIGEA but subsequently left the market following the Black Friday indictments at 2011. This could prevent the most egregious violators from entering the market but afford PokerStars a chance to provide online poker lawfully in California. You can read more about the suggestion here.
Looking Back at 2018: The Good and Bad
The Bad Lawmakers and tribal groups are stuck in stalemate for going on four decades now. It is nice to see some improvement on this front, but it is also discouraging to find the outright stubbornness on the portion of varying factions. Poker players would be better served by an open and competitive marketplace and player-sharing arrangements with other states.
Worse than that, online poker appears to have taken a step back in 2018. For the first time in more than a decade, no invoices seeking to legalize online poker were introduced. Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sayer told Online Poker Report that he’s giving up on internet poker legislation for this season because there’s simply no improvement being made in reaching a compromise between the tribes, local card rooms and other interested parties.
The Good There are a number of positive things to say about most of this. If poker is indeed legalized in California, the potential player pool will much bigger than that which we’ve seen in other nations that have legalized online poker. Aside from the fact that 38 million people call California home, the state has a poker civilization already as a result of its many brick-and-mortar card rooms.
California is very likely to have fewer problems with geolocation of gamers due to its sheer size. New Jersey had all kinds of issues verifying players were really located within the nation. This ended up with plenty of possible players being unfairly barred from the state-sanctioned sites there. California does not need to contend with congested cities piled up on state borders.
Fantasy Sports
When the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed in 2006, it supplied two notable exceptions to internet gaming: horse racing and fantasy sports. The UIGEA did not just exempt those kinds of gaming; it essentially gave operators the go-ahead to provide their games to clients right here in the united states.
Some states have since passed laws banning online fantasy sports but California is not one of these. If you have a thing for sports betting but prefer to do it at a safe and controlled manner, fantasy sports is your thing to do. You draft a staff like in regular fantasy leagues but now you get paid real cash if you win.
FanDuel.com and DraftKings.com will be the two biggest players in this market. They both accept customers from CA and provide single-day fantasy leagues such as your NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, college basketball and college football.
One of the nice things about online fantasy sports is every competition only lasts for a week per week in the most. You are not stuck with a single group all season. Rather, your team racks up stats over the course of one week. You can play in heads-up competitions against other gamers or test your ability in massive tournaments that sometimes give away more than a million bucks to the first place winner.
You can read more about fantasy sports betting here.
Legislative Efforts for Daily Fantasy at California
2016 was an important year for its daily fantasy sports industry in California. In January of 2016, lawmakers introduced AB 1437 in a bid to make a regulatory framework for daily fantasy sports websites. If enacted, the bill would require DFS websites to acquire a permit, apply a minimum age of 21 for many customers, maintain all customers’ funds in a segregated account and extend self-exclusion applications for problem gamblers.
The bill advanced past three important votes with a total of 101 for and two against. This is an important bill for California and it looks increasingly likely to be passed into legislation. On the other hand, the bill itself does not actually legalize online fantasy sports competitions; it only places the conditions by which the business would be regulated.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris is expected to issue a judgment on whether or not fantasy contests constitute illegal gambling under state law. If she principles favorably, AB 1437 will have everything in place to license and controlled dream sites immediately. The AG’s ruling has been expected for at least a year now. In the meantime, California dream sports sites continue to operate freely.
As of 2019, progress on the bill seems to have completely stalled. The good news is fantasy sports websites continue to be active throughout the state. Legalizing dream sports in California would essentially be a formality at this point.
Online Casinos
There are not yet any legal online casinos in California. The state has not even tried to pass laws in this regard so it’s going to probably be years before we see legitimate gaming websites open to CA residents.
Don’t be fooled by the hundreds of different websites which are currently recommending»legal» online casinos. All these are actually offshore gaming sites that have no legal existence whatsoever in the United States. They’re unlicensed and completely unregulated.
Although to be honest, there are no state or federal laws that prohibit playing offshore casinos. Should you choose to play with online, nobody is going to come kick in your front door. The biggest risk is financial — you never know for certain who you are working with on the other side of the screen. Some offshore casinos may be safe while some are definitely outright scams. But no matter where you play, you don’t have any legal recourse when things go belly up.
Your best option would be to look at any of the other legal, licensed and safe types of gambling that are available at this time in California. Between horse racing, fantasy sports and also many likely online poker quite soon, there are still plenty of other ways to play real money games online at protected, accredited sites based in the US.
Horse Betting
Online horse racing is alive and well in California. The horse betting situation here is not nearly as complex as the poker scenario. California does allow residents to perform at US-licensed horse wagering sites for example TwinSpires, BetAmerica and TVG.
All the major US-based horse gambling sites accept customers from California. The country also enables off-track betting (OTB) facilities. OTB facilities operate as brick-and-mortar gaming stores where people can walk in, place bets on races and collect their winnings in person.
Five racetracks operate across the country and they too allow for real money wagering. In total, you can bet online at any one of the accepted horse gaming sites, off-track with an OTB place or in-person at any of the monitors listed below. California is also home to state and county fairs that hold races in various times each year.
The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) oversees all horse racing and wagering inside the country. The CHRB’s mission is to ensure the integrity, viability and security of the nation’s horse racing industry. They manage wagering, breeding, bodily security and the promotion of horse racing.
California Racetracks
CalExpo:
The California Exposition and State Fair operates a year-round harness racetrack that runs every day at approximately 5:20 PM.
1600 Exposition Drive
Sacramento, CA 95815
Website Golden Gate Fields
This track is located in Berkley with races and simulcast events weekly.
1100 Eastshore Highway
Berkley, CA 94710
Site Santa Anita
Santa Anita is among the most widely recognized racetracks in the United States and home to Significant events like the Santa Anita Derby, Santa Anita Handicap and sometimes the Breeder’s Cup.
285 W. Huntington Drive
Arcadia, CA 91007
Site Del Mar
Del Mar started in 1937 with a famous race between Seabiscuit and Ligaroti. Seabiscuit hardly took the race became a legend of his own. Today, Del Mar plays host to racing events, concerts, family fun days and more.
2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd..
Del Mar, CA 92014
Website Los Alamitos
Los Alamitos Race Course is home to daylight thoroughbred racing and nighttime quarter racing. The trail is home to a number of the largest quarter horse bets races in the US.
4961 E. Katella Ave.
Los Alamitos, CA 90720
Website OTB Locations
You will find 31 off-track betting facilities in California. OTB centers can be found in fairgrounds, racetracks, specialty OTB stores, casinos and fairgrounds. You can see a full list of addresses and locations .
Internet Bingo
There appears to be no motive to especially legalize online bingo in California. The only realistic possibility I see of online bingo coming to California is if it gets caught up in some upcoming internet casino legislation.
Lottery Games
Ca lottoThe California state lottery isn’t authorized to sell tickets on the internet or through phone. For many years, the federal Wire Act prohibited states from selling lotto tickets on the net. This might not be the case forever. In 2009, New York and Illinois requested the Department of Justice to explain its position on the Wire Act and explain exactly which forms of online gambling were prohibited.
The DOJ responded in 2011 with a decision that’d far-reaching effects beyond just the lottery. Back in September of 2011, the DOJ issued an announcement that its official interpretation of the Wire Act only applies to sports gambling over the net. This gave countries the go-ahead to sell tickets on the internet if they select.
Lottery Subscription Sites California has not yet joined the growing list of states that sell lottery tickets on the web. However, there are a number of messenger services that will go buy lottery tickets at face value for a monthly subscription fee. You may log in to all those sites, pay attention for your tickets and then the corporation will go and buy tickets in your name.
For example, LottoGopher.com is a California-based membership site that offers this exact service. The site is registered in California, its owners have been background-checked by lottery commission officials and it abides by all state and federal laws. They are not legally allowed to sell lotto tickets for more than face value, so they rather charge users a subscription fee.
A membership at LottoGopher allows you to buy tickets online, pick specific numbers and even form lottery pools along with different members. Should you win less than $600, Lotto Gopher will credit the winnings into your account which you may then draw straight to the bank. If you win more than $600, Lotto Gopher will claim the prize on your behalf in person then send you a check for the full amount.
The site does not take a cut of your winnings. They only way they make money is by charging customers a flat subscription fee. At this moment, LottoGopher is only available in California. You can learn more and give it a try here:
www.lottogopher.com
lotto gopher
Is Lotto Gopher untrue?
Yes. They are located in California and state lottery officials know who they are. It is good for you to ask though since there are tons of online lotto sites that look and feel untrue but aren’t. Lotto Gopher actually is legal and 100% legit.
They’ve been all over the press in the past few years as well. Forbes and ABC have written articles about the ceremony.

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