SAN DIEGO — California voters overwhelmingly rejected sports betting initiatives on the ballot this election cycle even though hundreds of millions of dollars were spent in efforts to sway voters.
“Yet again, California is setting records for the amount of money involved in the people’s process, direct democracy,” said Thad Kousser, professor of politics at U.C. San Diego.
Prop 26, which sought to legalize sports betting in tribal casinos and licensed racetracks in California, was funded by gaming tribes with more than $175 million dollars behind it. On the other hand, Prop 27, which aimed to legalize sports betting online and on mobile apps, was bankrolled by online gambling sites, DraftKings and FanDuel. They spent over $420 million — setting records as the most expensive ballot measure in California and U.S. history.
“Frankly, we were all becoming sick of the Prop 27 ads by about August,” said Kousser. “Voters become more skeptical of voter initiatives in California, the more money they see. And layered on top of that, these two competing propositions were attacking each other, so that kind of got into this death spiral of negative campaigning.”
While 36 states and D.C. have legalized sports betting, California voters were faced with a unique situation in that two competing measures tore each other down and ultimately failed by huge margins.
“These are two groups looking to get a monopoly on this, you know, possibly $10 billion dollar a year industry in California, and so the groups backing Prop 27 were saying, ‘No on Prop 26,’ and the groups backing 26 were saying, ‘No on 27,’” said Kousser. “And that led to all these negative ads that tore down both measures.”
The negative campaign advertisements took a toll on each ballot measure and ended up confusing voters.
“By making things kind of muddy and not talking about the gambling and focusing on these other elements, it really ended up backfiring and turning off voters, so voters felt that the campaigns were really deceptive,” said Andrea Flynn, professor of marketing at the University of San Diego. “They weren’t focusing on the true nature of what the ballot measures were about.”
Another defeated ballot measure this election cycle was Prop 29, which aimed to regulate staffing at dialysis clinics. Health care worker unions put forth the measure, but they were outspent 10-to-1 by dialysis clinic companies.
“Their advertising always plays on the fact that if this regulation passes, it’s going to force them to close dialysis clinics and that’s actually going to end up hurting patients,” said Flynn. “So I think it’s a really compelling argument that they’re using to sway voters in addition to just being able to swamp the air waves compared to the labor unions.”
And while sports betting lost big this round, California voters may see it come up again on future ballots.
“California’s just such a massive market,” said Flynn. “California is one of those few untapped markets for these big online gambling companies and it’s just too big of a pie to leave untouched.”