REAL MONEY GAMING
DFS and Sweepstakes in California JOSHUA KIRSCHNER REPORTS ON THE MOUNTING LEGAL UNCERTAINTY THREATENING REAL MONEY GAMING IN THE GOLDEN STATE.
I n the never-ending soap opera that is the California gaming market, 2025 marks an especially newsworthy and tumultuous year. In fact, things in California are so fast moving that this article, first drafted in July 2025, has suffered from no less than three rewrites in the intervening months to account for all the plot twists that have occurred this summer. Introduction On February 19, 2025, California Assemblymember Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim) introduced AB 831, an act to expand the California penal code definition of gambling to include “online sweepstakes games.” Since introduction, the bill has passed the State Assembly and is currently winding its way
through the State Senate, with a floor vote likely to take place in the first half of September. On July 3, 2025, California Attorney General Rob Bonta published Attorney General Opinion No. 23-1001 (the “AG Opinion”) in response to the following inquiry from Assemblymember Tom Lackey: “Does California law prohibit the operation of daily fantasy sports games with players physically located within California, regardless of whether the operators and associated technology are located outside the State?” The Attorney General’s response was an emphatic “yes!” In short, the Attorney General concluded that all paid fantasy sports games 1 “constitute wagering on sports in violation of
1 It should be noted that the AG Opinion only refers to “daily fantasy sports” and the Attorney General “need not consider whether season-long fan- tasy sports fall outside of section 337a,” however, as discussed herein, the AG Opinion leads to the inescapable conclusion that real-money fantasy sports, regardless of designation or duration would be illegal gambling under the Attorney General’s theory.
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IMGL MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 2025
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