Spin Cycle: Slow Rolls For California Sports Betting And Virginia iGaming Highlight Week In Gambling

Welcome to “Spin Cycle,” Casino Reports’ weekly Friday roundup of all things impactful, intriguing, impressive, or idiotic in the gambling industry. Pull up a chair, grab a stack of chips and a glass of your beverage of choice, and take a spin with us through this week’s news cycle …

Wait til ’28?!

Hey, Californians, we have some great news. Your state’s tribal gaming leaders are serious about this legalized sports betting thing, they’re working together, and they have a plan. There’s every reason to be optimistic that regulated sports wagering is coming.

Just not until it’s been at least a full decade since PASPA was overturned.

At the ICE convention in Barcelona, Spain, this week, a panel hosted by the Indian Gaming Association made clear that the patience of would-be Golden State sports bettors will be severely tested.

“It’s not going to happen in 2026,” Pechanga Band of Mission Indians councilmember Catalina Chacon said of the next ballot initiative. “The data is telling us that the time is not right. Definitely not 2026, we’re looking more like 2028, but it has to include all tribal communities in California.”

PASPA fell in May 2018, so a November 2028 ballot initiative would be 10½ years on from that — not to mention if such an initiative passed, sports betting wouldn’t be up and running until at least 2029 … or maybe more like 2030, given the urgency we’ve seen so far in California.

Speaking of waiting for sports betting …

On Wednesday, representatives in the North Dakota House voted against state-wide sports betting appearing on the November 2026 ballot, by a lopsided tally of 70-24.

In-person betting is permitted at tribal casino sportsbooks in the state, but hopes for wider access have been quickly dashed to kick off 2025.

HCR 3002, introduced on Jan. 7 by Rep. Scott Louser, was the latest of several attempts to bring mobile sports wagering to North Dakota. Bills or ballot initiatives have been introduced every odd-numbered year since PASPA fell (2019, 2021, 2023, and now 2025). Now it’s back to the proverbial drawing board for ’27, which puts North Dakota on the same timeline as California: a 2028 ballot initiative, at the earliest.

Waiting games in Virginia, too

It was just two weeks ago that state Sen. Mamie Locke introduced a bill to legalize online casino gaming in Virginia, but on Monday, Locke requested that the Senate subcommittee postpone discussing the bill to allow for time for “further study.”

Locke is now targeting 2026 for consideration of the iCasino legislation.

That was probably the biggest gambling industry news out of Virginia this week, but far from the only notable story.

As Virginia Public Radio reported, Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants the legislature to focus on a bill to establish the Virginia Gaming Commission, to oversee all gambling in the state other than lottery.

And as reported in the Virginia Scope, the Virginia Gaming Commerce Regulation Act, which would tax so-called “skill games,” advanced out of committee in the Senate on Wednesday, on a second effort after it failed to get out of the sub-committee two days prior.

Shakeups at the top

During a precarious time for the Nevada Gaming Control Board — as ranted about in depth by Casino Reports’ Richard Schuetz this week — NGCB Chairman Kirk Hendrick released a statement Wednesday indicating he’s stepping down from his post after the session ends in June.

Gov. Joe Lombardo appointed Hendrick in June 2023 and will now be tasked with finding his replacement.

There was also movement this week atop the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Chairman Rostin Benham announced his plans to resign ahead of the change in presidential administration, and on Inauguration Day, the CFTC commissioners elected Caroline D. Pham the body’s acting chairman.

Pham has a much more open attitude toward expanded use of prediction markets — including extending into the sports betting realm — than did Benham. (As evidenced, it would seem, by operator Kalshi suddenly listing sports event contracts this week.)

House Rules: Insights from around our network

SWEEPSTAKES BILL IN NJ: New Jersey bill aims to bring sweepstakes sites under house rules [by Jeff Edelstein]

SPORTS BETTING BILL IN MA: Massachusetts bill seeks to make drastic changes to sports betting law [by Chris Altruda]

ICASINO BILL IN NY: New York senator makes third bid for iCasino bill, despite opposition [by Jeff Edelstein]

AND TOO MANY MORE BILLS TO LIST: Today they’re just a bill: A flurry of legislative gaming filings [by Chris Altruda]

COURIER OPPORTUNITIES: Jackpocket Mega Millions win a triumph of ‘leveraging technology for convenience,’ Sullivan says [by Eric Raskin]

MO’ MONEY IN THE MITTEN: Michigan posts record $219.6 million in internet casino revenue for December [by Chris Altruda]

COMING TO TERMS: How sweeps operators fix potential T&Cs flaw exposed by US Supreme Court [by Matthew Bain]

PEOPLE PERSON: A vital human, a vital resource [by Richard Schuetz]

BUMP AHEAD: Mega Millions to limit buying advance tickets as $5 drawings get closer [by Jeff Edelstein]

DID IT ALL FOR THE BOOKIE: ‘I got a guy’: The local bookie is alive and well [by Aaron Moore]

COMMENCE EYE ROLLS: I can’t even: Massachusetts sports betting bill puts the ‘over’ in oversight [by Jeff Edelstein]

Low stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, my co-host Jeff Edelstein and I welcomed PredictionNews Senior Political Reporter Chris Gerlacher to talk Kalshi, Crypto.com, CFTC, and all things prediction-market related. Here’s a taste:

We also covered attention-grabbing legislation out of Massachusetts (to more or less kill legal sports betting), New Jersey (to regulate and tax sweeps sites), and New York (trying once again to legalize iCasino), as well as Jackpocket, Severance, and Saquon. Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

BACK TO WORK: Las Vegas hotel workers union reaches deal with casino to end longest strike in decades [Associated Press]

WELL, THAT WAS FAST: Mechoopda Casino to close less than one year after opening near Chico [KRCR ABC 7]

LATER, TRANSLATOR: Feds seek 57-month sentence for Mizuhara for defrauding Ohtani [ESPN.com]

OFF-STRIP UPDATE: Rio operator aims to wow locals and visitors with upgrades [The Nevada Independent]

MORE LIKE BYEBOOKIE: Michigan regulator issues cease-and-desist to unlicensed offshore operator [CDC Gaming Reports]

CRIME DOESN’T PAY: Man who defrauded investors in sports betting fund sentenced to 48 months in prison [United State Attorney’s Office]

DESERT HEAT: Could Southern California fires affect Las Vegas tourism? Maybe [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

CHALLENGE FLAG: The Kansas City Chiefs and why officials are a bigger threat to NFL integrity than sports betting [The Closing Line]

ALARMING ACTIVITY: EMU basketball games under scrutiny for suspicious betting [ESPN.com]

MAYOR MAY NOT: Former casino union president McDevitt to challenge Small in primary [Press of Atlantic City]

The Bonus Round

Completing the Spin Cycle with some odds and ends and our favorite social media posts of the week:

• LinkedIn posts don’t embed as neatly as tweets and skeets and all that jazz, so click here to read NCLGS President Shawn Fluharty’s thoughts on the iCasino bill introduced in New York by state Sen. Joe Addabbo.

• One week, DraftKings is partnering with Delta Airlines and we’re all saying, “Whatevs, gambling aboard a plane isn’t legal” … and the next week, a Connecticut lawmaker is introducing a bill to legalize in-flight sports wagering. As long as the flight either starts or ends in Connecticut, bets would be permissible. As we prepare for landing, we ask you to please return your seats and tray-tables to an upright and locked position and to complete your eight-leg parlays and confirm all odds changes.

• BetMGM, come on down! The operator announced this week it had obtained exclusive intellectual property rights for iCasino games based on game shows The Price is Right and Family Feud. If MGM is able to develop an online casino game based on either show that’s half as popular as Wheel of Fortune slots have become, this is going to go down as a very shrewd deal.

• I highly recommend this longread by Thomas Carroll, who is currently a sports radio producer in Boston, but who previously worked at various gaming industry media outlets. It’s a personal essay on his remarkable weight-loss experience, and it happens to double as the greatest unpaid advertising ever for Chick-Fil-A.