This column was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
A stacked deck doesn’t just tilt the odds, it erases fairness. When the powerful and wealthy dictate the terms, smaller voices are silenced and opportunity is denied.
Recently my tribe, the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, received a devastating blow when the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 831. The measure would ban companies — and tribes that don’t own casinos — from offering online sweepstakes games in California.
Wealthy, mega-casino tribes used their influence to push this legislation, which locks rural and less advantaged tribes out of digital revenue opportunities — the one arena where less economically advantaged tribal nations could compete with them on a more equal footing and begin meeti