The Chicken Ranch Casino Resort is now open in Jamestown, east of Stockton and northeast of Modesto, about 125 miles from San Francisco. To go along with the opening, the tribe’s Playbawk app got an overhaul to go with it. Visitors will find casino gaming on-site but may also be surprised to find this mobile app that offers a novel alternative to conventional sports betting or fantasy sports.
Playbawk just received its first major update since being released this spring. The version 2.0 Playbawk mobile app is available for Android and iPhone devices throughout the tribal lands of the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, which operates the Chicken Ranch Casino Resort.
The Me-Wuk are the first to develop a Class II gaming app that permits users to win real prize money based on the performance of athletes in sporting events. Its grid-based gameplay is what allows the app to fit within the Class II framework, typically reserved for bingo, raffles, and derivatives of those games.
At the moment, the Playbawk app can only be downloaded and used at the Chicken Ranch Casino Resort or on the tribal lands surrounding it. However, recent changes in the rules for tribal gaming may eventually allow it to be made available statewide.
Playbawk matches athletes head-to-head
Once you download the Playbawk app, you must connect a funding source for your game play.
Users can choose athletes from one of seven professional sports:
- Baseball
- Basketball
- Football
- Golf
- Hockey
- Motorsports
- Soccer
The challenge is to match the athletes head-to-head, predicting which one will outperform the other in key statistical categories. The player chooses nine matchups.
Each of the nine athletes the user selects to win their matchup are arranged in a bingo-style grid in Playbawk. The user can then arrange those athletes in any way they wish, hoping to create a “tic-tac-toe” winning line. If they do, they receive a prize reward based on their “wager.” The minimum is $1 and the maximum allowed for a set of matchups and one bingo card is $20.
The most a user can win in Playbawk is 32x their investment, which is based on how many winning lines they get on their grid.
What makes Playbawk a Class II gaming product
Sportsbooks are not legal in California. So, how is Playbawk operating?
Playbawk does not allow users to wager on the outcome of games, and instead requires matchups to win in an array based on player performance only. That make the game considered a Class II product, which makes it legal.
In California, Class III is reserved for sports betting apps, which have not yet been legalized. In 2022, a pair of ballot proposals failed to pass that would have legalized sportsbooks in different ways. The state is the largest in the United States without legal sports betting. As the seventh-biggest economy in the world, California exists as a giant black hole when it comes to sports wagering.
When visitors arrive at Chicken Ranch Casino Resort in Jamestown, they will be able to load the Playbawk app on their phones. But there are no moneylines, point spreads, or game props on Playbawk. Instead, it exists as a low-stakes form of entertainment. Similar to sportsbook apps, users have responsible gambling options. That includes being able to set daily limits for their Playbawk play.
The Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians licensed the Vetnos gaming platform that fuels Playbawk. It also worked with gaming developer PlaySqor to build the interface. The tribal nation has exclusive rights to provide the app in California, but it could license it to other tribes as a revenue generator.
