CA Online Sports Betting Campaign For Prop 27 Heads To Billboards

Proponents of California online sports betting Proposition 27 have taken their campaign from the airwaves onto the streets.

A new billboard features the face of Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians Chairman Jose “Moke” Simon. It reads “California Tribes say YES on Prop 27.”

Campaign spokesman Nathan Click tells PlayCA that the billboard is part of a statewide campaign. The billboard pictured above was photographed by the author on Olympic Boulevard and Union Avenue in Los Angeles.

While ads on both sides of the expensive Prop 27 battle have dominated TV and radio airwaves in California, and been targeted to California residents using YouTube, this is the first billboard to pop up on one of the California sports betting propositions.

Click explained:

“We are running the most aggressive and far-reaching voter communications campaign in CA ballot measure history. Yes on 27 is reaching voters across digital, broadcast, in-language and out-of-home platforms highlighting the solutions to homelessness, mental health and Tribal support Prop 27 will provide California. These billboards have been up for a few weeks across every region of the state and are getting an overwhelmingly positive response.”

No on 27 campaign calls sports betting billboard a ‘deception’

The billboard continues an expensive campaign battle showing California tribal members on both sides of Prop 27.

While it’s true that multiple tribes support Prop 27, many more oppose the measure backed by national sportsbook operators.

As a result, a No on 27 campaign sees it as misleading for the billboard to indicate “California Tribes say YES on Prop 27.”

Kathy Fairbanks, spokesperson for the Coalition for Safe, Responsible Gaming, told PlayCA:

“This is more deception by the out-of-state corporations. The fact is more than 50+ tribes strongly oppose Prop 27, while only three tribes support it. They can spend their $150 million any way they want but it won’t change the fact that Prop 27 is a massive expansion of online gambling that will send 90% of profits to the out-of-state corporations while leaving little for California and almost nothing for tribes.”