JOHN K. VAN DE KAMP Attorney General
RONALD M. WEISKOPF Deputy Attorney General
AGO 82-1110
No. 82-1110
California Attorney General Opinion
Office of the Attorney General State of California
March 30, 1983
THE
HONORABLE NICHOLAS C. PETRIS, MEMBER OF THE SENATE, has
requested an opinion on the following question:
Does
the Horseracing Board have statutory authority to permit a
horseracing association to lease another facility and conduct
parimutuel wagering there and at its own park on events being
run at its own park where the mutuel pools would be combined?
CONCLUSION
The
Horseracing Board does not have requisite statutory authority
to permit a horseracing association to lease another facility
and conduct parimutuel wagering there and at its own park on
events being run at its own park where the mutuel pools would
be combined.
ANALYSIS
Technology
has made it possible for an event to be witnessed at a place
other than where it is held and for wagers on the event made
there to be immediately pooled and combined with those placed
at the site of the event itself. This development has raised
the possibility of inter-track simulcasting of live horse
races and for parimutuel wagering on the races at the track
of simulcast to be combined with the mutuel pool at the
originating track where the races are actually run. For
example, under a system variously called
"other-track," "ghost-track," or
"satellite-track" wagering, a horseracing
association might conduct a meet at its own racetrack and at
the same time lease a vacant racetrack as a separate wagering
facility where patrons would view the events by simulcast and
have all of their wagers on the race placed in the same
parimutuel pool as the wagers made by the spectators viewing
the race live. Asked whether the California Horseracing Board
has requisite authority to permit such
"other-track" wagering, we conclude that it does
not.
1
The
starting gate for our analysis is the proposition that the
power of the Horseracing Board to permit
"other-track" wagering is circumscribed by the
statute which created it and which defines its powers. (Cal.
Const., art. IV, § 19;
[2] cf. Ferdig v. State
Personnel Bd. (1969) 71 Cal.2d 96, 105; Blatz
Brewing Co. v. Collins (1945) 69 Cal.App.2d 639,
645-646; cf. Gov. Code, § 11342.1; Wildlife Alive v.
Chickering (1976) 18 Cal.3d 190, 205; Agricultural
Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court (1976) 16 Cal.3d
392, 419-420.) We therefore turn to the words of the
Horseracing Law to see the authority the Legislature has
granted to the Board with respect to wagering on horse races.
(Cf. People v. Bellecci (1979) 24 Cal.3d 879, 884;
Moyer v. Workmen's Comp. Appeals Bd. (1973) 10
Cal.3d 222, 230; Steilberg v. Lackner (1977) 69
Cal.App.3d 780, 785.)
In the
Horseracing Law (i.e. Bus. & Prof. Code, div. 8, ch. 4,
§ 19400 et seq.) the Legislature has vested the
California Horseracing Board with "jurisdiction and
supervision over meetings in this State where horse races
with wagering on their results are held or conducted, and
over all persons and things having to do with the operation
of such meetings. . . ." (Bus. & Prof. Code, §
19420.) It has defined a type of wagering on horse races
known as "parimutuel" wagering (§
19590),
3 declared it to be the only method of
wagering permitted in California (§§ 19593, cf.
19595) and has directed the Horseracing Board to "adopt
rules governing, permitting and regulating [it]" (§
19590). Recognizing that the Horseracing Law deals with but a
narrow exception to the general anti-gambling law found since
1909 in Penal Code section 337a
[4] (see e.g. People v.
Torrey, supra, 16 Cal.App.2d at p. 472; In
re Walker, supra, 11 Cal.2d at p. 467; In
re Goddard, supra, 24 Cal.App.2d at p. 141;
People v. Wilson (1937) 19 Cal.App.2d 340, 343;
People v. Pierce (1939) 14 Cal.2d 639, 643;
People v. Sullivan (1943) 60 Cal.App.2d 539, 544;
People v. Haughey (1941) 48 Cal.App.2d 506, 510;
People v. Jerman (1946) 29 Cal.2d 189, 196), the
Legislature expressly declared in section 19594 that
parimutuel wagering on horse races was indeed permissible and
not "unlawful, any other law of the State of California
to the contrary notwithstanding." (§ 19594.)
However,
each of the salient sections of the Horseracing Law by which
the Legislature has authorized parimutuel wagering on horse
races contains a built-in limitation that is crucial to the
question herein presented, to wit, they require that any such
wagering take place within the
"inclosure" authorized by the Board with
respect to the race.
5 Since the Horseracing Law "did not .
. . repeal the general law prohibiting general betting and
registering of bets on horse races [which] remain[ed] in
force subject to one exception, namely, that pari-mutuel
betting be permitted if conducted in the manner and under the
conditions specified. . . ." (People v. Torrey,
supra, 16 Cal.App.2d at p. 472), we must determine
whether the statutory requirement that any parimutuel
wagering only take place within the
"inclosure" authorized by the
Board limits the Board's power to permit
simultaneous wagers to be made on horse races at tracks other
than where they are actually run. Put squarely, the question
resolves to whether the term "inclosure" refers to
the singular grounds where a race is actually held or whether
it might encompass separate grounds as well which the Board
might permit a horseracing association to lease in connection
with a particular race for patrons there to view a simulcast,
wager on the race, and have their wagers combined in the
originating track's parimutuel pool—in other words,
whether it would admit the possibility of
"other-track" wagering. Since we will find that the
word "inclosure" as used in the Horseracing Law
means the actual racing grounds at which a licensed meet
("horseracing meeting") is conducted,
6 we will conclude
that the Law's requirement that parimutuel wagering take
place "within the inclosure" precludes the
possibility of the Board authorizing "other-track"
wagering.
The
term "inclosure" is defined by section 19410 to
mean:
"[A]ll areas of a racing association's
grounds to which admission can be obtained only by
payment of an admission fee or upon presentation of
authorized credentials." (Added by Stats. 1959, ch.
1818, § 2, p. 4345.) We have no doubt that the
Legislature was referring to the actual grounds where a
race is held when it first used the term in the Horseracing
Act (in 1933) and then so defined it (in 1959) in section
19410.7 The common meaning of
"inclosure" or "enclosure" (see fn. 7,
ante) - which we presume the Legislature had in
mind (People v. Belleci (1979) 24 Cal.3d 879, 884;
Palos Verdes Faculty Assn. v. Palos Verdes Peninsula
Unified School Dist.
...