Dave Palermo: California needs to improve regulation of gaming

California boasts having the nation’s largest gambling industry with American Indian casinos, card rooms, race tracks and the lottery generating net revenues of roughly $10.4 billion a year.

And the Legislature is again considering growing the gambling market even more with Internet poker.

Unfortunately, California’s politically bifurcated system of regulating about 80 card rooms and providing oversight for 59 tribal casinos is highly dysfunctional, incapable of regulating what gambling is already legal in the state, let alone Internet poker.

California is the only state in the country with a gambling regulatory system divided among two constitutionally elected officials, Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Harris. Untangling the bureaucracy and dealing with the Lytle corruption case is not going to be easy.

In California, investigating and enforcing gambling laws is handled by the Bureau of Gambling Control under Harris. Promulgating regulations and adjudicating licenses is a function of the Gambling Control Commission, under Brown.

It’s a situation ripe for failure.