Sports Betting Backers to Try for Ballot Spot : Gambling: They have until Nov. 4 to collect signatures needed to put an initiative before voters. The proposal is decried by the NFL and the NBA.

Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd, who once scolded the San Francisco 49ers on the floor of the Legislature for costing him a $2,000 bet by failing to cover a Super Bowl point spread, won permission Thursday to circulate an initiative legalizing sports betting in California.

Secretary of State March Fong Eu announced that the Gardena Democrat has until Nov. 4 to submit the signatures of 615,958 registered voters to qualify the initiative, which would be a constitutional amendment, for the June, 1992, primary ballot.

The initiative would:

* Scrap the present state lottery commission and horse racing board and put all facets of gambling, including sports wagering, horse racing and the lottery, under a new state gaming commission. (Nevada-style casinos would not be permitted.)

* Allow race tracks, card clubs or anyone with a clean record willing to put up a $100,000 license fee to set up sports bookmaking operations in any city in the state that adopted an ordinance permitting the wagering.

* Require gambling operations to pay a state tax of 3% to 5% of proceeds, with 50% of the tax revenues collected by the state going to senior citizen services.

* Establish a monthly sweepstakes horse race as part of the California Lottery.

* Prohibit owners, officials and players in professional and college sports from making bets, under penalty of a three-year prison term.

Floyd, a six-term legislator, said in an interview Thursday that he enjoys making sports bets and dislikes having to drive to Nevada to do so. He said he lost “a couple of bucks” Wednesday night by taking the Los Angeles Lakers and six.

It was in 1989, when the Assembly was honoring the San Francisco 49ers for defeating the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl, 20-16, that Floyd rose to complain that the team had not covered the seven-point spread, costing him his bet.

Thursday’s announcement that circulation of the initiative was authorized immediately landed the assemblyman in a dispute with leaders of professional sports leagues.

A spokesman for the National Football League read a statement from Commissioner Paul Tagliabue blasting the idea of extending sports betting, now permitted only in Nevada and Oregon.

“Whether based on chance or skill, government-sponsored sports betting is bad for sports,” Tagliabue said. “It undermines public confidence in the integrity of the games, converts team sports from wholesome entertainment into a vehicle for gambling, and promotes gambling among young people.

“The revenue to be derived from the proposed sports pool does not justify the damage that would be done to our games.”

Meanwhile, the senior vice president of the National Basketball Assn., Gary Bettman, said the NBA is “dead set against” the proposal. “We think it’s wrong,” he explained. “It detracts from the performances of our athletes.”

Floyd responded: “There is no question in my mind that the NFL and NBA have some major problems, but not with gambling; with coke, steroids, armed robbery, drunk driving and rape. . . . Players are turning over automobiles in a drunken stupor and raping people in hotels. . . . “I don’t think Mr. Tagliabue is an expert on what’s good or bad for America,” he added. “Not when he’s letting his players sell their autographs for $10.

“Professional sports should clean up their act before they start telling me about mine. They are supposed to be models of integrity for youth and I wish to hell they still were.”

Joanne McNabb, a spokeswoman for the California Lottery, said the lottery commission has not taken a stand on the Floyd initiative, but that it has asked for a staff report on it.

McNabb noted, however, that the initiative that created the lottery requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to change the rules under which it is conducted, so, she said, there could be legal problems with the proposal.

She added that while the lottery must by law give 34% of every dollar it collects to education, only a maximum of 5% of the revenues of the proposed sports wagering operations would go to state beneficiaries.

Bill Mashburn, treasurer of Californians to Reform Gaming, the group formed to advance the Floyd initiative, said it may cost $1 million to successfully circulate the petitions and $3 million to campaign for the initiative if it qualifies for the ballot.

He said fund raising has only begun. “We hope that the race tracks will contribute and the card clubs, those will be the two principal sources,” he said.

Floyd said he thought the odds of eventual victory, if the initiative qualifies, would be “six to five and take your choice.” But, he emphasized, since he is a legislator sworn to uphold state laws, he doesn’t make such bets in California.