Hit me: California’s blackjack ban may bust L.A. card golf equipment

As California is about to ban blackjack, Los Angeles’s card golf equipment and cities that depend upon playing income are attempting to cease the change.

California’s Office of Administrative Law has greenlighted new guidelines that may ban card rooms from providing blackjack in April. Authorities wish to shut a authorized loophole that allowed card golf equipment to supply blackjack and different banked video games wherein gamers play in opposition to the home. Those kinds of video games are imagined to be provided solely in Indian casinos, however the card golf equipment have been getting across the restriction by utilizing designated exterior sellers.

Card membership operators see the modifications as an existential risk that may result in job losses and decreased tax income for the areas the place they function. They have vowed to pursue authorized treatments.

“The proposed regulations destroy the financial viability of the California cardroom industry, jeopardize thousands of working families and harm dozens of California communities,” California Gaming Assn. President Kyle Kirkland wrote in a letter to Atty. General Rob Bonta earlier this month.

There are greater than 70 card rooms throughout California using about 20,000 employees, in response to the group. It estimates that the modifications may minimize the variety of card room jobs in half and considerably scale back the trade’s optimistic financial affect.

A 2019 evaluation commissioned by the California Gaming Assn. estimated that tax income generated by California card rooms was roughly $500 million a yr, with $398.8 million in state taxes and $100.9 million in native jurisdiction gaming taxes.

Los Angeles County cities Hawaiian Gardens, Commerce and Bell Gardens can be among the many hardest-hit, as they rely closely on on line casino tax income, Kirkland stated within the letter.

Card rooms in L.A. County generate greater than $2 billion in financial exercise and assist greater than 9,000 jobs, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis stated in a letter to the state oversight committee expressing her issues concerning the new guidelines.

At Gardens Casino in Hawaiian Gardens, shedding blackjack would outcome within the lack of a “double-digit portion” of the enterprise, stated Keith Sharp, an legal professional representing Gardens Casino. He stated that if it misplaced its blackjack prospects, it might in all probability have to put off as many as 300 of its roughly 1,300 workers. The on line casino has about 60 recreation tables, roughly a dozen of that are blackjack tables.

California’s Department of Justice stated in a statement Monday that it formally launched the proposed rules in spring 2025, held two public hearings in May, and obtained and responded to greater than 1,700 public feedback.

“After careful review and consideration of the comments, DOJ did not make any substantive changes to the proposed regulations,” the assertion stated.

Card rooms have till the top of May to submit a plan exhibiting how they intend to adjust to the foundations.

Bettors who wish to play blackjack can nonetheless accomplish that at Indian casinos, which received’t be affected by the ban.

Proposition 1A, handed by California voters in 2000, gave Indian tribes the correct to conduct Nevada-style playing, similar to casino-banked card video games, on reservations.

Card rooms have continued to supply blackjack and different “banked” video games like baccarat by giving gamers the choice to take turns dealing the sport and by counting on third-party companies that make use of folks to behave as bankers.

The Bureau of Gambling Control for years accepted the apply, which attorneys representing card rooms say is “completely legal” and has been accredited by Bonta’s predecessors, however the state’s new guidelines crack down on the usage of these third-party companies and tighten guidelines for “player-dealers.”

Gaming regulation professional Rick Trachok, a lecturer on the UC Berkeley School of Law, considers the apply to be a “transparent attempt to get around the constitution,” which expressly prohibits Nevada-style casinos.

The ninth Circuit Court of Appeals beforehand acknowledged in an unpublished opinion that the California Constitution grants tribes the unique proper to on line casino playing, although it didn’t have the facility to power the state’s playing fee to implement it, he stated.

The rules mark a turning level in a decades-long combat between tribal casinos and the cardboard room trade.

California Nations Indian Gaming Assn. Chairman James Siva stated in an announcement that the rules are an “important step in combating unscrupulous and illegal gaming in California.”

“Justice delayed can sometimes still be justice too,” stated Victor Rocha, who chairs the Indian Gaming Assn. and is a member of the Pechanga Band of Indians.

In California, card rooms date again to the Gold Rush. With an inflow of younger males and widespread alcohol consumption, playing ran rampant, notably in San Francisco, which in 1850 had 1,000 gaming institutions — roughly one for each 25 folks, in response to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The state outlawed many on line casino video games within the 1870s, although that didn’t halt playing.

In Southern California, scofflaws as soon as operated playing ships on waters they believed to be past the state’s jurisdiction, an effort that in 1939 culminated in an epic battle in Santa Monica Bay, The Times has reported.