AG Bonta’s blackjack ban could deal deadly blow to California cardrooms

The house always wins — in this case, the state of California. 

New gaming regulations submitted by Attorney General Rob Bonta and approved by the Office of Administrative Law threaten to upend a multibillion-dollar cardroom industry, causing mass layoffs and hundreds of millions in lost tax revenue. 

The rules, which are slated to go into effect on April 1, would ban blackjack-style games from being played at cardrooms and change the style of play for peer-to-peer games. 

“It’s going to be devastating to us,” Kyle Kirkland, president of the California Gaming Association and owner of Club One Casino in Fresno, told The California Post. “Probably 70% percent of the industry’s revenue is from the games that would be affected by these regulations.” 

Kirkland said if the regulations go into effect, smaller cardrooms across the state would go away, along with thousands of jobs and the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue that the games generate. 

“There’s probably 20,000 people that work in card rooms. There’s half a billion dollars of table tax revenue that goes to a local jurisdictions,” Kirlkalnd said, underscoring the move could be especially damaging to smaller cities that rely heavily on the tax revenue from cardrooms. 

“Typically underserved communities without a lot of other economic drivers are incredibly dependent on the local cardroom,” Kirkland said. “Hawaiian Gardens gets 70% of its revenue from Gardens Casino, Commerce gets 15%.”  

Victor Farfan, a Hawaiian Gardens city councilmember, told KFI AM640 that without the tax revenue “we will not be able to provide essential services for our community.”

Even larger cities, like San Jose, would take a significant financial hit. 

“We have about 750 employees at Casino M8trix and we pay, you know, between the two cardrooms [Bay 101], $32 million in the taxes in San Jose,” Rob Lindo, vice president of Casino M8trix told The Post. “So, we are large employers, but also very large contributors to the city’s general fund.” 

Lindo called the move “anti-competitive,” telling the Post it could eliminate industry that has been around since the early 1800s just to benefit one particular party — tribal casinos.  

“Bonta has taken taken an interest in this and doesn’t seem to want to engage our industry, he seems to just want drop regulations that are designed to seem to close us down,” Lindo told The Post. 

Cardrooms are limited to “player-banked” games, while tribal casinos operate the traditional style “house-banked” blackjack. 

James Siva, Chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, praised the regulations as an “important step” to combat “unscrupulous and illegal gaming in California.” 

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“The regulations further clarify that games and practices employed by commercial card rooms are indeed prohibited under California law,” Siva said in a statement to The Post. “Running a business contrary to that law is an illicit business, period. We hope that Department of Justice will now enforce these regulations so California can ensure a well-regulated gaming industry that is safe for consumers.”

Kirkland called the move political. 

“Frankly, the tribes are bigger donors to Bonta’s campaign than the cardrooms are,” He said, adding that the California Gaming Association is weighing legal options to fight back.  

The Post reached out the Bonta’s office for comment.