California’s cardroom industry filed two lawsuits this week challenging new gambling regulations approved by California Attorney General Rob Bonta that operators say could eliminate blackjack-style games, cost thousands of jobs, and severely damage the finances of cities that depend on casino tax revenue.
The lawsuits were filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the California Gaming Association with support from the California Cardroom Alliance and Communities for California Cardrooms. The suits challenge regulations issued by the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control that would significantly restrict player-dealer games that have been offered in California cardrooms for decades.
According to the complaints, the regulations threaten the foundation of the cardroom industry by altering how “third-party proposition player” games are conducted. In those games, an outside company acts as the banker rather than the house itself, a structure cardrooms say keeps the games legal under California law.
The Attorney General’s own Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment concluded the rules could eliminate at least 50 percent of cardroom jobs and revenue statewide. Industry leaders say such losses could force many cardrooms to close.
Unless blocked by a judge, the regulations are scheduled to begin taking effect April 1, 2026, with changes to cardroom game operations expected as early as June.
“Attorney General Bonta’s regulations threaten to eliminate more than half of California’s cardroom jobs and wipe out a critical source of revenue for dozens of cities,” California Gaming Association President Kyle Kirkland said in a statement. “These games have operated legally for decades under multiple attorneys general, yet one public official is now moving to shut them down without identifying a single public safety concern.”
The Department of Justice finalized the regulations February 9 after receiving 1,764 public comments during the rulemaking process. Cardroom representatives say most of those comments warned about the economic and legal consequences of the proposed changes.
How the Dispute Developed
The fight over blackjack-style games has simmered for years between tribal casinos and California’s licensed cardrooms.
California voters granted tribes exclusive rights to operate certain types of banked casino games under the state’s gambling framework. Cardrooms, however, developed a structure using outside banking companies known as third-party proposition players. Under that model, an independent player acts as the banker in each hand rather than the cardroom itself.
State regulators allowed that system to operate for decades. Cardrooms say their games were repeatedly approved by the Bureau of Gambling Control under multiple attorneys general, including former attorneys general Jerry Brown and Kamala Harris.
Tribal governments have long argued the arrangement is simply a workaround that allows cardrooms to run games that function like banked casino games reserved for tribal casinos.
The dispute intensified in recent years, leading the Legislature to pass the Tribal Nations Access to Justice Act, which gave tribes the ability to file lawsuits asking courts to determine whether certain cardroom games violate California gaming law.
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