A California Superior Court judge has struck down state regulations aimed at the cardroom industry, ruling that the Bureau of Gambling Control exceeded its authority by adopting rules that would have restricted table games licensed cardrooms have offered for decades.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Darwin found the Bureau, a division of the California Department of Justice, lacked authority to impose the statewide restrictions through the challenged regulations, according to the California Gaming Association. The group said the decision confirms the Bureau is responsible for enforcing California gaming laws rather than rewriting them through administrative action.
The ruling follows months of legal battles over regulations finalized in February that were scheduled to take effect in April. Earlier this year, Judge Darwin temporarily blocked enforcement while the lawsuit moved forward, finding the association was likely to succeed and that implementation could cause significant economic harm.
The disputed rules targeted blackjack-style games and tightened requirements governing player-banked tables and third-party proposition player providers. Tribal gaming organizations had supported the changes, arguing they clarified existing law and protected tribes’ exclusive rights to operate house-banked casino games under California law.
Gaming law expert I. Nelson Rose previously told ReadWrite that the dispute centered on California’s longstanding prohibition on banking games in cardrooms and the requirement that the player-dealer role rotate. Rose also questioned whether the Bureau, rather than the California Gambling Control Commission, had authority to make sweeping changes to approved games.
According to the California Gaming Association, the regulations would have outlawed or significantly limited popular table games, cutting industry revenue roughly in half, threatening thousands of jobs, and reducing tax revenue that many cities use to fund police, parks, libraries, youth programs, and other public services.
California Gaming Association responds to the disputed cardroom gambling regulations ruling
“For more than a year, we have said this case is about far more than gaming – it is about whether the Attorney General and his regulators can bypass the Legislature and unilaterally rewrite decades of established law. Today, the Court delivered a clear answer: they cannot.
“The Court’s ruling is a lifeline for communities across California. If these regulations had been allowed to stand, the consequences would have been devastating for working families, local businesses, and the cities that rely on cardroom revenues to fund police, parks, libraries, youth programs, and other essential services.
“These regulations were never about protecting the public. They were designed to advance the interests of a handful of powerful gaming tribes at the expense of local communities, working families, and established cardroom businesses. The Court rejected that effort and reaffirmed that the Bureau abused its discretion and cannot simply rewrite the law to achieve a political outcome.”
The association said employees, labor groups, local governments, and community stakeholders repeatedly warned regulators that the proposed rules would inflict severe economic damage, but those concerns were ignored. It added that the court’s decision reinforces that major California gaming policy must be determined by the Legislature rather than through administrative action.
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