California Gaming Association warns half of state’s cardrooms could close following laws banning blackjack
New laws are due to come into effect on April 1
The California Gaming Association has said that new legislation banning person-versus-person card games like blackjack will wipe around 50 per cent of cardroom jobs and revenues statewide.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta confirmed that on Feb. 6 the state’s Office of Administrative Law had approved two pending cardroom regulations developed by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gaming Control. The new laws resrict both blackjack-style games cardrooms may offer and the operations of third-party proposition players, which sees cardrooms offer alternate versions of games where gamblers pay against the house, often reffered to as banked games. The new laws are due to come into effect on April 1.
Kyle Kirkland, President of the California Gaming Association, said: “Attorney General Bonta and the Bureau have unilaterally implemented extreme regulatory changes that will harm thousands of working families and the dozens of California communities that depend on cardroom taxes. By the Bureau’s own simplistic economic assessment, these unnecessary regulations will eliminate over half of all cardroom jobs and force many communities to cut police, fire, parks, senior, and food programs when the long-standing tax base disappears.”
“With other stakeholders, we documented serious legal and economic concerns in these flawed regulations, yet AG Bonta refused to identify a single threat to public safety, refused to engage with the communities, working families and long-standing businesses that the regulations would devastate and advanced the regulations without good faith discussion or lawful disclosure.”
“Given the Bureau’s failure to follow the laws they are bound to follow, our industry intends to pursue legal remedies to preserve our lawful, legitimate businesses and defend the livelihood of the working families and the communities who depend on us but have been dismissed as politically irrelevant by Attorney General Bonta,” he added.
