_____________________
_____________________
By Brian Hews
Publisher | Follow X
February 24, 2026
California’s latest crackdown on cardrooms did not begin with a February announcement about blackjack-style games.
It began years earlier — with campaign contributions, tribal exclusivity claims, and regulatory moves that now threaten jobs and city budgets across Southern California.
On February 9, the California Department of Justice announced that new rules targeting player-dealer rotation and blackjack-style games were approved by the Office of Administrative Law, with implementation scheduled for April. Cardroom operators warn the changes could eliminate some of their most popular games and sharply reduce revenue.
Mainstream outlets have now begun covering the potential fallout.
But this newspaper documented the pattern long before the latest headlines.
In June 2019, Los Cerritos Community News reported that then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra had accepted nearly $300,000 in campaign contributions from tribal gaming interests. In February 2020, this paper expanded that review, documenting more than $500,000 in total contributions connected to tribal casinos and affiliated entities, based on public campaign finance filings.
____________________
______________________
The reporting did not allege motive. It documented money and timeline.
On October 20, 2025, Los Cerritos Community News again reported that Attorney General Rob Bonta was pursuing regulatory changes aimed at limiting cardroom gaming structures — months before statewide outlets treated the issue as breaking news.
That article outlined the growing conflict between tribal gaming interests asserting exclusivity rights and commercial cardrooms defending long-standing player-dealer models.
________________
__________________
In late 2025, cardroom employees protested the proposed rules, warning of job losses and revenue collapse. By February 2026, the regulatory shift was formalized.
The arc is clear:
Campaign finance filings show substantial tribal gaming contributions to statewide officials.
Legal disputes over exclusivity intensified.
The Department of Justice advanced new interpretations affecting cardrooms.
Regulations were approved.
Cities now face uncertainty.
Those records were public.
The effects are only now visible.
Cardrooms are not simply entertainment venues. In several Southern California municipalities, gambling taxes support general fund services, public safety staffing, infrastructure, and community programs. Operators warn that limiting blackjack-style games could reduce revenue dramatically. Workers fear layoffs. City officials quietly model contingency budgets.
Tribal governments maintain that the rules enforce existing law and protect voter-approved exclusivity agreements. The Department of Justice states its rulemaking followed proper procedures and public comment requirements.
Both things can be true: campaign contributions are legal, and regulatory actions can still carry economic consequences.
What has been missing from much of the recent coverage is the connective tissue — the timeline that shows how money, law, and policy have moved together over years, not weeks.
This newspaper did not wait for a February press release to notice the pattern.
It reported the money when it was filed.
It reported the regulatory signals when they emerged.
And it reported the risks to local cities before the story became fashionable.
As April implementation approaches, the question is no longer whether the crackdown is real. It is whether the cities that depend on cardroom revenue — and the workers who rely on those jobs — were given full transparency about how this regulatory shift developed and who shaped it.
This story did not begin with blackjack in 2026.
It began years earlier — in campaign filings, committee hearings, and rulemaking dockets.
That is the timeline.
That is the money.
That is the risk to cities.
Statement from the Hawaiian Gardens City Councilman Victor Farfan
As a Councilmember of the City of Hawaiian Gardens, I am deeply concerned by the Attorney General’s decision to move forward with regulations that would effectively ban blackjack and other player-dealer style games. For our city, this is not an abstract policy debate; it is a matter of economic survival.
Gardens Casino generates close to two-thirds of Hawaiian Gardens’ general fund revenue. That revenue directly supports essential city services, including police and public safety, , parks and youth programs, senior services, the library, and community programming. A sudden and significant reduction in cardroom activity would place these services at serious risk.
The Bureau of Gambling Control’s own analysis acknowledges that these regulations could result in the loss of up to 50 percent of cardroom jobs and revenue statewide. In a small, working-class city like ours, that could translate into layoffs, reduced hours, and difficult decisions about cutting public services that our residents rely on every day.
The impact would not be limited to cities alone. Widespread job losses would shift significant costs to other levels of government, including counties and the state. Laid-off employees may be forced to rely on public assistance programs such as unemployment insurance, Medi-Cal, CalFresh, and housing support, increasing demand on already strained public safety-net systems. Workforce development and job-training programs would also experience increased pressure as displaced workers seek retraining to enter new industries. These costs do not disappear—they are simply transferred to taxpayers statewide.
In addition, reductions in employment and wages would lead to lower income tax receipts, payroll taxes, and local economic activity, further eroding revenue streams that support county and state programs. Local governments would face higher service demands at the same time their fiscal resources are diminished, creating a cascading effect across multiple levels of government.
Thousands of working families across California depend on cardroom employment. These jobs support households already facing rising costs in housing, food, and healthcare. At a time when families are struggling with inflation and economic uncertainty, these regulations threaten to compound those challenges.
Our city made multiple efforts to engage with the Bureau of Gambling Control and the Attorney General’s Office to discuss the real-world financial and community impacts of these proposed rules. We submitted formal objections, requested meetings, and provided public comment. Unfortunately, those efforts were met with silence, leaving cities like ours without meaningful dialogue, transparency, or collaboration.
If these regulations move forward as proposed, Hawaiian Gardens will be forced to confront the very real possibility of fiscal distress. We are currently evaluating all available options to protect our residents, our workforce, and the long-term financial stability of our city, but the choices we may face are deeply personal and extremely difficult.
This is not simply about regulating an industry; it is about the livelihoods of working families and the broader strain placed on public assistance systems, workforce agencies, and government budgets at every level and the ability of cities like Hawaiian Gardens to continue providing basic services to the communities we serve.
Statement from the Gardens Casino in Hawaiian Gardens
For us, this is about people. Gardens Casino provides stable, good-paying jobs for more than 1200 local families and helps fund police and fire services as well as youth, senior and other programs in Hawaiian Gardens. The Attorney General’s regulations threaten to eliminate many of those jobs and cut off critical revenue the city relies on to provide basic public services.
Commerce Condemns ‘Job-Killing’ State Cardroom Regulations
Commerce leaders issued a sharp condemnation of the California Attorney General’s final approval of sweeping new regulations on cardroom operations. The regulations, approved by the Office of Administrative Law on February 6, 2026, will effectively ban long-standing “blackjack-style” games and dismantle the “player-dealer” rotation model that has been the industry standard for decades.
Commerce City officials warn that these “unilateral and arbitrary” changes, set to take effect on April 1, threaten the City’s economic foundation, putting thousands of local jobs at risk and jeopardizing 40% of the City’s municipal budget.
“Attorney General Rob Bonta has chosen to ignore the livelihoods of thousands of hard-working families in Commerce in favor of a bureaucratic solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Commerce Mayor Kevin Lainez.”
Commerce warned about cuts to Public Safety, Senior & Youth Programs, Community Infrastructureand and thousands of layoffs at the Commerce Casino.
Commerce City Manager Ernie Hernandez stated, “The City of Commerce would not be what it is if it weren’t for gaming. For years, the Bureau of Gambling Control authorized these games. To suddenly pivot and declare them illegal, without any meaningful engagement with the cities that host them, is a betrayal of the public trust.”
Hernandez said that revenue from the casino currently accounts for more than 40% of the City’s total income.
Under the new regulations, the City anticipates a significant decline in revenue that will force immediate and painful budget re-evaluations.
For over 40 years, the Commerce Casino has operated as the largest cardroom in the world, serving as the single largest contributor to the City’s General Fund.
Commerce stands with a coalition of “Cardroom Communities” across California—including Bell Gardens, Hawaiian Gardens and Gardena—that are exploring all legal and legislative remedies to protect their residents from the fallout of these regulations.
Statement from the California Gaming Association
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.
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login