For decades, cardrooms have been more than just places to play cards. In Black communities across California — from Compton and Gardena to Inglewood and Carson — they have been economic anchors. They offer steady, dignified work in neighborhoods that have too often been starved of it. In addition, cardrooms generate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue that funds police departments, fire stations, senior centers, and youth programs. That is why we’re sounding the alarm about Attorney General Rob Bonta’s new cardroom regulations, which went into effect on April 1st.
Under the guise of regulatory reform, Bonta’s office is pushing new rules that amount to a death sentence for cardrooms. The centerpiece is a “blackjack ban” targeting the card games that account for as much as half of some cardroom’s total revenues. An economic analysis published by Bonta’s own department projects cardroom losses approaching $500 million. Those are not abstract numbers; they are paychecks and tax receipts.
And while our communities absorb that blow, powerful tribal casino interests — which already hold a near-monopoly on gaming in this state — stand to pocket the difference. Tribal gaming operations, which pay no local taxes to our cities, are positioned to become even wealthier as a direct result of a policy pushed by the Office of the Attorney General. We do not use the word “giveaway” lightly. But when 30,000 workers — the overwhelming majority of them people of color — are put at risk so that a politically connected industry can capture their market share, what else do you call it?
There can be no dispute that the tribal casinos are the driving force behind these regulations. Tribal gaming interests tried and failed to win this fight at the ballot box, where California voters have had their say more than once. So, they found another route: the AG’s Office. The rules that took effect April 1st did not come with adequate public process, notice, or regard for the communities most affected. In fact, more than 1,000 Californians signed a petition asking AG Bonta to withdrawal the regulations. California families and city leaders were given almost no time to absorb or plan for a hit of this magnitude.
The damage is not theoretical. Majority-Black and Brown cities depend on cardroom tax revenue to fund basic city services. When those funds dry up, the cuts will come — and they will come for the things our most vulnerable residents rely on most. Senior centers. After-school programs. Youth scholarships.
Consider Gardena — a city with a large Black population that has long called this community home. Gardena’s city manager issued a warning that Hustler Casino and Lucky Lady Casino together account for more than 8 percent of Gardena’s entire general fund and projected a $7 to $8 million annual revenue loss stemming from the regulations, with “the potential for a fiscal emergency.”
And it’s not just Black communities. Commerce and Bell Gardens, both predominantly Hispanic and home to two of the three largest cardrooms in California, have declared a state of fiscal emergency due to the regulations.
Commerce has even advanced a ¼-cent sales tax measure to address the anticipated budget shortfall. Commerce Mayor Kevin Lainez said, “With the State threatening our cardroom revenues, and the County looking to take more sales tax, the City must find new ways to fund the services our community relies on.”
We have long understood that our communities must be vigilant about who holds power in Sacramento and what they do with it. This decision, which transfers economic power away from working-class Black and Brown communities toward wealthy, untaxed tribal gaming corporations — demands accountability.
We call on Attorney General Bonta to halt the implementation of these rules. Black communities in California have survived disinvestment, redlining, and economic exclusion. We have built institutions and livelihoods in the spaces that others overlooked. We will not watch quietly as those livelihoods are traded away in a backroom deal dressed up as regulation.