Poker in California: card rooms, online sites and the law

Where to play live poker in California

Live poker is legal in California in licensed card rooms and in tribal casinos. Card rooms are licensed by the California Gambling Control Commission and can’t bank games, so in poker the players play against each other. Tribal casinos run under compacts with the state.

Area	Poker rooms (city)
Los Angeles	Commerce Casino (Commerce) · The Bicycle Hotel & Casino (Bell Gardens) · The Gardens Casino (Hawaiian Gardens) · Hustler Casino (Gardena) · Hollywood Park Casino (Inglewood)
San Francisco Bay Area	Bay 101 (San Jose) · Lucky Chances Casino (Colma) · Artichoke Joe's (San Bruno) · Graton Resort & Casino (Rohnert Park, tribal)
Sacramento	Thunder Valley Casino Resort (Lincoln, tribal)
Inland Empire and San Diego County	Pechanga Resort Casino (Temecula, tribal)

The biggest rooms. According to DeucesCracked, Commerce Casino has more than 200 tables and is one of the largest card rooms in the world, followed by The Bicycle and The Gardens, all in Los Angeles County.

Card rooms admit players 21 and over; tribal casinos set their own minimum age. Hours, games and limits change, so check with the room before you go.

How online poker works in California

No state-licensed site. California regulates live poker through its card rooms and tribal casinos, but it has never passed a law to license online poker. Bills have been introduced in Sacramento many times since 2008, and every one of them failed, mostly over disputes between the card rooms, the tribes and the horse-racing industry.

What the law says about players. Penal Code section 330 makes it a misdemeanor to run or to play in a percentage game, where the house takes a share of the bets. Gaming law professor I. Nelson Rose points out that poker sites that take rake fit that definition, so playing there is technically a misdemeanor, but there is no record of a California player being charged for playing online poker. Federal law (UIGEA, 2006) restricts how banks process gambling payments and does not criminalize players either.

What that means for you. International rooms that accept California players are not licensed by the state, so California’s consumer protections do not apply. Choose rooms with a long track record and keep only what you are playing with on the site. See the overview for the whole country in our US online poker guide.

Which partner rooms accept California players

All four of our US-facing rooms accept California:

• Ignition Poker: the biggest US-facing room, with anonymous tables, a 150% Bitcoin bonus and 40% rakeback through our link.
• ACR Poker: the biggest guaranteed tournaments open to US players (the Venom, the OSS), a 100% bonus up to $2,000 and 35% rakeback.
• BetOnline Poker: on the Chico network, with a crypto-friendly cashier and 33% rakeback.
• CoinPoker: crypto-only, tables in USDT, HUDs allowed and 30% rakeback every week.

The ranked list at the top of this page is sorted by the rakeback you get through RakebackPokerWorld. To see how much comes back with your own monthly rake, use the rakeback calculator.

Deposits and withdrawals from California

US banks often block card payments to gambling sites, so crypto is the most reliable way to move money in and out of international rooms:

1. Buy Bitcoin or USDT on an exchange that accepts California residents.
2. Copy the deposit address from the room’s cashier and send it, checking the network the cashier indicates.
3. To cash out, request a crypto withdrawal and sell on the exchange. Crypto payouts usually arrive within hours.

Start with a small test amount. With USDT, your balance follows the dollar instead of moving with the Bitcoin price. The step by step is in how to deposit and withdraw Bitcoin at poker sites.

Taxes

Gambling winnings are taxable income under federal law and under California law. Keep records of your deposits, withdrawals and results, and talk to a tax professional about your situation.