Cardrooms get legal reprieve from blackjack ban: Local cities like San Bruno will continue to benefit from revenue 

In San Bruno, cardroom Artichoke Joe’s Casino also contributes a significant $3 million to the city in taxes each year. Leadership from both the city and the casino had expressed major concerns about the impact of new restrictions. 

“The potential loss of these games threatened not only our business, but critical tax revenue for our city, jobs, families, and funding for charitable contributions,” Artichoke Joe’s said in a statement. “This ruling allows Artichoke Joe’s to continue the proud legacy we have built since opening our doors in 1916.”

The ruling is good news both for the city and the business, which has been a staple of the San Bruno community for more than 100 years and employs more than 400 people, San Bruno Mayor Rico Medina said. 

“This is a stakeholder,” he said. “It’s not just a business. They really mean more to me personally, and to this community, for all they do.” 

Bonta’s restrictions exempted tribal casinos, which have been permitted to exclusively play a version of blackjack and other card games that pits players against the house since 1999. At local cardrooms, all games are played in a peer-to-peer style that would have been hampered by the new player-dealer restrictions. 

The lawsuit against the new state rules, filed by the California Gaming Association, was supported by Casino M8trix, a San Jose cardroom that said it could lose up to 80% of its business if they had to enforce the rules, Vice President Rob Lindo said. 

“It’s a big win for California’s cardrooms in general, and their employees, and local governments, and all the communities that rely on the cardrooms for jobs and tax revenue,” Lindo said. 

Casino M8trix contributes $12 million to San Jose’s revenue each year, Lindo said, and the city would have lost a significant portion of that should the state regulations have been upheld. For Lindo, it’s also a win for the around 750 employees who work at the cardroom. 

“Because of the judge’s ruling, we’re going to be able to hang on to those employees and keep playing the games that we’ve been legally entitled to play for the last generation,” he said. 

“It’s going to be very impactful to our business. Blackjack in itself is going to be probably void,” Artichoke Joe’s President Cody Sammut said previously. “Not just our employees, but different cities throughout California are going to be extremely impacted by these regulations. A lot of the city’s budget comes from a lot of the cardroom. So there’s going to be significant losses there.” 

Although the Attorney General’s Office may choose to appeal the ruling, Lindo said he believes the California Gaming Association’s case is strong and would prevail even if that occurs. 

“Hopefully, this is the last challenge that we see to the type of gaming that we do in cardrooms,” he said. “We just want to be able to keep our businesses going without challenges from other gaming interests that you know want to put us out of business.”