Gambling in California: Laws, Top Sites & Live Casinos

Any banking or percentage game played with cards or dice is also forbidden.

If some of those games are unfamiliar to you, you’re not alone. California’s an old state, and many of these games have all but disappeared. The provision against percentage games played with cards or dice is the main reason that card rooms can’t host table games, though Native casinos on tribal land can.

No law in California directly addresses the question of online gambling legality. California law hasn’t quite caught up to technology. This is a common condition in America, and it leads to a lot of confusion among players of Web-based gambling games.

Because California is one of many American states that’s silent on the issue of online gambling, we have to look at other crimes as described in the state’s criminal code. For example, the convoluted definition of illegal gambling includes this gem:

That seems to apply loosely to computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. If the state of California were so inclined, we don’t think it’s too much of a stretch for them to apply this law to a person placing an online wager on a “mechanical device.”

But it’s extremely unlikely that the state would pursue such a charge. Even if they did, the illegal owning and/or operation of an illegal gaming machine is a misdemeanor charge. Even a second offense for the same crime is a misdemeanor.

According to state law, they’d pay a $50 fine on the first two convictions, only facing a few weeks’ jail time upon their third conviction for an identical offense.

In January of 2016, the California legislature took the unusual step of voting in favor of daily fantasy sports. The legislature decided in a near-unanimous vote to regulate an industry that they recognized was already very popular in their state.

The bill literally legalized certain types of “betting pools”, and legalized the “placing of a bet or wager on the result of any contest or event, including a sporting event, as specified.” It’s pretty Dr.y stuff at first, but it’s an exciting step in the direction of DFS legalization nationwide.

AB 1437 doesn’t give DFS operators carte blanche – in fact, it strictly regulates the operation of these gambling activities, and adds a few layers of security and validation to the industry’s existing policies. For example, DFS websites have to verify to the US Department of Justice that each of their members is of legal gambling age and is accessing DFS through a legal and regulated website. The technical aspects of this new regulatory feature haven’t been laid out yet. We expect they’ll be a bit draconian – after all, this is California.

Though multiple legislative attempts have been made to outlaw, regulate, or otherwise control online gambling in the state of California, none of them have been successful. Though gambling is a heavily-controlled activity in the state, online gambling is in a gray area – for the time being. The state’s willingness to embrace daily fantasy sports as a legitimate gambling activity is a sign that California’s legislature may act to legalize and regulate online casino and gambling action, though that’s pure speculation.

What that means for the player is that so long as you’re playing at a site that’s hosted by an offshore operator, you’re not breaking the law. In fact, even if you are placing online bets at a site that’s hosted by a gaming operator on US soil, you’re not breaking the law, only that operator. You won’t be charged with a crime, but you may have your accounts seized. That said, we don’t know of any mainstream online operators that you’d actually be interested in doing business with, so it’s kind of a moot point.

It seems unlikely. The legalization of what we think of as a commercial casino would require a constitutional amendment. Amending the California constitution isn’t as tough as in other states – the Golden State gives voters the right to amend the constitution by popular vote. Right now, state law says explicitly: “The Legislature has no power to authorize, and shall prohibit, casinos of the type currently operating in Nevada and New Jersey.”

Even though it’s comparatively easy to change the state constitution, it’d still be a long and expensive fight. And California voters are notoriously difficult to pin down. Look at the long back-and-forth on the issue of gay marriage, odd for a liberal state. It’s also odd that Californians have struggled to amend state law to allow the consumption of marijuana for recreational purposes.