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- Over 440 slot games
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Best Online Casinos in California for Real Money
California online casinos are widely available to the state’s residents and visitors, adding variety to the Golden State’s land-based gambling options.
This guide highlights the online gambling sites, tribal casinos, card rooms, and horse racing tracks within California’s borders. The page also discusses where to play bingo in California, and shares information about the official state lottery.
It will also look at California’s gambling laws, delve into the state’s gambling history, and make an informed prediction on what we think the future of sports and fantasy sports betting in CA could hold.
Disclosure: At GamblingSites.com, our mission is to connect you with the best gambling sites and informational resources available. If you click one of the links on our site, we may earn a commission payment at no extra charge to you.
Best Real Money Online Casinos in California
- Bovada – Best California Gambling Site
- DuckyLuck Casino – Best Bonus for Californians
- SlotsandCasino – Best Slots Casino for California
- MyBookie – Best Sports Betting Site for California
- Ignition Casino – Best California Poker Site
- BC.Game – Best Crypto Site for California
- Slots.lv – Best Live Dealer Site for California
Bovada Best California Gambling Site
Bovada is one of the older, more established online casinos, and ranks as the best overall online option for California gamblers. Bovada has it all: Hundreds of slot games from top-tier developers (as well as a few slots proprietary to Bovada itself), a sportsbook and racebook that is second to none, a networked poker room, and plenty of live dealer table games.
Californians will specifically appreciate Bovada’s roulette options because the state’s casinos don’t offer the game. There are four variations of digital roulette, including a classic and more modern version of both European and American options. The live casinos also have five roulette tables, including two auto-roulette tables.
The site welcomes cryptocurrency, and features generous welcome and reload bonuses, as well. What’s not to like?
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- Bonus: 125% up to $3,750
- Visit Site
- Read Review
DuckyLuck Casino Best Bonus for Californians
The wacky name may throw you, but there’s nothing funny about the welcome bonuses DuckyLuck regularly doles out. You can get a massive welcome bonus of 500% up to $2,500 with a minimum deposit of just $25. If you use crypto for your first deposit, that welcome bonus jumps up to 600% for a potential maximum bonus of up to $3,000.
After your first deposit, you are eligible for reload bonuses on every subsequent bonuses. These reload bonuses range from 50%-80%, depending on your player level. DuckyLuck also offers monthly “MegaBonuses,” between 290%-395%.
The site honors deposits from credit cards, bank transfers, and a wide range of cryptocurrencies and e-wallets. Crypto deposits qualify for the most generous bonuses, with Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum leading the way.
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- Bonus: 500% up to $7,500
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- Read Review
SlotsandCasino Best Slots Casino for California
After launching in April 2023, this new online casino has already rocketed to the top of our list of offshore gambling sites serving California. SlotsandCasino is primarily a slots site, with more than 500 slots games in its inventory.
As excited as you may be about a site with more than 500 slots, no one wants to scroll through all those games to find their favorites. Fortunately, SlotsandCasino allows you to sort their games by software provider, or use convenient categories to find the most popular games, classic 3-reel games, or jackpot slots. There are more than 35 jackpot games available, so you have plenty of chances to win big!
Californians will specifically love reliving the glory of the California Gold Rush with slots like Gold Rush Gus and its sequel, Gold Rush Gus and the City of Riches. Eureka!
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- Bonus: 500% up to $7,500
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- Read Review
MyBookie Best Sports Betting Site for California
While it features wagering on sporting events all over the world, MyBookie is well-known here in the states for its coverage of betting on games in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL. If you fancy a bet on the Anaheim Ducks, the Oakland Athletics, the Los Angeles Lakers, or the San Francisco 49ers, MyBookie’s the sportsbook for you. There are plenty of player and game props bets available, and MyBookie allows you to place parlays on the same games.
One reason California bettors will love MyBookie is because of how organized it is. You can scroll through the sports options on the top, and the side menu highlights live lines, odd boosts, and the most popular events.
You can also bet on thoroughbred horseracing at any of the tracks in California, including Del Mar Race Track, Santa Anita Race Park, Golden Gate Fields, and Los Alamitos Race Course.
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- Bonus: 50% up to $1,000
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- Read Review
Ignition Casino Best California Poker Site
One of the more complete online casinos, Ignition features a top-ranked poker room (on the PaiWangLuo Poker Network) that regularly hosts more than 2000 players. Sit down at a table and you might find yourself competing with poker pros like Landon Tice2*, who streams his games regularly and also writes for Ignition.
The tournament schedule on Ignition is impressive. There are up to $200,000 in guaranteed prize pools every week, and the buy-ins range from $10-$50. You can also participate in knockout tournaments and sit-and-gos.
Don’t forget that the site also features hundreds of slots and table games, along with liver dealer games. While the site doesn’t host a sportsbook, it does feature wagering on eSports.
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- Bonus: 300% up to $3,000
- Visit Site
- Read Review
BC.Game Best Crypto Site for California
BC.Game is a crypto-only casino site. You can use an e-wallet or crypto wallet to buy crypto, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Then you can fund your BC.Game account with those crypto coins. BC.Game accepts virtually every cryptocurrency out there, and they have a built-in exchange you can use to trade your coins.
Because BC.Game is a crypto-only site, they also offer provably fair casino games. Provably fair games use the blockchain to verify the randomness of every game. The casino offers top slots from developers like BetSoft, Playson, and Belatra. They also have live dealer games from Evolution Gaming such as roulette, baccarat, blackjack, sic bo, 3-card poker, and more. Don’t forget to also check out the BC.Game originals that aren’t available anywhere else.
The only drawback here is that the sportsbook at BC.Game is unavailable in California, but if you are a casino player, the welcome crypto bonus is too generous to pass up.
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- Bonus: 360% up to 100,000 BCD
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- Read Review
Slots.lv Best Live Dealer Site for California
Sometimes, finding the best site is a matter of quality over quantity. For example, Slots.lv doesn’t have the largest selection of live dealer games, but it has partnered with Visionary iGaming (ViG) to deliver live table games that are of significantly superior quality to what you find elsewhere. All your favorites are here: baccarat, blackjack, roulette (both European and American), and super 6.
The HD camera angles are what really make Visionary iGaming such a high-quality product. There are multiple cameras on both tables so you can see the dealer and the cards or roulette wheel. ViG also has a microphone for each dealer, so you can easily hear them as they talk to you.
If you favor quantity over quality, sure, try a different site. But if you like your live dealer experience to be as close to real life as it can get, go with Slots.lv.
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- Bonus: 100% up to $2,000
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- Read Review
Comparison of Top Sites Serving California
| Site Name | B.E.S.T. Rating | Welcome Bonus | Specialty | Read Review | Visit Site |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bovada Casino | 4.5 | 125% up to $3750 | Best Gambling Site | Read Review | Visit Bovada Casino |
| Ignition Casino | 4.5 | 300% up to $3000 | Best Poker Site | Read Review | Visit Ignition Casino |
| DuckyLuck Casino | 4.5 | 500% up to $2500 | Best Bonus | Read Review | Visit DuckyLuck Casino |
| SlotsandCasino | 4.5 | 300% up to $4500 | Best Slots Casino | Read Review | Visit SlotsandCasino |
| BC.Game | 4 | 360% up to 100k BCD | Best Crypto Site | Read Review | Visit BC.Game |
| MyBookie | 4 | 100% up to $1000 | Best Sportsbook | Read Review | Visit MyBookie |
| Slots.lv | 4 | 300% up to $4550 | Best Live Dealer Site | Read Review | Visit Slots.lv |
Our Selection Criteria
The B.E.S.T. system is our way of rating online gambling sites for a variety of desirable characteristics:
- Bonuses – We grade every site we review for the value, variety, and accessibility of their various welcome bonuses.
- Entertainment Features – Gambling should be fun. Full Stop. We grade every section of the site for ease of playability, entertainment value of the games, and the ease with which we can find what we’re looking for. This where we also grade on the frustration factor of various processes, such as locating a particular slot game.
- Safety and Security — We take your security and the safety of your personal and financial information very seriously, and we expect online casinos to be just as committed to that. We assess each site’s privacy policy and their data security measures, such as their use of Transport Layer Security (TLS).
- Transactions – We examine the site for the speed and reliability of their banking transactions. Additionally, we expect top sites to transact using banking-level encryption.
Legal State of Gambling in California
California’s 39 million residents have a wide range of gambling choices. You can play poker in one of the many card clubs that dot the state, and bingo and horse racing are also widely available.
However, land-based sportsbooks and racebooks are prohibited, and slot machines are only available at tribal casinos. The state’s legislature has been hesitant to completely prohibit or fully permit other sorts of wagering in the Golden State. Let’s look at the various laws affecting gambling in California.
California Constitution
Surprisingly, California law is largely silent on the subject of online gambling. The state constitution appears to concern itself only with gambling establishments based within the physical borders of the state. While other states have attempted to include online gambling and wagering with varying degrees of success, California appears to be taking a wait and see attitude. In the meantime, offshore casino sites proliferate, and online gambling continues to grow.
California Penal Code
In 1872, the California Penal Code was first established. It included a prohibition of all “banked” card and dice games. Banked, of course, means any game where the gambler is playing against the house, such as with blackjack or baccarat. Various loopholes were explored to get around the “non-banked games” rule—such as allowing third-party companies to serve as the “house” at the blackjack tables. For the most part, card rooms focus on variations of poker that pitted players against one another. Otherwise, regulation and control of card rooms was left to local jurisdictions, and by the late 1970s, there were more than 300 card rooms operating in California.
IGRA/Tribal Compacts
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) was passed by US Congress in 1988, and addressed the rights of Native Americans to control gaming on their respective reservations. The Act established the right of tribes to conduct various gambling, including pull-tabs, lotto, punch boards, and card games which are either explicitly permitted by state law, or are not expressly prohibited by the state in which they occur.
IGRA also established the right of tribes to make compacts with the states in which their lands were located, and—within certain perimeters—build and/or operate casinos on tribal land.
In 1999, the California’s Gambling Control Act went into effect, creating the California Gambling Control Commission to oversee all gambling taking place in the state. A few months later, then Governor Grey Davis negotiated with 57 California tribes to establish each tribe’s right pertaining to gambling and gaming on tribal lands.
Most of these compacts (there are now 64) were for 20 years and have been extended for up to three years beyond their expiration dates. The California legislature has shown no hesitancy in extending these compacts, and it’s likely that they will remain in force for the foreseeable future.
Federal legislation, state regulation, and tribal compacts seem to have covered all the bases in terms of what is and is not legal to wager on in California.
Wanna Bet?
Neither federal nor California legislation has specifically addressed online gambling—which is unsurprising, since most of these laws were created before online gambling became a reality.
Now that you may have a better understanding of why there’s so much confusion about online gambling, let’s hack our way through the jungle of opinion to arrive at the truth: It is not legal to bet on sports with any organization based in California. Offshore sportsbooks, on the other hand, are not mentioned in California law.
Land-Based Gambling Options in California
California offers plenty of opportunities to make a bet, its distaste for sportsbooks notwithstanding. Let’s take a look at some of the top venues and games found throughout the state.
Tribal Casinos
| NAME | ADDRESS | COUNTRY | INFORMATION |
|---|---|---|---|
| Table Mountain Casino Resort | 777 Jackpot Lane Friant, California 93626 | Fresno | 8 restaurants, 150+ guest rooms, and a 140,000 s.f. casino floor featuring 2,000 slot machines, 30 table games, a high limit room and a VIP “Dragon’s Den” |
| Yaamava’ Resort Casino (formerly San Manuel Casino) | 5797 North Victoria Avenue Highland, CA 92346 | Los Angeles | Largest casino in California, with more than 6,500 slot machines, 135 table games, 38 live poker tables, and five high-limit rooms. |
| Barona Resort & Casino | 1932 Wildcat Canyon Rd Lakeside, CA 92040 | San Diego | Features more than 2,200 slots, 65+ table games, as well as a top-tier golf course. Said to be San Diego County’s only non-smoking casino. |
Commercial Card Rooms
| NAME | ADDRESS | COUNTRY | INFORMATION |
|---|---|---|---|
| Casino Monterey aka Marina Club | 204 Carmel Ave Marina, CA 93933 | Monterey | Established in 1972, smaller card room dealing Texas hold’em, as well as player-banked games like three-card poker, pai gow poker, no bust century 21st blackjack, and Zoo Bac baccarat. |
| Commerce Casino & Hotel | 6131 Telegraph Road Commerce, CA 90040 | Los Angeles | The largest card club in southern California. Deals Texas hold’em, 7-card stud, omaha hi/lo, and player-banked EZ baccarat, 21st century blackjack, and pai gow tiles. |
| Club One Casino | 3950 N Cedar Ave Fresno, CA 93726 | Fresno | 50+ card tables, 24-hour restaurant, and immense video walls for sporting events. Regular poker tournaments. |
Horse Racing
| NAME | ADDRESS | COUNTRY | INFORMATION |
|---|---|---|---|
| Del Mar | 204 Carmel Ave Marina, CA 93933 | San Diego | Opened in 1937. Multi-seasonal thoroughbred racing on dirt and turf. |
| Golden Gate Fields | 6131 Telegraph Road Commerce, CA 90040 | Alameda | Established in 1941. Main track is synthetic (Tapeta), with an inner turf track. |
| Santa Anita Park | 3950 N Cedar Ave Fresno, CA 93726 | Los Angeles | Opened in 1934. With a main track of synthetic (Cushion Track), Santa Anita also features three different turf tracks. |
State Lottery
According to the California Lottery website, there are more than 23,000 retailers in the state selling lottery tickets. If you are reading this anywhere within the boundaries of the Golden State, odds are, you are easily within walking distance of a retail store that sells California lottery tickets.
Bingo
| NAME | ADDRESS | COUNTRY | INFORMATION |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aquamaids Bingo | 1600 Martin Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95050 | Santa Clara | Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. |
| Bingo4CHEF | 3070 Pacific Ave Livermore, CA 94550 | Alameda | Open Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Features progressive jackpots. |
| Table Mountain Bingo | 777 Jackpot Lane Friant, CA 93626 | Fresno | Part of Table Mountain Casino Resort. Open 24 hours. |
| Grand Oaks Bingo | 7919 Auburn Blvd Citrus Heights, CA 95610 | Sacramento | Open seven days a week. |
| St Ferdinand’s Bingo | 1040 Coronel St San Fernando, CA 91340 | Los Angeles | Church-sponsored hall in operation for 25 years. Open on Sundays. |
California Gambling Timeline
Voters in California decide to allow four tribes to increase their number of slot machines by a combined 17,000 units, and require the tribes to pass more gambling revenue on to the state.
The California Constitution is amended to allow the governor to negotiate compacts with tribes that allow them to host or offer slot machines, lottery games, as well as banked and percentage card games.
The Governor of California, Gray Davis, negotiates gambling compacts with 57 federally recognized tribes.
The California Legislature’s Gambling Control Act goes into effect, creating the California Gambling Control Commission.
Congress passes the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, requiring tribes and states to enter into agreements that allow for tribes to offer certain kinds of gambling.
The US Supreme Court rules that neither states nor local governments may regulate gambling on tribal reservation land.
California voters authorize a statewide lottery.
California legalizes bingo for charitable purposes.
The US Supreme Court rules that neither states nor local governments may regulate gambling on tribal reservation land.
Voters in California legalize pari-mutuel betting on horse racing.
With the enactment of the California Penal Code, the state bans banked and percentage games with cards or dice.
Future of Gambling in California
The battle for legalized gambling in California has been a long and bloody one, only made more so by the state’s affinity for initiative and referendum. The current prohibition of sportsbooks is already taking significant fire from online venues, as is the restriction of other types of gambling to casinos on Native American reservations.
Look for sports betting to come to California first. The state is already under enormous pressure from fantasy sportsbook giants FanDuel and DraftKings; it seems likely that the first sports wagered upon legally in the state of California will be fantasy sports. Many offshore sportsbooks serve California and have wagering options available covering all major sporting events.
On the other hand, it’s unlikely casinos outside of California’s tribal reservations will sprout in the state any time soon. Why? Because it’s doubtful the state will acquiesce to anything that could adversely affect its relationship with the NA tribes. And for that matter, California’s tribal casino industry already outranks all but Nevada’s in size.
Gambling Responsibly
According to some estimates, there are more than 1.2 million adults with gambling problems in California. Now, you would expect that the most populous state in the U.S. would have plenty of options for helping people resolve a problem with gambling—and you would be right.
There are a multitude of organizations in California eager to assist anyone who may have discovered that responsible gambling is harder than it looks. Here are some of the best resources available:
- Office of Problem Gambling, California Department of Public Health
- CALPG, California Council on Problem Gambling
- Gamblers Anonymous California
- QuitGamble California
Legal Sources
- Card Clubs in California, California Gambling Control Commission
- “Poker Pro Landon Tice joins Ignition Casino,” Gambling Insider
- Gambling Laws in California, Shouse California Law Group
- Article IV Section 19 of California State Constitution, California Legislature
- California Gambling Law, Resources, and Regulations, California Gambling Control Commission
- “Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, National Indian Gaming Commission
- “California Gambling Control Act,” California Department of Justice
- 2006 California Problem Gambling Prevalence Survey, NORC at University of Chicago
Gambling Online in California
If you’re looking for the best California online casinos, you now have a few options to get started with, thanks to this guide.
While there are several options, Bovada is the best California gambling site thanks to an established online reputation, excellent casino offerings, and one of the most complete sportsbooks online. If you have a niche to scratch, SlotsandCasino is the casino to look to for slots players, and Ignition Casino is the best poker site for Californians, among others.
In addition to accessing online casinos in California, state residents can visit local tribal casinos, card rooms, and horse racing tracks. The guide took a look at California’s gambling laws as well, including gambling-related provisions in the California Penal Code and information about The California Gambling Control Act. The page also shares Californian responsible gambling resources, enabling players to seek treatment for problem gambling issues they may face.
More Guides to Online Gambling in the United States
