Arcadia, CA Gambling & Gaming: Card Room Licensing (2026)

Gambling is regulated in Part 1 of Chapter 2 of Article IV of the Arcadia Municipal Code, and Section 4212.2 is the card room provision. It applies to any person acting as principal, agent, owner, lessee, manager, employee, servant or otherwise who operates, maintains, conducts or carries on as a business any public card room, public game room, or other public place where a poker game, card game or any game of chance is played, conducted, carried on or permitted. The section prints no license or permit path, so the City of Arcadia, California, offers no local route to open a card room.

The surrounding sections close the gaps. Section 4212 bars keeping, conducting or maintaining any house, room, apartment or place where a game not mentioned in Section 330 of the State Penal Code is dealt with cards, dice, chips or similar devices for money or anything of value. Section 4212.1 reaches property owners who knowingly permit that use of premises under their charge or control. Section 4212.3 goes after players: no person can visit, frequent, participate in or be present at a place where gambling is being conducted. Section 4211 declares a gambling house a nuisance.

The one carve-out is the racetrack. Section 4212.4 provides that the enclosure of a horse track licensed by the California Horse Racing Board is not a gambling house or place so long as wagering is confined to pari-mutuel wagering upon the results of a horse race, and Section 4211.1 repeats the point for books and apparatus that record wagers through the licensee's pari-mutuel machines.

Devices are covered too. Section 4213.1 prohibits possessing punchboards, marble games, pin games and slot machines, and Section 4213.2 has the Chief of Police destroy nuisance devices after a plea or final conviction, with any money in a machine deposited in the general fund. Charitable bingo is handled separately under Division 6 by license.