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

Chapter XIV, § 14-5 of the Novato Municipal Code is the city's own gambling ordinance. Section 14-5.2 bars any owner, agent, employee, licensee or lessee from keeping, conducting, operating or maintaining a house, room, store, apartment, enclosure or place used in whole or in part for any game dependent on hazard or chance, with cards, dice, balls, cues or any other device, played for anything of value. Section 14-5.3 bars knowingly permitting such use of premises, and § 14-5.4 bars playing or betting at such games.

The code defines anything of value broadly. It includes money, chips, credit and merchandise, and also any payment for services or for the use of premises, cards, chips or furniture, any increase or probable increase in business or patronage, and rent from premises whose major, primary or usual use is for the playing of the games (§ 14-5.1).

Card games get a limited carve-out in § 14-5.5. No game played with cards is prohibited unless it violates one of the listed paragraphs. No person can receive anything of value from a card game beyond actual winnings earned playing in good faith for himself alone, no person can give anything of value to be permitted to play beyond paying actual losses, and no person can bet anything of value belonging to another. Permitting premises, furniture or equipment to be used for a game that breaks those rules is barred, equipment can be seized under Penal Code Section 335(a), and knowingly visiting premises where a violation is occurring is barred.

The presumption in paragraph h treats publicly available draw poker as returning value to whoever controlled the game or premises, a rebuttable presumption. The term card room does not appear in the Novato Municipal Code as exported, and the code prints no license for one. Section 14-5.1(d) states the council's intent to prohibit all games not already prohibited by state law.