Oxnard, CA Gambling & Gaming: Card Room Licensing (2026)
Key Facts
- Governing sections
- Oxnard Code §§ 12-1 to 12-3
- General rule
- Card rooms/gambling houses prohibited citywide
- Exception
- Fraternal/charitable orgs with a license (§ 12-5)
- License issuer
- City council, license collector = police chief
- Revocation bar
- One year before reapplying (§ 12-7)
Summary
Oxnard outlaws keeping, operating, or playing in any card room, gambling house, or similar place citywide under Chapter 12 of its municipal code. The only carve-outs are occasional private social card games in a home and licensed games run by long-established fraternal, labor, or charitable organizations for their own members.
No person shall keep, conduct or maintain any house, room, apartment or place, used in whole or in part as a gambling house or place where any game is played, conducted, dealt or carried on with cards, dice, dominos or other devices, for money, checks, chips, credit or any representative of value, in the result of which game chance is any determining factor, except as set forth in section 12-4.
Official source re-checked September 7, 2026: no newer edition of the code had been published (publisher’s edition: Contains Supplement current through 1-26-2026).
Full Breakdown
Sec. 12-1 makes it unlawful to keep, conduct, or maintain any house, room, apartment, or place used in whole or in part as a gambling house or a place where any card, dice, domino, or similar game is played for money, checks, chips, credit, or any representative of value where chance is a determining factor. Sec. 12-2 separately bars anyone who owns or controls a property from knowingly permitting it to be used the same way, and Sec. 12-3 makes it unlawful to deal, operate, attend, play, or bet at such a game anywhere in the city.
Together these three sections function as a blanket ban on commercial card rooms and poker rooms; Oxnard has never adopted the local authorizing ordinance that Cal. & Prof. requires before a for-profit card room can legally operate in a California city. The only relief is Sec. 12-4, which exempts occasional, purely social private games in a private home, and Sec. 12-5, which exempts incorporated fraternal, labor, benevolent, or religious organizations that have operated continuously in the city for at least two years and that restrict games to their own members and invited guests.
Those exempt organizations must apply for a license under Sec. 12-6, filed in writing with the city council and renewed annually through the license collector, defined by Sec. 12-8 as the police chief or designee.
Violations & Fines
Sec. 12-7 lets the city council deny, suspend, or revoke a fraternal-organization license after a hearing on ten days' written notice if the applicant violates any law, no longer meets Sec. 12-5's membership requirements, or if the game room is found inimical to public health, morals, safety, peace, or welfare; a revoked license cannot be reissued for one year. Operating, permitting, or playing in an unlicensed card room under Sec. 12-1 through 12-3 is a straightforward criminal violation enforceable citywide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a commercial card room legally open in Oxnard?
Is a home poker game with friends illegal in Oxnard?
Who can legally run card games in Oxnard?
Sources & Official References
Other rules in Oxnard
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