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

16, Card Rooms and Gambling, contains no licensing scheme for card rooms; instead every section prohibits the activity outright. 010 bars exhibiting cards, dice, dominoes, a fan-tan layout or any gambling implements in a barred or barricaded room built to make police access difficult when three or more people are present, and it separately makes it unlawful to visit such a room or to become a visitor at any place for the practice of gambling in the City. 020 makes it unlawful for a property owner, agent or employee to knowingly let or underlet premises for use as a gambling house or for the games described in Penal Code Section 330, played with cards, dice or other devices for money, checks, chips, credit or anything of value.

030 separately bans keeping, conducting or maintaining any house, room, apartment or place used for gambling, including games not listed in Penal Code Section 330. 040 bans playing, conducting or betting on peon, chuck-a-luck or any other card or dice game for money or anything of value. 16 instead codifies a blanket prohibition rather than a permit path. 010: an infraction for the first three violations of the same provision within a year, rising to a misdemeanor on the fourth, punishable by a fine set on the City's Infraction and Misdemeanor Bail Schedule or up to six months in San Diego County jail.