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

342, part of the business license Rate Schedule chapter, states that no license shall be issued for the operation of a commercial cardroom or card table within the City, a blanket prohibition rather than a fee or licensing structure. The section defines "cardroom" broadly: any building, temporary structure, or room or space where a game of chance, including draw poker or any variation, is played with cards for the gain or profit of whoever runs the game, and where a charge is collected either as a rental or fee for a seat, table, or space, or as a percentage or fixed cut taken from the stakes.

"Card table" is defined just as broadly, covering any table, desk, blanket, or area where such a game is played for profit under the same fee arrangements, so the ban reaches informal for-profit card games as well as purpose-built cardrooms. The code also defines the "person maintaining" the building or conducting the game to include the owner, tenant, permittee, or licensee of the space, any employee of that person, or any shill working for them, closing off the workaround of hiring an employee or straw operator to run the game.

342 sits in the license Rate Schedule rather than a standalone gambling chapter, the City has no mechanism at all to authorize a commercial cardroom: there is no fee tier, no permit process, and no discretionary approval path in this section. This sets Santa Maria apart from California cities that license and regulate cardrooms under the state Gambling Control Act; Santa Maria has instead opted out of commercial cardrooms entirely at the local level.