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

Section 9.28.030(A) bans any person, whether owner, employee or individual, from dealing, playing, opening or conducting a game of draw poker, solo, or any other game played with cards, dice or a device for money, checks, credits or other representative of value within Woodland's corporate boundaries. The ordinance carves out only a token exception: a duly licensed cigar store, card room, soft drink establishment or clubroom may allow play for no more than one cigar or one drink per game for each player actually engaged, meaning stakes are limited to a single consumable rather than cash or credit.

Subsection B extends liability to any owner, lessee or agent who knowingly permits a building, room or enclosure to be used for prohibited card or dice gambling, making both the operator and the property controller responsible for the same violation. Because the exception covers only nominal in-kind stakes, the section functions as a near-total local ban on for-money card rooms and poker rooms rather than a licensing scheme, and it sits outside the state Gambling Control Act's card-room authorization process under Business and Professions Code Section 19960 et seq.

Woodland has adopted no separate local ordinance licensing a commercial card room; a business seeking to operate one would still need a business license under Title 5 of this code in addition to satisfying this section's narrow play-for-consumables carve-out, which as written does not extend to cash-stakes card rooms.