California’s Bureau of Gambling Control June 20 suspended a controversial card room regulation that gaming tribes and card clubs have opposed since it was introduced.
The rule allowed the player-dealer position in poker and blackjack to be rotated every hour with two minute-interruptions. Gaming tribes have long maintained that the dealer must be rotated at every new game. Card clubs said the rule interfered with game play in this $1 billion industry.
The chief of the bureau, Wayne Quint, announced the change at a meeting of regulators of Indian casinos. He didn’t specify what rule should take the place of the old rule, however, or issue advisories to the state’s more than 60 card clubs. Quint originated the old rule.
The rule was first introduced a year ago. Everybody seemed to dislike it. Tribes insist that the courts in Oliver v. Los Angeles in 1998 ruled that the deal must be “continuously and systematically” rotated among players. They say the constitutional amendment that voters adopted in 2000 legalizing Indian gaming guarantees their monopoly of casino style gaming.
The Golden State divides gaming regulation between two agencies, one operates under Governor Jerry Brown, the California Gambling Control Commission. The Bureau of Gambling Control is under the Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is elected, rather than appointed, and so operates independently of the governor. This division of labors frustrates the gaming tribes, who argue that card clubs are not being policed closely enough.
Most California card clubs don’t rotate the deal, but use third-party proposition player firms to provide dealers. Tribes say this violates both the spirit and letter of the law. Several tribes have urged going to court to press their case.
Before Quint’s June 2016 rule, card clubs had been operating under an even more controversial rule that was issued by the former head of the bureau, Robert Lytle. That rule had said that the rule merely had to be offered to other players, who would routinely decline it. That rule was considered particularly obnoxious by many because, shortly after issuing it, Lytle left the bureau to become a card club consultant. He later lost his consulting and casino licenses under a series of ethics violation accusations.
