California's cardroom register: 78 licences, 2,243 tables — and 22 rooms that are not open
We read the California Gambling Control Commission's register of licensed gambling establishments on 6 October 2026. It lists 78 cardroom licences authorising 2,243 gambling tables, more than any other jurisdiction in the world. But 22 of those licences are marked as not currently operating, and almost half the authorised tables sit at just three Los Angeles-area addresses.
California's live poker market is usually described by its giants, and the register bears that out: Hawaiian Gardens Casino and Commerce Casino each hold a licence for 374 gambling tables, the two largest in the state, and Parkwest Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens follows at 250. Those three addresses account for roughly 44% of every authorised table in California.
What the register also shows, and the usual coverage does not, is how much of the rest is dormant. Twenty-two of the 78 licensed establishments carried a status marking them as not currently operating when we read the page — 114 authorised tables that exist on the licence and nowhere else. They are scattered across the state: Cameo Club in Stockton, Lake Bowl Cardroom in Folsom, Parkwest Casino Sonoma in Petaluma, Pinnacle Casino in Soledad, Tres Lounge in Watsonville, Rogelio's in Isleton and sixteen others. Several hold licences running into 2027 and 2028, so the paper entitlement outlives the open door by some margin.
The third thing worth knowing is what the table figures count. A California cardroom licence authorises gambling tables, not poker tables. Cardrooms may not bank a game themselves, but they may spread California-style blackjack and baccarat in which a licensed third-party proposition player covers the bets instead of the house, and those tables sit on the same licence as the player-versus-player poker. A room licensed for 50 tables is not a 50-table poker room. Anyone reading a table count as a measure of poker capacity — including anyone comparing California with Florida or Nevada — is comparing two different things.
California's tribal casinos are licensed under a separate framework and do not appear on this register at all, so Thunder Valley, Pechanga and Graton are outside the 78.
We have used the register to publish or correct 28 California venue records, including licence numbers, authorised table counts, licence status and street addresses for each.