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California is a state with a mixed gambling history. These days, it technically allows all types of gambling in one form or another. However, the specifics of where and how you can enjoy these activities are heavily dependent on location and regulations. For instance, casino games are only legal at Indian casinos rather than resorts on state land.

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Indian casinos by law and gaming rules do not offer craps with dice. The Marongo Casino near Palm Springs offers craps, but the shooter doesn't throw dice, the pit boss pulls to cards from modified multiple decks in large card shoes to mimic 2 dice. Best Casinos in San Francisco Bay Area, CA - San Pablo Lytton Casino, Parkwest Casino 580, Lucky Chances Casino, Graton Resort and Casino, Oaks Card Club, Parkwest Casino Sonoma, Artichoke Joe's Casino, The Palace Poker Casino, Club 1923, Playdate Bay Area. The casino was moved into a new and modern building in 2009, so it offers fresh amenities and plenty of creature comforts. This casino is a relatively simplistic entertainment venue without a lot of bells and whistles, but they offer plenty of excellent poker action.

Below we will break down the types of gambling you can enjoy in Northern California.

Northern California Indian Casinos

Tribal casinos are currently legal in California thanks to laws between the state and federal government and the Indian tribes who maintain various territorial pockets throughout the state. At the time of writing, 63 tribal casinos operate in California. Combined, they produce over $8 billion in revenue every year.

Legality And Revenue

Indian casinos do not follow the same gambling regulations that other gambling sites do within the state. Because of this, resort-goers can find most major gambling activities within these resorts, including blackjack, poker, electronic games, slot machines, lottery games, bingo, and more. Gambling activities are either regulated by the National Indian Gaming Commission or state authorities.

Because tribal casinos drawing so much revenue, casinos often feature distinct themes or special attractions or resorts. Northern California Indian casinos are largely positioned around Sacramento or the Bay Area, although a few stretch a little farther north. Most of these resorts may have themes revolving around wine country or the NorCal wilderness and mountains.

Be advised that you need to be 21-years-old to enter most of the top Northern California tribal casinos. This is despite the fact that the legal gambling age is 18-years-old. Many casinos require you to be 21-years-old since they serve alcohol on their premises.

Northern California tribal casinos don’t currently allow sports betting, but may bring in brick-and-mortar sports betting over the next few years.

Where To Play

Some of the best Northern California tribal casinos include:

Thunder Valley Casino Resort

This casino is just outside Sacramento and is one of the largest resorts in the entire state, featuring over 145,000 ft.². It offers 2,000 slot machines and over 100 gaming tables plus options for bingo and live poker. It’s 17-story tower hotel contains 297 rooms as well as a fine selection of excellent restaurants and other amenities. The casino is open 24 hours daily.

Table Mountain Casino

This casino is located north of Fresno. It’s actually due for a renovation, as it was built in 1987. It’s going to be replaced by a larger casino and hotel over the next few years. At the moment, it offers over 2,000 gaming machines, 10 poker tables, and a plethora of other table game opportunities.

Tachi Palace Casino Resort

This resort draws customers from all across the state, thanks to its expansive space and 45,000 square-foot concert venue. As a result, it’s a frequent location for entertainment tours and activities beyond regular gambling experiences. It also offers over 2,000 slot machines and a seven-table poker room. Other features include a 255-room hotel and spa along with nine restaurants for a variety of dining opportunities.

Northern California Card Rooms

California offers some of the best card rooms in the entire country. California card rooms are legal because they have players bet against one another instead of the house. The card rooms themselves make their profit by charging players small fees to enter games. Dealers rotate with every hand.

Games Available

Most California card rooms include staple poker varieties like Texas Hold’Em and Seven-Card Stud, although you can also find additional games depending on the location. Additionally, most California card rooms offer “Cal Games”, which are card games with rules tweaked to ensure their legality under California legislation. Cal Games include Blackjack, Pai Gow, Chinese Poker, and more.

Many of the best California card rooms also offer tons of poker tournaments for both beginners and experts. This draws plenty of traffic, especially at more popular card rooms. Tournament buy-ins and pools can range from the tens of dollars up to the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

All players need to be 18-years-old to legally gamble in a California card room.

Where To Play

There are 66 card rooms currently operating in California. Here are some of the best you can find in Northern California:

Bay 101

Bay 101 is located at the south end of the San Francisco Bay in San Jose, CA. They’re a great choice thanks to their proximity to the San Jose airport, making them a prime stopover destination for travelers who get a poker itch. They offer a variety of poker games and tournaments, and frequently draw experienced crowds to offer moderate to high-skill poker action.

California Grand Casino

This casino is actually the oldest continually operating poker room in the world, as it’s been offering poker since 1854. It served as stagecoach and Pony Express stop before becoming an explicit casino. Weekly tournaments and Cal Games are included, like blackjack, pai gow, and three-card poker for even more variety. The casino was moved into a new and modern building in 2009, so it offers fresh amenities and plenty of creature comforts.

Capitol Casino

This casino is a relatively simplistic entertainment venue without a lot of bells and whistles, but they offer plenty of excellent poker action. They also offer excellent restaurant and bar options, so it’s a good place for general entertainment and enjoyment. They draw crowds from all over the Sacramento area and offer daily and weekly tournaments.

Northern California Race Tracks

Horse racing is one of the few types of wagering fully legal in California at in-person locations and online horse racing apps. Horse racing was legalized in 1933 using a pari-mutuel model. In short, this meant that bettors wager against each other while the horse track facilities take a small cut of the overall pool in order to make a profit.

Most Northern and Southern California horse racing tracks emphasize thoroughbred races, although you can find Quarter Horse races at a few select tracks. There used to be many more tracks in general, but the overall decline in attendance and several other factors have resulted in only a few major California horse tracks remaining open today.

Those who enjoy horse racing can make straight and exotic bets depending on a track’s offerings. You’ll also be able to find 27 satellite locations that offer off-track horse race betting if you don’t want to use a mobile app. There’s only one really excellent Northern California horse racing track compared to the three you can find in the southern half of the state:

Golden Gate Fields Race Track

This 140-acre horse racing track is located in Berkeley, right next to the San Francisco Bay. As a result, attendees benefit from expansive views of the local Bay Area and generally pleasant weather all year round. It’s also the only major thoroughbred racetrack in Northern California.

Golden Gate Fields features a one-mile synthetic track and a turf course that measures 9/10 of a mile. It can fit thousands of customers and features on-site parking for visitor convenience. Horse racing enthusiasts will enjoy several graded events that are held every year, including the Berkeley Handicap, San Francisco Mile Stakes, and California Derby.

Admission is always free for children. There are plenty of comfortable facilities for both regular attendees and for those who are part of various clubs. Guests are even able to meet jockeys and see horses at the paddocks. The location is convenient since there are tons of hotels and dining options fairly nearby.

Northern California Gambling FAQ

As with Southern California, it depends on the activity in question. Gambling in general is legal only for those 18-years-old or older. However, you have to be 21-years-old to enter some Indian casinos because of alcohol restrictions.

This is largely because of the higher concentration of large metropolitan areas in the southern half of the state. Big cities like Los Angeles and San Diego have naturally drawn more gambling locations over time.

No. State authorities and the National Indian Gaming Commission are responsible for regulating all gambling institutions in California. They hold all institutions to the same standards.

No. Sports betting is technically illegal. However, new legislation may allow Indian casinos to bring brick-and-mortar sports betting to their casinos.

For the purpose of this article, we define Northern California as anything north of Fresno. Big metropolitan areas in Northern California include the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento.

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Graton Resort & Casino is an Indian casino and hotel outside Rohnert Park, California, that opened on November 5, 2013. It is owned by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and operated by Station Casinos.^[2] The casino has 3,000 slot machines, 144 table games, and a poker room.^[3] In November 2016 it opened an adjacent hotel with 200 rooms.^[4]

History[edit]

The tribe announced plans in February 2003 for a casino to be built at a 1,700-acre site on Sears Point, near the shore of San Pablo Bay.^[5] The plan sparked widespread criticism about the potential effects on wetland restoration efforts and increased traffic on Highway 37, leading the tribe to consider other locations in Rohnert Park and Petaluma.^[6] A new site on 360 acres of land west of Rohnert Park, on Stony Point Road, was announced in August 2003, with strong support from city officials.^[7]

The tribe announced in August 2005 that the planned site would move again, this time to a 90-acre site on Wilfred Avenue, closer to the city limits. The new site was said to be less environmentally sensitive, and more compliant with the county's land use plan, which had designated the Stony Point Road site for open space.^[8] Station Casinos bought the Wilfred Avenue tract for the tribe for $76 million, and also bought 180 acres of the Stony Point land for $24 million, to use for environmental mitigation projects.^[9]

The Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the tribe's application to take the land into trust, a key step towards approval of a casino, in May 2008.^[10] The action was delayed, however, when a local group opposing the project, Stop the Casino 101, filed a lawsuit contesting the decision.^[11] The land was not taken into trust until October 2010, after the lawsuit failed.^[12]

A tribal-state compact was reached in March 2012 after negotiations with Governor Jerry Brown,^[13] and was soon ratified by the California State Legislature.^[14] Construction work began the following June.^[15] The tribe secured $825 million to fund the project, the greatest amount ever financed for an Indian casino.^[16]

The casino opened on November 5, 2013.

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In January 2015, the tribe secured $450 million in financing for the resort, including up to $200 million to build a hotel. Hotel construction began in September 2015, and the six-story, 200-room hotel opened in November 2016.^[17] Plans for a new hotel wing with an additional 200 rooms were announced in April 2017.^[18]

In May 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in Stop the Casino 101 v. Brown, in which anti-casino activists claimed that the tribe's trust land was not properly removed from state jurisdiction. The rejection by the Supreme Court ended the lawsuit.^[19]

Operations[edit]

The casino is managed by Station Casinos, a Las Vegas firm, which has a seven-year agreement with the tribe to manage the casino. The tribe paid $20.4 million in management fees in the first nine months of operations. The casino has 3,000 slot machines and 144 blackjack, poker and baccarat tables. It is open 24 hours per day, every day of the year.^[20]

The tribe makes payments to offset the impacts of the casino. As of 2014, the tribe was paying about $8 million annually to the city of Rohnert Park, and $5 million to Sonoma County.^[20]

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References[edit]

1. ^Carey Sweet (October 2, 2013). 'A peek inside the star-studded restaurants at the Graton Resort & Casino, due next month'. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
2. ^Howard Stutz (September 19, 2013). 'Station Casinos announces Northern California project will open Nov. 5'. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved 2013-10-15.
3. ^Laith Agha (October 3, 2013). 'Embattled North Bay casino opens doors for a preview'. San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 2013-10-15.
4. ^Morris, J.D.; Fixler, Kevin (December 1, 2018). '5 years later: How Graton casino has changed Sonoma County'. Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
5. ^Clark Mason; Sam Kennedy (April 24, 2003). 'Casino near Sears Point proposed by Miwoks'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
6. ^Michael Flaherty (August 18, 2003). 'Alternate sites identified for casino'. Marin Independent Journal. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
7. ^Peter Fimrite (August 20, 2003). 'Casino? In a cow pasture?'. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
8. ^Clark Mason (August 13, 2005). 'RP casino plans shift to new location'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
9. ^Clark Mason (September 15, 2005). '$100 mill ion paid for RP casino site'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
10. ^Paul Payne (May 8, 2008). 'Tribe clears major hurdle in bid for RP casino'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
11. ^Bob Norberg (July 3, 2009). 'Lawsuit delays Rohnert Park casino land trust'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
12. ^Jeremy Hay (October 5, 2010). 'RP casino project clears major hurdle'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
13. ^Jeremy Hay (March 30, 2012). 'Governor grants gaming compact for Rohnert Park casino'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-27.
14. ^Jeremy Hay (May 11, 2012). 'Assembly OKs RP casino'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
15. ^'Tribal leader speaks out: RP casino work under way'. The Press Democrat. Santa Rosa, CA. June 24, 2012. – via NewsBank (subscription required)
16. ^Chris Sieroty (August 16, 2012). 'Tribal project overseen by Station Casinos secures financing'. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved 2013-10-27 – via Casino City Times.
17. ^Michael Bodley (November 18, 2016). 'Graton casino's $175 million hotel opens to the public'. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2016-12-31.
18. ^'Graton Casino proposes to add 200 more rooms'. North Bay Business Journal. April 17, 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-19.
19. ^'Supreme Court won't hear challenge to Graton Rancheria casino'. Indian Gaming. May 27, 2015. Retrieved 2015-07-27.
20. ^ ^abBrown, Matt, and Randi Rossmann (November 15, 2014). 'A year later, Graton casino's impacts limited'. The Press Democrat. Retrieved 2015-07-27.

External links[edit]

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