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Gambling self-exclusion in California

Self-exclusion in California: you need two separate enrollments. California: every licensed card room statewide. First step: Enroll through NVSEP. A fixed term ends on its own at the end of the term; a lifetime term continues until you request removal. California: one named card room (Self-Restriction). First step: Ask the card room for its Self-Restriction form. None substitutes for another, and this is not everything in California.

Reviewed 2026-09-24 against official sources. Every fact below links to the agency that published it. How we check facts.

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We list what we've confirmed. If a casino isn't here, we haven't found its program yet. That doesn't mean it has none.

Self-exclusion programs in California 2

Compare what each program blocks and how to sign up. Click any program name for the full step-by-step instructions, official forms, and sources.

Asking a program for a form or an answer does not enroll you.

Self-exclusion programs in California
ProgramHow you enrollWhat it blocksHow long it lastsSources
Getting inBettingCredit, compsOnlineMail
California: every licensed card room statewideState regulator Run by California Gambling Control Commission (regulations and forms) and Bureau of Gambling Control, Department of Justice (list administration).By mail In person

Enroll through NVSEP.

Official form (CGCC-CH7-05 (New 05/20)) Program page

ConfirmedConfirmedConfirmedNot confirmedConfirmedDepends on the term you pick

Sign up for the longest exclusion time you can. Future you will thank you.

Before you count on it. This list covers licensed card rooms. The Bureau's own page states it does not include tribal casinos or horse racing wagering facilities, which are the other two major places to gamble in California. California's 2016-amended tribal compacts require each tribe to run its own self-exclusion program, and no survey of the state's 60-plus gaming tribes was done here, so you have to approach a tribal casino separately. The current form offers one year or lifetime and nothing shorter. The Bureau mails you a letter confirming it accepted your form and added you to the list. Until that letter arrives, treat yourself as not yet on it. If you hand the form to a card room instead of mailing it, that card room has 10 business days to forward it. Whether someone living outside California may enroll is not established by any source. Apart from NVSEP's own page, no source says whether a remotely notarized signature is accepted. Downloading, completing, or mailing the form is not the exclusion — only being added to the Bureau's list is.

California: one named card room (Self-Restriction)Casino operator Run by Individual California-licensed card rooms, required to run a program by Cal. Code Regs. tit. 4, §12463; the Commission publishes an optional standard form.In person

Ask the card room for its Self-Restriction form.

Official form (CGCC-CH7-04 (New 05/20)) Program page

Not confirmedNot confirmedConfirmedNot confirmedConfirmedNot confirmed

Before you count on it. This reaches one card room. It is not statewide, and it cannot substitute for the Bureau's statewide list. Two official sources disagree about how long it lasts: the Bureau's page describes 30-day, 90-day, one-year and lifetime terms set by each card room, and the Commission's own current model form offers only one year or lifetime. Because a card room may write its own form, both may be true at different properties — ask the one you are naming. No removal process for a Self-Restriction is published anywhere. Whether the Commission accepts a mailed form at the Sacramento address printed on its template is not established; that address is letterhead, not a submission instruction. Whether someone living outside California may enroll is not established. No receipt or confirmation is published. Hand the completed form to the card room, ask when the restriction takes effect, and write down the date.

Gambling types in California

One self-exclusion list rarely blocks every kind of gambling. Here is what we found for each type of gambling in this state.

What we found for each gambling type in California
Gambling typeWhat we foundSources
tribal casinosOfficial sources don't settle it
2 sources
online casino / iGamingNo program foundWhat we checked: California Penal Code §330 and the absence of any licensing scheme on the Bureau of Gambling Control's and Gambling Control Commission's own gambling pages, including the Commission's FAQ.
Why

No licensed online casino/iGaming regime exists in California. Penal Code §330 criminalizes 'any banking or percentage game played with cards, dice, or any device, for money, checks, credit, or other representative of value' with no online carve-out, and no online-casino licensing scheme appears on any Bureau of Gambling Control or Gambling Control Commission page reviewed, including the Commission's own FAQ (searched directly for 'internet'/'online gambl' terms with no matches).

2 sources
sports betting — retail sports bettingNo program foundWhat we checked: California Penal Code §337a and the absence of any sportsbook licensing scheme on the Bureau of Gambling Control's, Gambling Control Commission's, or Horse Racing Board's own pages.
Why

Penal Code §337a criminalizes 'pool selling or bookmaking' and accepting bets on the outcome of a contest generally, and no Bureau of Gambling Control, Gambling Control Commission, or Horse Racing Board source describes any licensed sportsbook or wagering-exclusion program.

1 source
sports betting — online sports bettingNo program foundWhat we checked: California Penal Code §337a and the absence of any licensing scheme on official regulator pages.
Why

Same statutory basis and absence of any licensing scheme as retail sports betting; no online or mobile carve-out exists.

1 source
lotteryOfficial sources don't settle it
1 source
racing/pari-mutuel — racing / pari-mutuel and advance deposit wageringOfficial sources don't settle it
2 sources
fantasy/prediction — fantasy sportsOfficial sources don't settle it
1 source
  • FAQs cgcc.ca.gov · read 2026-10-21
charitable/bingo — charitable gaming (raffles, remote caller bingo)Official sources don't settle it
2 sources
skill games / video gaming terminals (VGTs)Official sources don't settle it
2 sources
How we checked

These are the kinds of gambling we checked, and the list may not include every way to gamble in the state. On October 9, 2026 we also checked charitable gaming and skill games, and both stay unknown. Charitable gaming is split across a registered annual charity poker night, local bingo rules and a separate raffle registration, and the Bureau's page ties none of them to self-exclusion. Skill games that meet the law's predominantly-skill test fall outside the legal definition of gambling, which leaves open the contested question of parlor terminals that operate under that claim.

California licenses no house-banked commercial casinos. State law criminalizes "any banking or percentage game" played for money, so the state's non-tribal commercial gambling is licensed card rooms. A statewide self-exclusion program, run by the Bureau of Gambling Control with forms published by the Gambling Control Commission, bans you from every licensed card room, forfeits jackpots, and removes you from marketing, credit and check-cashing lists. The Bureau's own page says this list does not reach tribal casinos or horse racing wagering facilities. Enrollment is for one year or for life. You need either notarization or witnessing by a key employee of a licensed gambling establishment, but not both. Mail and in-person routes through a card room to the Bureau are both confirmed. An online registration page exists, but it showed a server error when we opened it without an active session, and we couldn't confirm it accepts a full application. A separate, narrower Self-Restriction program lets you limit yourself at one specific card room only: total exclusion, a single game, credit and check-cashing, or marketing. Each card room keeps its own list. The Bureau describes terms of 30 days, 90 days, 1 year or lifetime, but the Commission's current model form offers only 1 year or lifetime. California's tribal casinos are the other major venue. The 2016-amended tribal-state compacts require each tribe to run its own self-exclusion program, and the compacts give no outside party a right to enforce that. We sampled one compact, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians', and didn't survey the state's 60-plus gaming tribes. We checked the state lottery, retail and online sports betting, online casino gambling, fantasy sports, and racing and advance-deposit wagering against official regulator and statute pages, and found no self-exclusion mechanism for any of them. California law gives online casino gambling and sports betting no licensed basis at all. We checked the official sources linked on this page, not every gambling option, tribe or card room in the state. We don't know yet whether people who live outside the state can use these programs.

How California's programs fit together

California has one statewide list that covers every licensed card room, plus a narrower option to restrict yourself at a single card room, and neither reaches tribal casinos, the lottery or racing.

What we know about each one

The statewide program is the broad route: one sign-up reaches every licensed card room in California. Self-Restriction covers a single card room only, and each card room keeps its own list, so it adds to the statewide list and can't replace it. These are separate sign-ups, and joining one doesn't enroll you in the other. Tribal casinos, the lottery and racing are outside both.

Official California links and forms

These are the primary sources this page is built from: agency program pages, statutes, regulations and the forms themselves. How we check facts explains what each label means.