Nearly a month after the city council passed, and then quickly
rescinded, a proposal for a blackjack game at the local casino, one
council member wants to play a third hand.
Nearly a month after the city council passed, and then quickly rescinded, a proposal for a blackjack game at the local casino, one council member wants to play a third hand.
On Monday, Councilman Dion Bracco asked his colleagues to reconsider allowing Garlic City Casino at the corner of Seventh and Monterey streets to host No Bust 21st Century Blackjack. The council initially approved the application 6-0 in early June, with Mayor Al Pinheiro recusing himself because he insures the building. A week later, the body – with the mayor again recusing himself and Councilman Craig Gartman abstaining – voted 5-0 to rescind that approval because the city attorney, who reviewed the initial resolution, told the council it had violated a 15-year-old city ordinance prohibiting so-called “banking games” after The Dispatch reported this.
Unlike the seven, mostly poker-based games already allowed at Gilroy’s only card room by the state Bureau of Gambling Control, No Bust Blackjack requires players to act as the game’s bank on a rotating basis. Before every hand, a player must put down an amount of money that will cover that round’s action and then play through the dealer’s hand. By contrast, in poker-type games, players hold their own hands and bet against each other and not the house or a bank.
Critics of banking games, such as Herman Garcia, a former card shark and owner of now-closed Garcia’s Club and Restaurant, have derided them as “unbeatable,” community-ruining games. He recently told the council a crime family offered him kickbacks if he hosted blackjack in his former club, after which he worked with the city to ban banking games in the 1995 resolution.
But things have changed since then, Bracco said.
The councilman met Ky Phuon, the casino’s owner, at his gambling house after the council’s second vote and played a few hands of No Bust with him and the in-house dealer. While playing, Bracco said he learned that the “seedy” types who allegedly tried to bankroll Garcia’s have been replaced by accredited, state-licensed players who undergo background checks to serve as the game’s “bank” when regular players decline.
“I didn’t understand what the whole banking game was, but now I understand,” Bracco said Thursday. “I think we need to look at the ordinance and see if it’s time to revamp it. Cardrooms have changed a lot over the years, and there’s not that many left in this dying industry thanks to the Indian Casinos.”
Phuon, who bought Garlic City Casino 2.5 years ago, said he would never introduce a socially pernicious game and may go out of business without retaining the No Bust customers who take their money up to San Jose. What’s more frustrating, he said, is that state law allows games with player-dealer banking, and 82 card rooms – down from 562 in 1980 – stretching from southern to northern California host them, but Gilroy’s ordinance does not allow them. Gilroy also caps bets at $200 versus four-figure maximums in San Jose. The entire state, however, specifically outlaws the standard blackjack played in Las Vegas.
