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D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed fiscal-year 2026 budget would legalize poker and blackjack “card gaming facilities”, with the District of Columbia government collecting a 25 percent tax on gross gaming revenues.
The provision, known as the Poker and Blackjack Gaming Authorization Act of 2025, was just one piece of an $11.9bn budget bill that was released by the mayor on Tuesday (May 27) and referred to the D.C. Council for their consideration.
“This budget acknowledges the challenges we are facing, but also includes bold, forward-thinking solutions to change our economic trajectory,” Bowser said in a statement.
The Office of Lottery and Gaming (OLG) would regulate and license cardrooms in the district.
Under the proposal, the OLG would run background investigations and on-site inspections before issuing any two-year license to a cardroom.
Each applicant would be required to pay a $5,000 fee plus $2,000 per location, with the cost to renew a license at $1,500 plus $500 for each location. Licensees have an option to expand to additional facilities after the first two years.
The Office of the Chief Financial Officer, which oversees the lottery agency, would establish rules governing card gaming to include “internal control standards, financial controls, security and surveillance requirements, game integrity, employee-related standards, information technology standards, minimum and maximum wager amounts, and age verification standards”.
The proposal would allow persons aged 18 or older to participate in cardroom gaming. The measure requires establishments with liquor licenses to be endorsed by the liquor board, for $500.
The Office of Revenue Analysis, in its fiscal statement, did not provide a revenue estimate “since it is unknown how many licenses will operate, nor if gaming activity will displace existing taxable sales”.
The District of Columbia legalized sports betting in 2019, but a previous effort to legalize slot machines in the nation’s capital was rejected by the D.C. Court of Appeals in 2004, according to the Washington Post.
That proposal sought to install 3,500 slot machines on a 14-acre site in Washington.
Bowyer’s proposal would not allow slot machines at cardrooms, in deference to a federal prohibition on gambling devices in the District of Columbia as established under the so-called Johnson Act initially approved in 1962.
“I believe this is legal because the term ‘gambling device’ under the Johnson Act … appears to be limited to ‘machines’ and ‘mechanical devices’ like slot machines, roulette wheels, and video poker or bingo terminals,” Robert Ward, an attorney with the D.C-based firm Ifrah Law, said of Bowser’s proposal.
The primary purpose of the gambling devices provisions within the Johnson Act was to control the spread of gambling devices and prevent their use in illegal gambling operations, particularly across state lines. The act broadly defines a gambling device as any slot machine or other mechanical device primarily designed for gambling, including roulette wheels.
Bowser’s proposed budget also includes the Commercial Bingo Amendment Act of 2025 to legalize commercial bingo in the district. The OLG would license and regulate establishments to operate commercial bingo with a 7.5 percent tax rate on gross receipts from the sale or charges collected from bingo games.
“There is no additional revenue estimated as a result of this subtitle since it is unknown how many licensees will operate, nor if commercial bingo activity will displace other existing taxable sales,” according to the fiscal analysis.
