Flynt

INTRODUCTION

The California Constitution gives American Indian tribes the exclusive

right to offer casino-style banked games1 in California. (Cal. Const., art. IV, § 19, subd. (f).) The plaintiffs⎯two American Indian tribes, business entities affiliated with the tribes, and individual tribe members⎯sued a number of non-tribal cardrooms alleging they were offering banked card games on non- tribal land, in violation of the exclusive right of Indian tribes to offer such games. Based on those allegations, the plaintiffs asserted claims for public nuisance, unfair competition, declaratory and injunctive relief, and tortious interference with a contractual relationship and prospective economic advantage. The defendants demurred and, after two rounds of amendments to the complaint, the trial court sustained the third and final demurrer without

Banked games, including, most notably, twenty-one or blackjack, are “those games in which there is a person or entity that participates in the action as ‘the one against the many’ [citation], ‘taking on all comers, paying all winners, and collecting from all losers’ [citation], doing so through a fund generally called the bank [citation].”…