Play poker online in California — for free

Californians who play poker in person usually do it in a licensed card room or at a tribal casino. Online, the state has never licensed real-money poker. Anubis City gives you the game itself for free: No-Limit Texas Hold’em in the Temple of Fortune, at five- or nine-seat tables.

• Three stake levels: the Scribes’ Table with blinds of 50/100, the Priests’ Table with 500/1,000 and the Pharaoh’s Table with 5,000/10,000. Buy in for anything from 10 to 200 big blinds.
• Opponents marked “AI” take empty seats, so a table runs even at 4 a.m. Pacific time. They never see your cards.

New to Hold’em? The hand rankings take a few minutes, and the Scribes’ Table is the right place for your first hands.

Off tribal land, California allows bingo only as a fundraiser run by nonprofits. The Hall of Seshat raises no money and pays out only debens: it plays 75-ball bingo around the clock, on a 5×5 card with a free space in the middle.

Choose an AUTO hall, where the numbers mark themselves and you can chat, or a MANUAL hall, where you mark them and press “BINGO!” yourself for one and a half times the experience. The first line takes 30% of the pot, the first full card 70%.

California’s Penal Code still lists roulette and twenty-one among banned games, so card rooms deal player-banked variations and roulette in the state often uses cards instead of a ball. The Rotunda of Shai has the wheel itself: European roulette with one zero, spinning for the whole table about every half minute.

The Hall of Thoth deals classic blackjack from a six-deck shoe: the dealer stands on soft 17, a blackjack pays 3 to 2, and you can double, split into up to four hands and take insurance.

The Treasury of Ra has three slot machines. Sevens of Ra is a three-reel classic with frequent small wins. Book of Thoth hands out ten free spins with an expanding symbol. Treasures of Horus starts Hold & Win when six golden scarabs land, with four fixed jackpots.

Every spin is drawn on the server, and each machine returns about 95% of bets over a long run.

The weekly ranking counts experience earned at the tables, in the bingo halls and around the city while a player had a California city as home. Move to another city and what you earned here stays with California. Names appear only for players who chose to show their city.

Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno — every California city players pick appears below. All states are on the United States page.

1. Open the game in any modern browser — on a computer, phone or tablet. There is nothing to download, and you can start as a guest.
2. Make a character and walk across the square to the hall you want.
3. To play for California, open your profile, choose My city, pick the United States and type the name of your city.

Saving your character with an email and a password adds 500,000 debens and lets you open a private poker table: friends join with its code or link, guests included. More in Play with friends.

From our side: Anubis City is a free social game, and nothing in it is a bet — no one pays to play, and debens can’t be cashed out, sold or exchanged for money or prizes. We are not lawyers, though, and this is not legal advice.

What California does ban:

• Real-money online gambling. No state law licenses online poker or online casino games, so they are not legal here.
• Online sweepstakes casinos. AB 831, signed in October 2025 and in force since January 1, 2026, makes it a misdemeanor to run or promote an online game that uses a dual-currency system, imitates casino games and awards cash or cash equivalents. It also reaches payment processors, suppliers and affiliates that knowingly support such games.

The ban is built around that second currency — the one that can be redeemed for cash. Debens and ankhs can’t be redeemed for anything outside the game, so a free game without prizes doesn’t fit what AB 831 describes. The law firm ZwillGen has a clear summary of the ban and its elements.