About RGA

Our Story

The Recreational Gaming Association is organized to encourage, strengthen and protect the responsible operation of commercial card room gaming as a form of entertainment through effective communications to all appropriate constituencies; provide innovative members services, create education and training opportunities in the area of problem and compulsive gaming; and initiate and support laws that preserve and protect the right of responsible commercial card room establishments to operate equally, legitimate and lawful entertainment businesses in the state of Washington.

The advent of tribal casinos in Washington during the early 1990's posed a lethal threat to the state's small cardroom industry. While cardroom owners were severely restricted to offering customers no more than five tables for small-wager poker games, tribal casinos opened with a full range of table games, including blackjack, craps and roulette.

As their customers flocked to the tribal casinos, cardroom owners saw their revenue plummet. For 1996, the cardroom industry reported a 17 percent drop in gross receipts. Cardroom owners took their plight to the Legislature, which responded in 1996 and 1997 with legislation aimed at making cardrooms more competitive. The most significant change in state gaming law by legislators was that of allowing cardroom owners to offer house-banked card games, in which customers bet against the establishment rather than against each other.

Our Vision

To be the foremost educational and entertainment - oriented trade association in the commercial gaming industry.