Normandie Casino

Normandie Casino is a cardroom located in Gardena, California. It is the only original Southern California card club still in existence today, and the last remaining of the "Original Six" cardrooms in Gardena.

In 1940, the Western Club opened on Western Avenue. Seven years later, the club was renamed the Normandie, and Russ Miller became owner. As the city of Gardena grew, so did the card clubs. Their license fees provided most of the money needed to operate the city.

During the 1960s, Gardena boasted six luxurious card clubs. It was the only city in Los Angeles County to have legal gambling. The clubs flourished until 1980, when the Bell Club in the city of Bell, California, opened. Other cities soon followed suit, and the Gardena monopoly on card gaming came to an end.

In 1980, Russ Miller decided to move the Normandie Casino to a better location near the 110 Harbor Freeway at Rosecrans and Vermont. A new 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m²) casino was constructed, along with a Las Vegas-style entertainment venue billed as "The Million Dollar Showroom". A few years later, Seven-card stud and Texas hold-em were added to the already existing lineup of games, Five-card draw and Lowball.

In the mid-1980s, a tremendous Asian influence came with the introduction of the California games, including Blackjack, Pai Gow Poker, and Super 9, a game similar to Baccarat. The Normandie completely revamped its restaurant to accommodate a variety of Asian tastes: Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean, along with a standard Continental menu. The Normandie Casino opened its famous Red Dragon Room which featured high-limit Asian games. The Red Dragon Room, with its additional outdoor patio, continues to be one of the most popular Asian gaming rooms in Los Angeles today. The casino is also host to a luxurious V.I.P. Blackjack and Baccarat Room, a first in Southern California.

External links

• http://www.normandiecasino.com/
• "Normandie Casino Faces Audit". The Los Angeles Times. 22 April 1988. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-04-22/local/me-1940_1_normandie-casino. 
• CA DOJ BGC (29 June 2006). "Normandie Casino Collection Fees". http://ag.ca.gov/gambling/pdfs/normandie.pdf.