A Florida judge has ruled that ‘player-banked’ games at a local card room are illegal, a ruling that could affect all of the state’s card room operators.

On Monday, Administrative Law Judge Suzanne Van Wik ruled that the player-banked games at the Jacksonville Kennel Club‘s bestbet Jacksonville card room violate the state ban on house-banked card games.

The Kennel Club began offering the games last September but it’s been four years since state gaming regulators okayed other card rooms to offer the player-banked games, in which a designated player essentially serves as the ‘house’, i.e. the other players at the table are playing against the designated player rather than each other.

The problem is that these designated players, many of whom work for third party companies, don’t actually play the games. They sit in front of trays of chips, from which the card room’s dealers pay winning players.