California cardrooms have won a major victory – although it may be short-lived – against the state’s Native American tribes while defending a lawsuit that would have shut them down.

The lawsuit stemmed from Senate Bill 549, which was signed into law last year and gave tribes the standing to sue cardrooms for offering Las Vegas-style gambling.

The backstory: SB 549 allows tribes to sue cardrooms to seek a legal ruling on if the games that cardrooms offer violate state law. • It gave tribes one chance to file such a lawsuit by April 1 of this year in the Sacramento County Superior Court. • The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians filed a lawsuit against the cardrooms on Jan. 2, one day after SB 549 took effect.

The big picture: Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lauri Damrell issued a

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