The Superior Court sentence was one of the longest ever handed down in Los Angeles County, officials said.
David Lee Robinson, 54, was convicted in October of 19 counts of second-degree robbery and three counts of attempted robbery.
Jurors deadlocked on an additional robbery count and six other charges were dismissed during the trial.
Robinson, who favours a dreadlocks hairstyle, received the maximum sentence for each count, to be served consecutively, along with enhancements because of his prior record of multiple robberies.
"This was the sentence that was allowable under the law," said
Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
Robinson spent 14 years in prison for a two-year bank robbery spree that ended in 1989, the FBI said.
He was released in 2004 and between August and October of that year obtained $US66,000 ($A87,000) by robbing 19 banks in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Glendale, Alhambra, West Covina, Manhattan Beach and Torrance, prosecutor Warren Kato said.
He was arrested in October 2004 as he drove out of the carpark of a Torrance bank that was under surveillance because it had been robbed days earlier and authorities believed it might be hit again.