Legal online gambling options vary by state. On this page, you’ll find the first comprehensive guide to legal betting in all 50 states.
ycgts.shop follows legal developments closely, including frequent betting news updates as well as overviews of which states have legal online gambling.
Visit any of the state-specific pages below to read more about which forms of betting are legal in each state right now, and what types of online gambling might be coming down the pipeline as the result of gambling-friendly legislation.
State Specific Online Betting Information A-Z
Legal online betting is quickly becoming a reality in the United States. Most US states have had legal online horse racing betting for several years now, but more recently we are starting to see individual states legalize additional forms of online betting such as casino games, poker, daily fantasy sports and lotteries.
In 2011, the Department of Justice that changed the way the federal government interprets the Wire Act of 1961. Essentially, what the Department of Justice opined was that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting, not to other forms of online gaming. This decision ultimately made it possible for individual states to legalize and regulate new forms of online gaming.
New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware quickly got on board and legalized online casino games, online poker or both provided organizations seeking to organize such games are properly licensed and approved. Pennsylvania joined the party in 2017 and was followed by West Virginia in 2019. Michigan got on board in early 2021 with the launch of online sports betting, poker, and gambling.
Legal sports betting has expanded as well thanks to a 2018 Supreme Court decision striking down the federal prohibition. In addition to Nevada, we now have legal sports betting in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Mississippi and additional states since then.
The Department of Justice complicated things in 2019 with a sudden decision to go back to its pre-2011 interpretation of the Wire Act. Under the current opinion, the DOJ believes the Wire Act applies to all forms of gambling. The implications of the decision are unclear, but the decision has not stopped a growing number of states from taking up sports betting legislation.
Impact of State and Federal Gambling Laws
Something that isn’t often explicitly explained when discussing the legalization of sports betting and other forms of gambling is how state and federal laws interact with one another. For example, it may not be immediately clear what it means for gamblers in your state specifically when you read that the Supreme Court has stricken down the federal sports betting prohibition.
In short, there are two sets of laws we must address in any discussion of sports betting or gambling. First, there are federal betting laws that apply to all states across the nation. These are the big picture laws that have an impact across all fifty states. Federal laws set the general tone for gambling, but tend not to be too specific in nature.
Some of the more impactful federal betting laws that have been enacted in the USA include:
- PASPA: The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was the law that prohibited all states except Nevada from legalizing traditional sports wagering. Some states were granted exemptions for limited forms of betting, but overall it was PASPA that granted Nevada a virtual monopoly over sports betting. PASPA was famously stricken down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2018.
- UIGEA: The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 targets the finances of unregulated offshore betting sites that accept American customers. The UIGEA does not criminalize online gambling; it prohibits financial institutions from processing transactions to/from unlicensed gambling websites.
- The Wire Act: The Interstate Wire Act of 1961 was enacted to target mafia groups that ran sports betting organizations across state lines. The Wire Act prohibits the use of “wire communications” to assist in placing wagers across state lines.
State betting laws impact things on the state level and cover everything not already covered by federal gambling laws. State laws tend to be more specific in nature as they fill in the gaps left by federal law. States have wide leeway in determining how to regulate gambling and betting as long as it doesn’t contradict federal law.
This is why, for example, when PASPA (a federal law) was in effect, states had no option to legalize and regulate sports betting. After PASPA was stricken down, states gained the ability to legalize sports betting if they choose. Some states have since chosen to legalize, regulate, and tax sports betting. In other states, sports betting is still prohibited by state law.
State laws also tend to deal with the nitty gritty details of gambling regulation. This is where state gambling commissions come into play and spell out all the rules for legal forms of gambling within each state. It is state law that determines things such as accepted business hours for casinos, how quickly winning sports wagers must be paid and so on.
This all goes to explain why we have a page dedicated to the betting laws of every US state. The laws and legal forms of gambling vary from state to state. What’s legal in one state may be outlawed the next state over, so we like to provide that information on a state-by-state basis.
Overall, the general tone in the United States today is drifting to a more accepting view of gambling. No states have moved to clamp down on gambling to any major degree in recent years, but many states have instead chosen to expand legal gambling options for their citizens. As new developments take place in the US, we will update our state-by-state pages to keep you informed and up to date.
States Where Sports Betting is Legal
Individual states now have the right to legalize and regulate sports betting as they see fit. This is a fairly recent development because for years, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) prevented all but four states from authorizing sports betting. Of those four states, only Nevada had a complete exemption allowing true, single-game sports betting.
Delaware and Oregon were also granted limited exemptions for limited forms of parlay-style “sports lotteries.” Montana permitted sports betting squares not run for a profit. Beyond that, no state was allowed any form of sports betting.
That all changed in May of 2018 when the Supreme Court ruled PASPA unconstitutional and struck it down in its entirety. The removal of PASPA did not automatically legalize sports betting across the nation, though. Each state must now alter its own laws to bring sports betting back into play.
Lawmakers in three dozen states have introduced legislation seeking to legalize and regulate sports betting. To date, the following states have passed laws and either already have sportsbooks in operation or will soon.
We will update this list and cover the latest legislative actions across the United States as more states legalize sports betting, . This page describes what types of wagers are legal right now, along with a preview of things to come based on legal issues playing out in legislatures across the country.
Read more about legal sports betting here:
States Where Horse Racing Betting is Legal
Federal law largely leaves the regulation of online horse racing betting to the states. Some states expressly prohibit horse racing betting in all its forms, but most either passively allow the activity or have laws on the books to regulate in-person and online horse racing betting.
Furthermore, exemptions written into federal gambling laws allow horse racing betting operators that are licensed in one state to offer their services in other states provided the activity is legal in both jurisdictions. As a result, a handful of operators run by well-known brands in the horse racing industry offer their services across most of the country.
The confounding factor in all of this is that the law in many states is outdated and unclear on the legality of online horse racing betting, leaving it up to individual operators to interpret the law in each state and determine whether or not they are comfortable offering their services there.
As a result, not all horse racing betting sites are active in all states. Readers can visit each state page on BettingUSA for up to date legal information where they live and a list of safe, legal betting sites that are available in that state.
See this page for more detail and state-by-state discussions:
States Where Daily Fantasy Sports is Legal
The daily fantasy sports (DFS) industry has received carveouts from federal anti-gambling laws that result in the activity being regulated primarily at the state level. The legality of online DFS was unclear in the majority of US states during the early years of the DFS boom, but much progress has been made on the legislative front since then.
Today, most states have laws on the books that specifically legalize and regulate DFS operators. A small number of states still prohibit the activity, but most states have either passed legislation to regulate fantasy sports sites or permit DFS under existing law.
Sports fans can read more about the legality of DFS in each state, as well as see which fantasy sports sites are active in each state, here:
States With Legal Online Gambling
The Federal Wire Act prohibited online casinos and poker nationwide until 2011 because the Department of Justice interpreted the law as applicable to all forms of online gambling. As a result, no US state had the authority to legalize online poker or casino sites, even if they passed legislation to do so.
That changed after lottery officials in New York and Illinois asked the Department of Justice to issue guidance regarding their plans to begin selling online lottery tickets. The Department of Justice responded in 2011 with a memorandum stating it has reinterpreted the Wire Act as only applying to sports betting.
Although the original request from Illinois and New York was related to online lotteries, the Justice Department’s new interpretation opened the door to most forms of online gambling. Multiple states have since jumped on the opportunity to legalize, regulate, and tax online casino games and poker.
States where online gambling is legal include:
States Most Likely to Legalize Online Gambling
Unlike sports betting, the legalization of online casinos and online poker in the US has been a slow grind. Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey became the first legal online gambling states in 2013, when each launched online casinos, poker sites, or both. Since then, only four other states have legalized online poker and gambling: Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
With online poker and online casino legislation, progress is about small victories, and the hope is that at least one of these states will pass legislation authorizing online gambling in the next 12 months:
- California
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Massachusetts
- New York
States with Legal Online Lotteries
The authorization of online lottery products predates sports betting and online poker and casino by several years, with an important caveat: The first online lotteries were subscription-based. Online lotteries that sell single tickets, and in some cases, online instant win games, appeared alongside poker and casino legalization in 2012/2013.
More than a dozen states have legal online lottery sales to some degree. Some states now sell a full range of lottery products online, including access to instant win games and keno along with tickets to all drawing games. Other states limit online purchases to subscriptions for draw games.
Interestingly, it was the push to legalizing online lotteries that led to states gaining the authority to regulate online casino games and poker as well. In 2009, lottery officials from Illinois and New York requested an opinion from the Department of Justice on whether or not their plans to legalize online lottery sales would violate the Federal Wire Act.
The DOJ responded with in 2011 that had implications well beyond the legality of online lotteries. In the opinion, the DOJ explained that it interprets the Wire Act as only applying to wagers on “sporting events or contests.” This not only cleared the way for online lotteries, but also for online poker and casino sites.
Readers can learn more about the legal lottery situation in each state here:
Legal Betting States FAQ
Wes Burns has more than a decade’s worth of experience as a writer, researcher and analyst in the legal gambling industry and is co-founder of ycgts.shop. As a former professional online poker player, Wes approaches his work from the viewpoint of players.