The states where sports betting remains illegal are Alabama, What states can sports bet, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, South. According to the American Gaming Association, 38 states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting, meaning single-game sports betting may be. The State of Betting in the U.S. · Recent Developments · Alabama · Alaska · Arizona · Arkansas · California · Colorado · Connecticut. Interactive U.S. Map: Sports Betting · Live, Legal* (38 States + DC) · Legal, Not Yet Operational** (0 States) · Active Legislation/Ballot Initiative*** (5 States).
One of the hot topics in the world of sports is the legality of sports betting across various states in the US. As the landscape of gambling laws is continually evolving, it is crucial for fans and bettors to stay informed about where they can legally place their wagers.
The United States Supreme Court's decision in 2018 opened the door for states to legalize sports betting, allowing individual states to make their own laws regarding the activity. This led to a surge in states introducing legislation to regulate sports betting within their borders.
As of now, more than two dozen states have passed laws to allow sports betting in some form. Some states have embraced it fully, while others have more restrictive regulations in place. Here is a breakdown of some key states:
State | Legal Status |
---|---|
New Jersey | Full legalization with online and retail sportsbooks available. |
Nevada | Long-standing legal sports betting market, both online and in-person. |
Pennsylvania | Legalized sports betting with a mix of online and retail options. |
Colorado | Legalized sports betting with numerous online sportsbooks operating. |
States like New Jersey and Nevada have been at the forefront of the sports betting industry, while others are slowly catching up by passing legislation to regulate the activity within their borders. It is essential for sports fans to understand the rules and regulations in their respective states before engaging in sports betting.
As the legal landscape continues to evolve, more states are expected to legalize sports betting, providing bettors with additional platforms to enjoy wagering on their favorite sports.
The Seminoles won their appeal, however, enabling them to begin offering their app and live sports betting at their properties. Illinois has been home to sports betting sites and retail sports betting locations since March That decision was the requirement that players complete their registrations in person at the home casino of their chosen sports betting apps.
Illinois is a large enough state that such a requirement was inconvenient - at best. Illinois Gov. Indiana legalized and launched sports betting in The spin-up from May to September represented one of the shortest law-to-launch intervals of any state to legalize sports betting. Retail sportsbooks opened their doors first, then online sports betting sites began to appear a month later in October.
The early days of Indiana sports betting benefitted from the situations in neighboring states. Illinois dragged its feet for a few months and handcuffed itself with its in-person registration requirement, while neither Ohio nor Indiana managed to launch their own sportsbooks until The Hawkeye State launched both online sports betting sites and physical sportsbook locations in August Unfortunately, Iowa lawmakers foolishly included an in-person registration requirement as part of the terms of the online sports betting law.
Thus, the industry limped out of the gate and did not perform up to expectations in its early days. Thankfully, the in-person registration requirement came with a sunset provision, and Iowans no longer had to travel to register after the beginning of Since then, more than a dozen online sportsbooks have launched to offer service in a state without any professional teams to bet.
Kansas took its time to debut as a sports betting state. Its legalization did not happen until May , years after sports betting became a state-level issue. However, to their credit, lawmakers and regulators managed to move with speed and launch sports betting sites at the beginning of September The Jayhawk State is now home to more than a half-dozen sportsbook sites.
You can also find in-person sports betting at the four commercial casinos in the state. As a result, there could be as many as 27 online sportsbooks in Kentucky. However, the exact identities of those sportsbooks is a bit murkier, particularly in light of recent actions by Churchill Downs Incorporated. CDI has announced that it plans to withdraw from sports betting, leaving massive question marks about what kinds of sportsbooks might actually get to operate through the licenses owned by CDI.
Louisiana joined the sports betting fraternity of states in January There are now more than a half-dozen of the best sports betting sites available for play, and several retail locations for in-person betting as well. According to state law, there could be as many as 41 online sportsbooks to launch. Like the state itself, Louisiana sports betting is a quirky endeavor.
The decision about whether to allow sports betting in Louisiana fell to voters at the parish level. Perhaps the most interesting element about what sports betting is and could be in Louisiana pertains to its retail locations. What states can sports bet In addition to the retail sportsbooks that you may find at casinos and racetracks in the state, you may also see sports betting kiosks at thousands of bars, restaurants, and truck stops around the Pelican State.
The Louisiana Lottery is able to place these machines there thanks to a special provision in the law. Online and retail sports betting became legal in Maine as of August , and the first online sportbooks launched on Nov. Caesars Sportsbook and DraftKings Sportsbook were the first two sports betting sites to go live in Maine, and even though the new law allows up to four sites, those two may ultimately be the only ones to do so.
Three of the tribes have partnered with Caesars and the other with DraftKings, which is why the state will likely have only two online sportsbooks. The new law also allows up to 10 retail sports betting locations, although it appears there will be fewer than that as well. Few states that have legalized both online and retail sports betting have had more of a gap between the launch of the two formats than Maryland.
After passing enabling legislation in November , retail sports betting opened its doors at several locations just over a year later in December However, sports betting sites were nowhere to be found. Eventually, the desire of lawmakers, regulators, and operators pushed the ball forward on online sports betting.
The first sites opened their virtual doors in November , almost a year after the retail launch and two years after sports betting became legal in Maryland. There are now roughly one dozen online sports betting sites either launched or soon to launch in the state, and many more are expected to come - Maryland law allows for the possibility of as many as 60 sports betting licenses.
Both retail and online sports betting launched; retail sportsbooks opened in January and online betting sites following two months later in March. Massachusetts is primarily an online sports betting site state. The law which allowed sports betting to begin designated that 8 licenses are tethered to physical locations in the state - its racinos - and an additional 7 licenses are available via competitive bid.
Roughly half of those 15 licenses are already in use in the state. More are expected shortly. All three of the retail locations designated for sports betting have opened physical sportsbooks, too. Michigan first opened physical sportsbooks in , but its splash into the online world in January cemented Michigan as a powerhouse in American sports betting.
At the time, no other state had borne witness to as many online sportsbooks launching on the same day - a fateful Jan. The industry has never looked back, and Michigan is now one of the only states to offer real money online casinos and poker alongside its sports betting, too. There are now more than one dozen sportsbook sites that are active in Michigan.
More might be coming, however, because there are still several casino locations in the state that are eligible to have sportsbooks and have not done so. Mississippi was one of the earliest states to open its doors for sports betting in However, since the debut, the state has remained committed to retail sports betting as the primary option.
Online sports betting is technically legal — there is one active app in the state — but you can only bet via a mobile device if you are physically on the premises of a casino. Montana is a rather unassuming state with roughly 1 million residents. So, it makes some degree of sense that its venture into sports betting has been equally unassuming so far.
Part of that unassuming aspect stems from the fact that Montana funnels all of its sports betting activities through its state lottery. There are hundreds of small sports betting kiosks available for in-person wagering, but only a single sportsbook site is active. Montana suffers from many of the same problems that Washington, D. Nebraska has legalized retail sports betting for its citizens and visitors, but no sportsbook is open for business yet.
Regulators continue to work with casino interests in the state to plan out the logistics and practical concerns of accepting wagers at horse racing facilities in Nebraska. The June gambling expansion that permitted the implementation of retail sportsbooks at these locations did not, however, include provisions for online sports betting. Nevada has offered online sports betting sites longer than any other state.
The first online sportsbook in the state and, for that matter, the country launched all the way back in However, Nevada offers sports betting differently than every other state due to the fact that it had no other blueprint to follow at the time. So, even though there are several online sports betting sites to find, you must register and make your first deposit in-person at the resident casino of your chosen app.
Nevada is also home to sportsbook brands that are found in few other places in the US. Be aware, however, that none of these options are sites - all of them are strictly apps. When lawmakers first allowed sports betting to become a legal activity in the state, they specified that there could be no more than 5 online sports betting sites active in New Hampshire at any time.
So, for the foreseeable future, your only online and retail sports betting option in New Hampshire is DraftKings Sportsbook. Every state on this list owes New Jersey a large debt of gratitude. The first online sportsbooks began to appear in August , only a handful of weeks after the ruling.
There are now nearly two dozen online sportsbooks, all representing the top shelf of American gambling brands. New Mexico is an unusual member of the fraternity of states to allow sports betting before the end of However, several of the tribes that call New Mexico home have claimed that the language of their compacts with the state and their rights under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act allow them to offer retail sports betting.
The tribes have not met with any serious resistance from state authorities on this matter so far. Online sports betting is not legal in New Mexico. New York has technically offered legal sports betting since However, the Empire State did not jump into the big leagues - online sports betting - until January , almost three years after the first retail books opened in upstate New York.
Regardless of their tardiness, online sportsbooks in New York soon found themselves managing the flow of the biggest sports betting state in the country. There are 9 online sportsbooks that you can choose to use in New York. North Carolina first legalized sports betting in , although limited it to in-person wagering at the state's tribal casinos. At present, there are three tribal locations in North Carolina, all three of which now have retail sportsbooks.
In , Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law new legislation to legalize online sports betting throughout the state. The law authorizes up to 12 online sportsbooks and several operators are already establishing partnerships to go live once they are able to do so. North Dakota sports betting occupies the same legal space as it does in New Mexico. There is no law on the books to allow for sports betting to proceed.
However, several of the federally-recognized tribal groups in the state have offered onsite sports wagering on their tribal lands by arguing that their compacts with the state permit them to do so. Do you need to pay taxes winning in sports betting So far, there has been no major pushback from state authorities on this point. Online sports betting remains illegal in North Dakota.
Ohio has not been on the sports betting scene very long. However, the Buckeye State has jumped into things with both feet in the time since then. The launch came just over a year after Gov. The law allows for the possibility of as many as 25 online sportsbooks initially, and it is possible that more could be permitted if certain operators could demonstrate the economic need.
So far, there have been a dozen-and-a-half online launches in Ohio. Oregon has had sports betting online and live since However, the Beaver State is not a place to go for a tremendous variety of options. Despite the fact that Oregon is a middle-sized state, its legal framework for sports betting is much closer to that of New Hampshire or Rhode Island. The entirety of the industry and the authorization to pursue it resides with the Oregon Lottery.
Perhaps the most curious aspect of sports betting in Oregon is that you can't bet on college football online or any college sports , but you can do so if you bet in person. Pennsylvania is a special place for sports betting, in that it is one of only a few states to legalize sports betting prior to the dissolution of the federal ban. The Pennsylvania General Assembly authorized both online and retail sports betting in , pending the removal of the federal ban.
Lawmakers were rewarded for their foresight in May , and the PA law became active. The first retail sportsbook opened its doors in November , but online books did not begin to appear until the following May, roughly one year after sports betting became a decision for each state. However, the online sports betting sites quickly made up for lost time.
There are now more than 12 online sports betting sites in Pennsylvania. Almost all of them are big boys in the sports betting world, including BetRivers online sportsbook , which should be a very familiar name for those in PA. Rhode Island is one of the more surprising members of the fraternity of states which began offering sports betting in , months after PASPA went the way of the dodo.
Like other small states, Rhode Island has a much more state-centric sports betting program than the competitive markets seen in nearby New Jersey or New York. The only available online sports betting site is Sportsbook Rhode Island, which is owned and operated by the Rhode Island Lottery.
However, no other state is more convenient for residents to place their bets in-person. South Dakota allows sports betting in one of the most limited contexts in the entire nation. Sports betting in the Mount Rushmore State is confined to land-based casinos in Deadwood. It is possible that tribal locations in the state might also open sportsbooks of their own, but no mobile sports betting is possible at this time.
There may not be a more surprising state to have sports betting than Tennessee. The legalization in and launch in took almost everyone by surprise, in part because no one knew where in-person sportsbooks would go in a state without any casinos or racetracks. So far, the experiment has been a success.
Governor Phil Scott signed a bill into law in June authorizing online sports betting in Vermont. What states can sports bet Later in the year, state regulators awarded licenses to three operators -- FanDuel, DraftKings, and Fanatics -- and all three launched online sportsbooks on Jan. The new law allows Vermont to have as many as six online sports betting sites total.
If Tennessee surprised everyone by moving forward with sports betting in the first place, Virginia shocked with how extensive an overhaul of its gambling profile it undertook and is undertaking. Virginia launched sports betting as an online-only activity in January , but only as part of a broader plan to open casinos in several towns around the state.
There are now more than one dozen sports betting sites active in Old Dominion. According to state law, the Commonwealth could ultimately support as many as 18 of them. So far, none have taken the state up on the offer, but you never know where a team might see a future. Washington, D. Retail sports betting is available at these stadiums, too, along with several bars and restaurants in the city.
Washington is now a sports betting state. The Evergreen State allows online and retail sports betting, but only on tribal casino lands. Online or retail sports betting is not legally available in most of the state. West Virginia acted as the quiet first lieutenant to New Jersey in the historic battle to make sports betting a state-level decision.
Thus, it is no surprise that West Virginia was part of the first group of states to offer legal sports betting in , only a few months after the repeal of PASPA. Since then, the small state has observed its roster of sportsbook sites grow to nine. When Koenig wants to bet on sports, he drives 45 minutes from his Missouri home to Illinois.
He is not alone. GeoComply processed 42, location checks from 1, online sports betting accounts that traveled from Missouri to an Illinois border town in the past six months. In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has expressed an openness to legalizing sports betting. But the effort stalled this past year when the Senate rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have let voters decide the issue.
The debate is complex because proponents of casinos and horse racing want to leverage sports wagering to also legalize those forms of gambling. Though still a toss-up, Georgia may be the most realistic candidate to authorize sports betting in , Giden said. She expects a well-funded lobbying effort from the likes of online betting operators and sports teams.
To legally bet on sports in Alabama also would require a constitutional amendment approved by voters. In the Legislature, sports wagering proposals have become intertwined with broader efforts to expand gambling beyond the current tribal casinos, dog racing tracks and charitable bingo operators.
None have been successful yet. Republican state Sen. Greg Albritton said some lawmakers are working on new gambling legislation that would include casinos, a lottery and sports betting. Home Page. Already have an account. BY David A. Lieb and The Associated Press. Sports gambling is legal in 38 states.
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