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1. Us States That Have Legalized Sports Betting
2. States That Offer Sports Betting
3. States That Have Sports Betting College Football
4. States That Have Legalized Sports Betting

Sports betting laws in the United States are changing rapidly. While wagering on sports has long been an American tradition, many folks have been under the impression that the activity is largely against the law. Well, that used to be true; however, on May 14, 2018, the US Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA, 1992), lifting the ban on states being able to establish their own sports wagering industries. No longer does Nevada (primarily Las Vegas) have a monopoly on legal sports betting in the country and states are finally free to set up their own betting rules and regulations. Many already have.

Despite these positive developments, there are still federal laws on the book regarding sports wagering. The Interstate Wire Act of 1961 and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006 both remain in effect. Both are limited in their application to gambling operators physically located within the United States, so bettors are still able to freely gamble despite those laws. As sports betting continues to become a more widely accepted in American culture, these laws will undoubtedly evolve, and they will likely eventually be repealed. Although no American laws prevent you from gambling, it would still benefit you to learn about them. Information is power, after all.

Jan 31, 2021 Of all the legal sports betting states, New Jersey has the most competitive market outside of Nevada. While most of the wagering action is concentrated in Atlantic City, all of the sportsbooks in New Jersey have full-service sports betting. Some states have been on the industry’s radar ever since a May 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling opened the door for any state to offer Las Vegas-style sports betting. But Arizona and Georgia. More and more states are getting in on the sports betting business. After New Jersey's Supreme Court win in 2018, states such as West Virginia, Delaware, Mississippi and Pennsylvania have. Several states have already legalized sports betting, while many others have begun discussions on how sports betting bills will benefit their state and can be passed. Locate your state below to see what the current legal status is and check out VegasInsider's list of online sportsbooks in each state to find reviews and get started with online.

PASPA – The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act

PASPA, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, was passed in 1992 and went into effect on January 1, 1993. This law, since its inception to its ultimate SCOTUS overturn, has long been the sole real hurdle for eager American sports bettors. In practice, PASPA essentially allowed Nevada to have a total monopoly on single-game sports betting (aka full-service sports betting or “Vegas-style” sports betting). Given the overwhelming popularity of sports betting in the US, PASPA was a financial catastrophe. Not only did the law basically bankrupt major casino districts like those in Atlantic City, NJ, and Biloxi, MS, PASPA actually cost the government (both state and federal) an estimated $400-500 billion a year in taxable expenditure. It is not a stretch to suggest that during the law’s existence (1992-2018), PASPA has cost the state hundreds of billions of dollars (if not trillions of dollars) in potential tax revenue. Of all the sports betting laws in the United States throughout its history, PASPA was by far the biggest, most obvious mistake.

During PASPA’s reign, Nevada – the only legal bastion for real sports wagering – was estimated to receive only 1-3% of the total sports betting handle turned by US bettors. The rest of that action was either going underground or being sent to offshore sportsbooks (which, despite PASPA and other US anti-gambling laws, were and are able to operate legally, as they are based overseas and outside of US jurisdiction). Naturally, PASPA has been something of a massive financial boondoggle for the US, and now that the law is overturned, there is hope that much of that action being sent overseas can be recovered and kept in the US economy. As for the lingering effects of PASPA? Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Read Our Article: What Is Papsa?

UIGEA – Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) was written to deter US financial institutions from processing payments related to Internet gambling. Included in the SAFE Port Act 2006, the UIGEA is a provision that requires banks and other payment processors to monitor designated payment systems such as cards, checks, and bank wires for “restricted transactions”, While the UIGEA will make it more difficult when using your Visa or MasterCard to make a deposit at an online sportsbook, there are certain sites that have higher success rates than others. Like most federal sports betting laws, the UIGEA only applies to businesses and not the individuals placing bets.

While the UIGEA sounds scary and intimidating, it doesn’t actually do much to stop “unlawful Internet gambling”. That’s probably because most of the gambling it actually addresses isn’t unlawful in the first place, given that offshore sportsbooks accessible over the Internet do not constitute illegal bookmakers. The law is further neutered by the advent of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which allow bettors to fund their accounts and receive payouts without ever going through a banking service on either end. All in all, the UIGEA is the poster child for ineffective legislation to address nonexistent problems. Hopefully, the law will be eradicated in due time, but until then, if you ever have a card declined while trying to fund your sports betting account, simply wait a bit and try again, use a different card (like an Internet Visa prepaid/gift card), or just use Bitcoin or another supported altcoin. Indeed, there is some debate about the origin of Bitcoin itself, with many analysts claiming that the catalysts for its creation were the strict sports betting laws in the United States.

Read Our Article: What Is The UIGEA

RAWA – The Restoration of America’s Wire Act

The Restoration of America’s Wire Act, or RAWA, was designed to strengthen and broaden the Wire Act after the DOJ ruled in 2011 that the law only applied to sports betting. While this received some notable support in the legislature after its initial proposal in 2014 (co-sponsored by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Utah representative Jason Chaffetz), the bill gained no support and never advanced.

The necessity for RAWA, in effect, at least temporarily obviated when the DOJ, in 2018, reversed course, stating that the original Wire Act did indeed apply to all common forms of gambling. This, it seems, has deprioritized the issue, albeit a DOJ statement is not nearly as binding as an official law (and, as shown, can be reversed at any time). Lobbyist and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson was the main driving force behind RAWA, as online gambling threatens his land-based casino interests.

The Interstate Wire Act

The Interstate Wire Act (also called the Federal Wire Act, the Interstate Anti-Crime Act, or simply the Wire Act) was a piece of legislation signed into law in 1961 by former president John F. Kennedy at the behest of his brother Robert F., who was the US Attorney General at the time. Sold to the public as a means to stop the proliferation of mafia-related numbers rackets across state borders, the real impetus for the very first of the US sports betting laws was to stop sports gambling and underground lotteries from competing with state-sanctioned lotteries. Naturally, the states could not abide competition in this arena, as their own lotteries provided huge amounts of income to fund their programs and schemes.

The way that the Wire Act seeks to curb unlawful interstate gaming is to make it illegal to use wire communications (hence the law’s name) to accept sports wagers or other kinds of bets over things like telephones and telegraph systems. Indeed, semaphore is even outlawed! Naturally, with the advent of the Internet, this new communications form, traveling over wires, was also covered by the Wire Act, as is wireless wagering in our modern times. In 2011, the US DOJ stated that the Wire Act applied only to sports wagering. However, in 2018, the same US DOJ stated that the Wire Act does in fact apply to other forms of gambling, as well.

The only real effect of the Wire Act now, however, is that it prevents residents in one state from picking up the phone or logging onto the Internet to place a sports bet in another state. This is called geo-fencing, and even the casino and sports betting apps in Nevada are bound by GPS to only allow those physically in the state to place wagers. This problem, of course, doesn’t exist with legal offshore sportsbooks, as they operate entirely outside of the reach of US laws, and the Wire Act conveniently applies only to bookies, not individual bettors. That’s why these overseas books exist and continue to thrive.

Read Our Article: What Is The Wire Act?

Proposed Federal Gambling Laws

There is one particular sports betting law that is in the works, although it has not been officially filed as of yet. Back in September of 2019, US Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitt Romney began working on a form of legislation with the goal to create federal standards or guidelines for states who plan to regulate sports betting in the future. Currently, in the US, sports betting is handled on a state by state basis, making the rules vary drastically from one state to another. The proposed bill would make a unified sports betting set of rules that any state who regulates sports betting would then follow. Schumer initially tried to create a similar sports betting law earlier in the year but was ultimately a waste as the bill went nowhere. This newer proposed bill has more potential going forward, however.

Potential For Similar Laws In The Future

Us States That Have Legalized Sports Betting

Will there ever be a PASPA style law passed in the future within the United States? The likeliest of answers is no. The US has lived both in a PASPA world and a post-PASPA world and the economy has thrived in one more than it has in the other. Sports betting will always be something that Americans participate in. To ban it would only be hurting the country and the revenue it gains from the industry. It wouldn’t hurt the consumer as there are outside outlets to gamble are sporting events that are completely legal.

The only difference if another ban were to occur would be the US not profiting from those outlets the way they do in a post-PASPA world with their own platforms, which is why it would be highly unlikely that any legislation would pass like that of PASPA in the future. That’s not to say that there won’t be proposals that will come along as some people will always be opposed to legal sports betting but to go as far as becoming a law again, a betting man would wager on the side of “No.” The legal sports wagering industry is just too lucrative in the US to ever be banned again.

GAME Act – Gaming Accountability and Modernization Enhancement Act

Introduced by Representative Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), the GAME Act was intended to effectively repeal and replace PASPA. Introduced in 2017 as HR 4530, the GAME Act sought to return to the states their rights to legislate their own sports betting rules. There were other considerations involved, namely a passage codifying daily fantasy sports (DFS) as “gambling,” which the DFS lobby is vehemently against. Needless to say, the Supreme Court overturn of PASPA temporarily derailed the GAME Act, though it may come about if the federal government wishes to regulate gaming nationwide. Hopefully, the states – which all now have total gambling sovereignty – will resist any efforts to bring sports betting back under the umbrella of the US government.

Read Our Article: What Is The GAME Act?

Sports Betting Laws By State

Most states (all of them except Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware) used to be bound by the same sports wagering prohibitions set forth by PASPA. However, now that each state is free to make its own rules for wagering on athletic contests, you can expect a host of divergent laws to apply, depending on where you are. Analyzing the sports betting laws by state is something that you will have to do if you plan on hitting the road to do some sports wagering in the future. But that’s OK, because – while the laws might vary a bit – all the states with sports betting (or those pending sports betting legislation) will generally follow the same mold. In most cases, you can expect the legal minimum age to bet on sports at these venues to be 21, and you can expect land-based wagering to launch before Internet sports betting follows suit.

If you don’t want to do the research and just want to get to the bets, however, you should use a legal offshore sportsbook. These sites operate in all 50 states (with very limited exceptions, in the case of Bovada), and they’re as good as or better than any land-based venue you’re likely to come across. Really, the only reason to bet on sports at a brick-and-mortar book is to soak up the ritzy atmosphere of the casino and to watch the games in its sports betting lounge. If you simply want to wager and get on with your day (or night), then don’t worry about any sports betting laws in the United States and simply sign up at an overseas Internet sportsbook.

States With Legal Sports Betting (Land-Based)

• Nevada
• Delaware
• New Jersey
• Mississippi
• West Virginia
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• New Mexico
• Arkansas
• New York
• Iowa
• Oregon
• Indiana
• Illinois
• Montana
• Michigan
• Colorado (pending)
• New Hampshire (pending)
• North Carolina (pending)
• Connecticut (pending)
• Washington DC (Pending)
• Washington (Pending)

States With Legal Sports Betting (Online)

• Nevada
• New Jersey
• Pennsylvania
• Iowa
• Oregon
• Indiana
• Rhode Island
• New Hampshire
• Colorado
• Illinois (pending)
• Delaware (pending)
• Tennessee (pending)
• Michigan (pending)

States Currently Considering Sports Betting Legalization

• Alabama
• Arizona
• Kansas*
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Maryland*
• Massachusetts*
• Missouri
• Ohio*
• South Dakota*
• Virginia*

* States that gave legal sports betting a serious consideration and are expected to be the next wave of sports betting legalization.

Photo Credit: cunaplus

In 2018, the Supreme Court did away with the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, paving the way for each state to legalize and regulate sports wagering if they wanted to. Sports betting is now spreading rapidly across the US and there is definitely an appetite for it across the nation. A handful of states launched sports betting operations in 2018, and 2019 has seen even more states take steps to getting sports betting off the ground.

Montana

Montana was the first state to legalize sports betting this year, joining the likes of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and several other states that legalized the activity in 2018. Although legislators in the Treasure State approved two separate sports betting bills, Governor Steve Bullock only signed one into law. Bullock signed the Sports Wagering Lottery Amendment Act of 2019 into law on 3 May. Under the law, the Montana Lottery will be responsible for rolling out land-based and mobile sports wagering, though it’s yet to announce a launch date.

Indiana

States That Offer Sports Betting

Just days after Montana legalized betting, Indiana followed suit by authorizing sports wagering On 7 May. The Hoosier State’s new sports betting law allows residents and visitors to place bets on a variety of sporting events at land-based sportsbooks at casinos in the state and online via mobile apps. The Indiana Gaming Commission has been moving fast with sports betting and is expected to launch on 1 September, just in time for football season.

Iowa

Iowa was the next state to legalize sports betting this year. On Monday 13 May, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a proposed sports betting bill into law. In fact, the Hawkeye State launched sports wagering operations in just 94 days after the signing of the sports betting law, making the Iowa the quickest state to launch the activity after legalizing it. Sports betting in Iowa officially launched on Thursday 15 August. The state’s sports betting market went live with eight land-based sportsbooks and one mobile betting app. Iowa was also the first state to launch land-based and online sports betting simultaneously.

Washington, D.C.

Although it’s not a state, our Nation’s capital has moved to allow sports betting. Muriel Bowser, Mayor of DC, signed the sports betting legislation into law on 23 January. However, this didn’t legalize sports betting from the outset. Instead it triggered a 60-day review period, where the bill was sent to DC Council for consideration. The bill passed into law in May, allowing DC to make preparations for sports wagering. Sports betting will be run by the DC Lottery and wagering will be allowed at four sports stadiums in the district.

The entire process for getting sports betting off the ground has been mired in controversy. Earlier this year, the bill’s main sponsor was investigated for unethical practices. At the same time, the DC Council granted the lottery’s supplier contract to the Greek company Intralot without allowing a standard bidding process to take place. This effectively grants Intralot and the DC Lottery a monopoly over sports betting in DC. As a result of all this, no one is sure when sports betting will come to DC.

Tennessee

Tennessee certainly wasn’t on anyone’s radar when it came to sports betting, but, on 24 May 2019, the state’s proposed sports betting legislation became law. Surprisingly, the bill was not signed by Governor Bill Lee; instead he allowed it to pass into law without his signature. As the Volunteer State doesn’t have any casinos, residents will only be able to place bets online. A launch date has yet to be set, but state regulators are currently working toward launching sports betting.

Illinois

After months of deliberation on a gambling expansion bill that included sports betting, Illinois Governor J.B Pritzker signed the bill into law on 28 June. In terms of sports wagering, the expansion package authorizes land-based, online and mobile sports betting. There is a lot of work that must be done before sports betting comes to the Prairie State, however. Illinois regulators must finalize sports betting rules and regulations and grant licenses to operators, data providers and suppliers.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize sports wagering in 2019 when Governor Chris Sununu signed House Bill 480 into law on 12 July. The passage of this bill legalized land-based, online and mobile sports betting. However, the state regulator has yet to confirm launch date for sports betting. Once the Granite State gets sports betting off the ground it will become the second New England state to offer sports betting, following Rhode Island’s sports betting launch in late 2018.

States That Have Sports Betting College Football

North Carolina

States That Have Legalized Sports Betting

North Carolina has legalized sports betting, but only on a small scale. On 26 July, Governor Roy Cooper signed the proposed sports betting bill SB 154 into law. Where this bill varies from others is that it only allows sports betting to take place at Native American-run casinos on tribal land. The bill allows the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to operate land-based sportsbooks at two casinos located in the Appalachian Mountains. The tribal group has yet to confirm a launch date for their sportsbooks.

So, at the time of writing, seven states, along with Washington DC have legalized sports wagering in 2019. Out of all of them, Iowa was the first to launch operations and Indiana will be the second when it launches sports betting in the first week of September. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done on the regulatory front before the other jurisdictions can go live with sports wagering.