In June , the Pennsylvania iLottery was launched. The first legal online casinos in Pennsylvania were launched in July Following the Supreme Court ruling to overturn the ban on sports betting under PASPA, Pennsylvania was quick to embrace the decision.

With sports betting legislation already in place since in the state, many of the land-based casinos in Pennsylvania began taking sports bets.

In May , the first online sportsbook in the state was launched by a land-based casino operator, with many more quickly following.

Retail sports betting became legal in Rhode Island in when a Senate budget bill was signed into law. A few months later, in March , the law was expanded to include online betting.

In September , Rhode Island launched its first mobile sports betting app. The app was operated by the Twin River Casino. In May , Tennessee introduced the sports betting bill into state law.

What makes the Volunteer State unique is that it does not have any land-based gaming venues. As such, sports betting will only be permitted online under the new law.

Online sports betting is expected to launch in Tennessee during In March , The WV Sports Lottery Wagering Act was passed, making sports betting legal in the state.

The law was passed before a decision was made by the Supreme Court regarding PASPA. Once the ruling was made, WV became the fifth state to launch full-scale sports betting in December Still, online sports betting was successfully launched through a different operator from August The West Virginia Lottery Interactive Wagering Act was passed in March , which legalized online casinos.

The launch of online casinos in West Virginia is expected in With the legalization of gambling comes the need for licensing and regulation.

Each of the states with legal gaming has a gaming control board or commission. Such government agencies are responsible for ensuring the integrity of the gaming industry within their state.

They are also tasked with enforcing state gaming laws and ensuring that revenue is contributed to the State fund.

In many states, the role of licensing, regulation, and law enforcement is handled by a single authority. In others, a separate enforcement department of state government carries out the enforcement role.

Some states also have different regulatory divisions for different types of gambling. Here you can see a list of US state gambling regulatory authorities:.

ECPA provides exceptions for the law enforcement to intercept communications where either 1 law enforcement is a party to the communication, or 2 where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception.

Skip to content United States Federal Gambling Laws. Home United States Federal Gambling Laws. Federal Gambling Laws. Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

This law applies to online gambling operators accepting financial instruments to fund accounts for players. The US government has more stringently regulated online gambling.

Some of the federal laws that encompass online gambling include the Federal Act Wire of and the UIGEA Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of The former outlaws interstate wagering on sports but fails to address the other forms of gambling.

The latter did not explicitly ban online gaming. However, it disallowed US-based payment processors from participating in any financial transactions involving online gaming services.

These rigid regulations made most online gaming operators decide to move their businesses offshore where they can be left untouched by US federal laws.

It may seem that the United States has been very slow when it comes to reacting to online gambling. This, however, changed in the year , when then-US President George Bush signed the Safe Ports Act — a law that had a section that made it illegal for US banking institutions to allow their customers to send money to gambling sites offshore.

The fact is, before , any US resident could quite easily gamble online for real money by using any of their US-issued debit or credit cards to fund their accounts.

Then again, when the law mentioned above took effect on that year, all US banking institutions were legally required to block all these types of payments, making it extremely difficult for US-based players to fund their online gaming bankroll.

As the years have gone by, many US States have started to look at online gambling sites, and several of them have placed their own robust sets of regulations that will allow gambling sites located in individual US states to operate legally after applying for and being granted a gambling license, but only within state boundaries.

There are still a lot of websites offering casino-type games that are located offshore that accommodate US-based players, though.

The first modern state gaming laws appeared immediately after World War II. Conservative politics were all the rage, and some states moved to outlaw gaming in light of casino development in Nevada.

In fact, outside of Nevada, only Maryland offered any form of regulated gambling in the middle 20thcentury, legalizing slot machines in certain southern counties as early as The next major reforms to state gaming regulations occurred in the s, as a budget crisis hit every state in the union.

Since that time, state law related to gambling has continued to evolve. Some US states have gone so far as to outlaw online gambling outright.

The states of New Jersey and Nevada, for example, have declared that all non-state regulated online gambling is illegal. The other anti-online gaming states outlaw Internet betting in all forms.

The states of Washington and Maryland represent a disturbing recent trend — a new movement to ban online gambling in light of confusing evidence about its popularity and impact on health and society.

Here is a breakdown of three US states and their gaming law. Alabama gaming law depends on outdated definitions of gambling and old cultural traditions against betting.

Alabamans can place bets at four different pari-mutuel facilities that include e-bingo games, even though state law makes these activities illegal.

The state is also home to three tribal venues that operate slot and video poker games. Alabama has a draconian approach to social gambling, every instance of which is illegal within state lines.

The state legislature has yet to address the issue of the legality of online gambling. For an example of a US state with hardcore anti-gaming laws, look no further than Indiana.

Still, with restrictions on two of the most popular forms of betting in America, Indiana is not a gambler-friendly state. The state of Massachusetts has a generally liberal approach to gambling law.

Massachusetts citizens can place legal wagers in a number of markets — the state is home to tribal and commercial casinos, state and regional lottery sales, dog and horse racing, and plentiful charity bingo and poker games.

Social gambling private games of chance and skill among friends is essentially unregulated in the Old Line State. Massachusetts law makes no mention of the practice of online gambling.

Our guides to the gaming laws of the 50 US states is designed to get you up to speed about the legality of online gambling where you live in a short amount of time.

In , the online gambling situation started transforming rapidly. To get a clear picture, we will cover online gambling by dividing it into two parts: online casino gambling and sports betting.

In recent years, the status of both has changed across the US. To find out more about it, please read along.

Online gambling in the US can indeed be very confusing. There is a federal law that covers the country as a whole, but apart from that, every state has the freedom to regulate online gaming as they consider it appropriate.

However, the fact is that no federal law prohibits online gambling. As a US citizen, you are legally allowed to place wagers online, but only if a site is not based on US soil.

Considering the fact that offshore websites have no problem accepting punters from the US, there is nothing to worry about, as you will not get prosecuted for placing a bet online.

All this struggle to understand the legality of online gambling came from a wrong interpretation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of Simply said, this has nothing to do with you as a punter.

It prohibits financial institutions from accepting payments connected to illegal gambling, but it says nothing about depositing funds.

However, financial institutions have found their way around this law with the appearance of e-wallets and similar inventions. Considering the revenue that online gambling produces, some US states decided it is time to jump into online gambling stories with both feet.

At the moment, online casinos operate in a few states, and it is most definite that others will follow up soon. New Jersey is one of a few states that ultimately accepted gambling and everything that goes along with it.

Online casinos have been legal for quite some time and brought in revenue in billions. Even popular casino directory sites such as WorldCasinoDirectory have already begun listing online options for New Jersey Residents.

The law does not make online gambling illegal. PASPA — Once acted as the governing law over the prohibition of brick and mortar sports wagering throughout the US, with the exception of four exempted states.

These four states had already implemented some type of active sports wagering or had pending sports legislation in place by a specified deadline and therefore were deemed exempt from the restrictions enacted by PASPA.

The exemption was also offered to New Jersey due to their thriving Atlantic City gambling entertainment market, however, the state failed to take advantage of this option and allowed the deadline to pass.

However, in SCOTUS reviewed PASPA and on May 14th ruled it unconstitutional and void. This law is no longer effctive in the land of the free.

RAWA — A preemptive bill yet decided upon intends to rewrite the Federal Wire Act of to extend prohibitions to include all forms of online gaming.

If passed, this law would violently impact the current and future USA online gambling market as it does not include carve-outs for existing state-regulated online gambling platforms such as those initiated in Delaware, New Jersey, and Nevada — effectively making all online gaming in the USA illegal immediately.

Individual states maintain the authority to allow or prohibit any form of gambling within their borders that are not expressly prohibited by US federal gambling laws.

Due to the differing climate of states and their individual positions regarding legal forms of gambling entertainment, it is crucial to provide up to date information on what each US state permits and forbids in order to deliver the most accurate information for our readers.

Therefore, we have specialized state focused pages to deliver the most current information on gaming laws and permissible gaming entertainment within their borders.

Not only that, we provide here a state-specific gambling entertainment bill tracker to keep Americans updated on upcoming legal forms of betting entertainment in their state and inform them of newly enacted or retracted gambling laws.

At the federal level, there are multiple agencies that have a say in the regulation of U. All of whom communicate with one another and utilize the US constitution and precedent laws to determine the eligibility and legality of pending gambling legislation and regulations.

At the state level, senators and congressmen in government positions lobby, direct, and discuss possible gaming legislation to either generate, permit, and regulate various legal forms of gaming entertainment in their state.