The United States is an immensely dispersed jurisdiction when it comes to online gambling. Although federal laws establish an overall framework of restrictions, individual states or local governments have the freedom to either permit or restrict certain forms of gaming activity – this has allowed Hawaii and Utah to ban all forms of iGaming while other states such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania have fully embraced iGaming technologies such as Pokerstars or Paddy Power Betfair, respectively. As technology rapidly develops so do laws related to it in different parts of the country.
State-level approaches to gambling legislation have played a key role in driving online gambling forward. Many elected officials have realized that sports wagering and other iGaming games do not contribute to social ills they fear while simultaneously raising millions for state coffers – leading them to support legalization of online casino gaming, software development for iGaming games and sports betting.
However, while iGaming has become more widely accepted, real money games – including poker, casino, and lottery games – remain illegal in most states. Nevada, Delaware and West Virginia have passed laws authorizing real-money online casino gaming; New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island offer regulated online casinos only to residents from these three states; they do not allow other states to join these markets.
Alongside real-money online casino and iGaming offerings, some states within the US have legalized sports betting. These states include New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware where DraftKings, FanDuel and BetRivers all provide this form of entertainment – New York could follow suit and launch its iGaming industry following passage of sports betting legislation by January 2022.
Yet while many states have legalized some form of online gambling, many more still have not done so due to long-standing political and cultural opposition against gambling in many parts of the United States. Analysts generally expect these states will approve online gambling within a reasonable amount of time.
Only Hawaii and Utah remain unregulated in regards to online gambling; most other states have legalized some form of online gambling such as sports betting; others may allow other forms, including casino games or digital slots. Furthermore, several states have formed partnerships with land-based casinos to offer more options to their citizens. It is expected that payment processors and media outlets will also become involved with this industry over time. This will enable the creation of more comprehensive iGaming platforms in these states, while in the meantime we recommend our iGaming map to find the best gambling sites near your location – updated daily so that you’re always sure that what you’re playing on is legal!