Online Gambling in the United States

Seven states, seven regulators, seven separate lists of approved sites. A site is authorized only in the state that lists it.

• New Jersey — Division of Gaming Enforcement. Live since November 2013, the oldest and largest market, with more than 30 approved sites running under the permits of nine Atlantic City casinos.
• Pennsylvania — Gaming Control Board. Online casino play began in July 2019; sites run under the certificates of the state's land casinos.
• Michigan — Gaming Control Board. Launched on 22 January 2021 with ten operators; licences are limited by law to the state's commercial and tribal casinos.
• West Virginia — Lottery Commission, under the Interactive Wagering Act of 2019.
• Connecticut — Department of Consumer Protection. Since October 2021, only the two tribal licensees and their partners may offer casino games online.
• Delaware — the Delaware Lottery runs the market itself, through the state's three racetrack casinos on one platform.
• Rhode Island — the Division of Lottery, through Bally's as the single platform, since 2024.

State guides are added as each list is checked against the regulator's own register. New Jersey is first.

You must be 21. Every licensing state writes the age into its rules, and the site verifies it before an account opens.

You must be inside the state. Licensed sites check your location when you log in and again during play. You do not need to live there — a visitor to Atlantic City can play on a New Jersey site — but the moment you cross the state line the wagers stop. Using a VPN to appear elsewhere breaks the site's terms and, in most states, the law.

Limits are built in. Deposit and spend limits you set yourself are a licence condition, not an extra. New Jersey goes further and pauses play once lifetime deposits pass $2,500 until the player acknowledges the limit tools and the help line.

Self-exclusion is per state. Each regulator keeps its own list — one year, five years or lifetime in most of them — and a listing in one state does not reach another. The state guides say how to enrol.

The help line is on every screen. 1-800-GAMBLER, which New Jersey's compulsive-gambling council (CCGNJ) owns and operates, answers around the clock by phone, text and chat, and licensed sites must display it. Several states route the number to their own service, and Connecticut and Delaware publish lines of their own.

Licensed US casinos are built around bank money. The cashiers we read offer an e-check from your bank account (VIP Preferred), the Play+ prepaid account most operators recommend for speed, PayPal (and Venmo at some), Apple Pay and debit cards, a transfer from online banking, cash at a store counter through PayNearMe, a wire, and cash handed over at the casino cage. Credit cards are allowed by rule in New Jersey but accepted only by some operators, and some banks refuse the transaction; one large operator has stopped taking them altogether.

Availability shifts by state — Play+ and PayPal are not offered in Connecticut, for example — so the state guide, and each casino's own review, say what works where. Cryptocurrency is not among the methods at any licensed US casino.

Gambling winnings are taxable income in the United States and belong on your federal return, whatever the amount. The casino issues a Form W-2G for larger wins — for slots, bingo and keno the reporting threshold is $2,000 in 2026 — and withholds 24% on certain wins over $5,000, though not on slot wins. Losses can be deducted only up to the amount of winnings, and only by itemising.

Most licensing states tax winnings again. New Jersey withholds 3% on gambling payouts; the state guides give each state's rule. Keep your own record of wins and losses — the casino's statement is what a deduction rests on.

Outside the seven states, two other kinds of site use casino games. A social casino sells play-money only: nothing is cashed out, and no state statute treats it as gambling — Washington is the one place where the courts and the state's own regulator say otherwise. A sweepstakes casino sells one coin and gives away a second that can be redeemed for prizes, and that model is now banned by statute in nine states — New Jersey (August 2025, penalties up to $100,000 for a first offence), California, New York, Connecticut, Montana, Indiana, Maine, Tennessee and Louisiana — with Oklahoma joining on 1 November 2026, and refused by regulators in several more. Five of those laws reach the people who promote such sites, and three of them do not ask whether the promoter was paid.

We keep the two apart from licensed casinos on every page. A state guide lists only the operators its regulator licenses; sweepstakes and social sites are covered on their own pages, with the states each one excludes, and those pages are not shown to readers in the states that ban them.

31 U.S.C. 5362–5363 (UIGEA) and 18 U.S.C. 1084 (Wire Act), law.cornell.edu; N.J.A.C. 13:69O and the NJ DGE list of Internet gaming sites, njoag.gov; 58 Pa. Code ch. 812a and PGCB revenue releases; MCL 432.311 and MGCB bulletins; W. Va. Code § 29-22E; C.G.S. chapter 229b and CT DCP releases; 29 Del. C. § 4826, 10 Del. Admin. Code 206 and the Delaware Lottery; 2023 R.I. S 0948 Sub A and the RI Lottery timeline; IRS Topic 419 and the 2026 Instructions for Form W-2G; CCGNJ and NCPG helpline notices (October 2025); P.L.2025, c.128 (New Jersey). All read 8 October 2026.