United States · 21+

Written for readers in the United States

There is no federal licence for online casino gambling in the United States, because the question belongs to each state, and the answer differs from one to the next. Seven states licence it, an eighth has approved it without opening, and in the rest it is "not permitted" (which is why a page written for the whole country can describe the map without picking a point on it). Because we cannot know which state you are reading from, and because several states make promoting an unauthorised operator an offence, this page names no operator at all.

The seven states, and the eighth

The list is short enough to read in one breath. Online casino gambling is licensed in New Jersey and Delaware, which went first in 2013, then Pennsylvania in 2019, West Virginia in 2020, Michigan and Connecticut in 2021, and Rhode Island in 2024, while Maine approved it in 2026 (with the first sites expected in the first quarter of 2027). In every other state, in the District of Columbia and in the territories, it is "not permitted".

Each of those states runs its own regulator and its own "register of licensed operators", and each register is public (so the authoritative answer for a reader in one of them is a state document rather than a page of ours). If you are in one of those states, the list to use is the regulator’s own (the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the Michigan Gaming Control Board, and so on), because a site licensed in New Jersey is not thereby licensed in Michigan, and the licences do not travel.

What the federal statutes actually do

The federal layer mostly points back at state law. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act forbids a "gambling business" to accept payments connected to online gambling that is "unlawful under the law of the state" or under federal law, requires banks and card networks to block those transactions, and lets federal and state prosecutors obtain the removal of sites and of links (it works through the payment rail rather than through a licence). The Wire Act, after the First Circuit decision, reaches sports betting only (and therefore leaves the casino question where state law left it).

That reference back to state law is why the rules vary as much as they do. Six states (Louisiana, Oklahoma, Montana, Washington, Tennessee and New York) make "promoting or assisting" unauthorised gambling an express offence, in some cases a criminal one; that provision is aimed at pages like this one. It is the reason this page is written the way it is, and the reason we would rather explain the absence than fill it!

The age and the help

The age is twenty-one for "online casino gambling" in the states that licence it, which is three years higher than most of the countries we write for, and "self-exclusion" is organised state by state, through the regulator of each state rather than through one national scheme (so a decision taken in one state does not travel either).

The National Council on Problem Gambling runs the national helpline, free and at any hour, on 1-800-GAMBLER, and will route you to the services in your own state (the one route on this page that does not depend on where a licence happens to be).

The editorial team at No Deposit Bonus · Last updated October 2026