More States Are Now Opening Their Doors to Regulating Online Casinos

The United States is one of the countries that gamble the most. Around 49 percent or almost 124 million adult Americans would gamble each year. Last year, it’s estimated that the US gambling market was able to reach a value of over 59 billion US dollars and it may even continue to go up in the coming years.

Gambling in the US is now widespread as more states consider its local operations. This is especially now that there is still a pandemic. This health crisis caused economical stress in many parts of the US and local governments are trying to find ways to gain more revenues.

Sports Betting is Bigger Than Ever

When it comes to online gambling, sports betting is what appears to be widespread in the US because of its legality. In May 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States has stricken down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992. This made sports betting federally legal and it also allows each state to decide on regulating its local operation.

One of the first few states that have worked on regulating sports betting right away was New Jersey. In fact, it was New Jersey that took PASPA and challenged it to court. Today, it is one of the biggest online gambling markets in the US. According to this state, around 80 to 90 percent of its monthly sports betting handle is from the online market.

Many other states followed suit like Delaware, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. These states now have online and in-person betting available to the locals. Meanwhile, the state of New York only has in-person betting.

However, it is becoming more likely that New York will also allow online betting. Initially, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo didn’t seem to want to resort to online betting to gain more revenues. He only wanted to push for the improvement of the current gambling options in the state to gain more revenues. This was until the pandemic came and one of the states that were severely impacted by this was New York.

It appears that the governor is already taking a look at this option because New York has a big deficit in terms of revenues. According to reports, if Cuomo does allow online betting in the state, only one operator will be able to bid between the state’s four commercial casinos. Whether this will push through is still unknown as no other details are discussed just yet. For now, what’s only sure is that the governor who used to oppose online betting is now already considering it as an option to gain more revenues.

Contrary to what the state of New York has, Tennessee only allows online betting within the state. Online and mobile betting here went live on November 1, 2020, and some of the bookies allowed to take bets from its locals are FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetMGM.

States Where Online Gambling is Already Legal

Currently, there are already a number of states where online gambling is allowed and is already regulated. However, some of them only specifically allow sports betting. Here they are and what you need to know about their regulations.

  • New Jersey

We already know how Atlantic City is one of the famous gambling hotspots out there and this is why it’s easy to understand why online gambling is booming here. There are over a dozen of legal casino sites, betting sites, and poker rooms that are available to the locals here.

  • Michigan

Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan signed the legislation of online gambling in the state just before 2019 ended. With that, the state will regulate sports betting, online casinos, and online poker local operations. Sports betting went live here on March 11, 2020.

  • Pennsylvania

This is one of the biggest states with legal online gambling. Pennsylvania regulates not only sports betting but also online casino gaming and online poker.

The Future

Those are just some of the states with legal online sports betting and casino gaming. States like Illinois, West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Virginia, and Colorado also have legal sports betting. The locals can still play online casino games but their casino operator of choice has to be based offshore. Currently, there is no law that prohibits Americans from placing bets offshore.

However, the United States is becoming more welcoming to the idea of legalizing online gambling in general or do things just like how the UK does. More states are lined up when it comes to allowing local sports betting and it is likely that they are also looking at online casinos too. In the next few years, we can expect that states like California will have legal online betting too.