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The United States has rapidly expanded its legalized and regulated (Commercial) online casino footprint in recent years. In many cases within the country, this expansion has featured not only poker and casino games, but also online sports betting!
The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was a Federal-level law that went into effect in 1992 which prohibited sports betting in the majority of U.S. jurisdictions. The jurisdictions that were spared this prohibition were those who already had sports betting (only Nevada, at the time) as well as a few states that had Commercial casinos, though these states (such as New Jersey) did not avail themselves of the right to start sports betting operations in the time they’d have been allowed.
Furthermore, a few states were extended the right to offer, “Sports Lotteries,” which are essentially just offering parlay bets through the lottery department.
Throughout the history of the United States, sportsbetting has been a popular (and, mostly underground) pastime. For proof, all one needs to is Google search, “The Black Sox Scandal,” and you’ll see what we mean. Whilst casual social bets between friends, as well as office fantasy sports leagues, would be almost entirely ignored…any bookmaking being done on a professional basis was subject to the harshest of punishments.
The punishments were so harsh and the matter of illegal sports betting was taken so seriously, in fact, that offshore online casinos were hesitant to offer any sportsbetting services to United States bettors. There were some, but it was a rarity for an entity to be offering both casino AND sportsbook services within the country.
On May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States would issue a ruling that would declare PASPA Unconstitutional. While there are a few different reasons for this ruling, the primary impetus was that of the Tenth Amendment—which grants the individual states the right to decide upon laws that are not specifically conferred upon the Federal Government by way of the Constitution. Quite simply, as it relates everything except for sportsbetting, individual states had a historical precedent (and ongoing precedent) to decide on all laws related to gambling for themselves. Recognizing this, the Supreme Court essentially asked, “What gives the Federal Government the authority to dictate matters of sports betting to the states?” Ultimately, the SCOTUS decided that there wasn’t anything that would confer any such authority.
That brings us to the other piece of Federal-level legislation, The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which is sometimes perceived as prohibiting players from gambling online:
While the UIGEA is still in effect, the truth is, it never had anything to do with individual players in the first place. What the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act does is that it primarily restricts two fairly specific things:
In other words, the player is not himself or herself doing anything that would violate this act. Technically, the UIGEA only even applies if that particular offshore casino is offering its services to a player in a state in which such offering is illegal anyway, which is usually, but not always, the case.
One other aspect about the UIGEA is that it’s effectively unenforceable as long as nobody owning or operating the offshore casinos in question steps foot into the United States. Granted, they are committing what is a crime in the United States by offering the casinos, but they are out of the jurisdictional reach of the United States unless they are on U.S. soil.
Similarly, various offshore online casinos are totally out of the jurisdictional reach of individual states even if those states were inclined to do anything about individual players playing there. Once again, the owner/operator would actually have to physically go to the state at some point for the state to have any ability to arrest that person/people.
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When it comes to the question of whether or not it is legal for you, as an individual player, to play at an online casino, the short answer is, “It depends.”
Mostly, it depends on what state that you are in. Penalties can range all the way from non-existent to a Felony, though there are only two states that consider, “Unlawful Gambling,” to be a felony. As a practical matter, any enforcement efforts would generally target operators and we have uncovered no instance of an individual player facing adverse legal actions for the crime of gambling online. It’s still important for you to look up the laws for your state, which you can do using our individual state links below.
As mentioned earlier, many states have licensed and regulated their own online gambling since the repeal of PASPA. Granted, PASPA only really had to do with sports betting and, technically, there was never anything that said that individual states could not have their own online casinos.
In the majority of states with online gambling, the laws require that an online operator either be a physical Commercial casino within the state, or alternatively, be contracted with a physical Commercial casino such that they may operate through them. It’s for that reason that you might see an online casino such as BETMGM in West Virginia, for example, despite the fact that there are no MGM-owned land casinos in the state.
States do not want to run afoul of interstate commerce laws, so what is usually going to happen is that a player will have to be physically located within a particular state to gamble online at these licensed and regulated online casinos. In some cases, IP address will be sufficient, but usually the player will have to download a geo-tracker that allows the online casino to pinpoint them physically to assure they are within a given state’s boundaries. Technically, a player could get away with not exactly being in a given state, but they’d have to be pretty darn close.
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Delaware was only the second state to legalize all forms of Internet Gambling (poker, casino, sportsbook) with only New Jersey doing so before them. Given Delaware’s small population, each of the legalized Commercial casinos in the state opts to only operate one online outlet. For those who have perhaps exhausted all of the strong new member promotions and are perhaps looking for other online casinos available to them, you can click on the link below to see what others may wish to offer their services.
Indiana does have a few licensed and regulated online casinos, but they operate legally by way of sweepstakes laws, at this time. As such, they fall short of a true online casino experience. That said, online sports betting is fully licensed and regulated with multiple outlets available.
For those looking for more of a casino or live dealer experience, then we would recommend that you follow our link below to see your options.
The situation in Iowa is nearly identical to that of Indiana (see above) with the exception being that Iowa doesn’t have any sweepstakes-based slot games. There are about a half dozen legalized and regulated online sports betting options in the state, and as with Indiana, you can follow our link below if you are interested in full-scale online casinos that offer their services to Iowans.
Michigan would become the fourth state to offer the full gamut of online casinos offerings, which include casino, poker and sportsbetting. Once again, players also have access to offshore casinos (follow the link below) which you can use to compare new player offers or if you have already exhausted all of your new player promotions in your state’s licensed casinos.
Nevada has both online poker and online sportsbetting as licensed and regulated betting outlets. However, the state does not have any regulated online casinos at this time. If you’re interested in playing online, please follow your state’s link below for some of our top suggestions.
New Hampshire is another example of a state that has only legalized online sportsbetting, but does not have any other licensed and regulated form of online gambling. For players interested in checking out what we consider the best online casino and poker options, please follow the link for your state below.
Much like Nevada was the first state to widely legalize and regulate land casinos, New Jersey was the pioneer of online casinos and offers poker, casino and sportsbook betting options through the majority of its Atlantic City casinos and those contracted to offer their websites through them. If those aren’t enough, we also have a few online casino suggestions that are not regulated by the state if you follow the link below.
Oregon is another example of a state that has legalized and regulated online sports betting, though they haven’t quite come around on poker and casino yet. We have listed a few options that might be available to you on the state’s page if you follow the link below.
Pennsylvania was the third state to legalize and regulate the three major forms of online gambling-poker, casino and sportsbetting. For those of you who wish to check out possible alternatives to the PA online casinos, particularly if you have used all of the new member promotions already, please check out our link to your state below!
At this time, Rhode Island is another example of a, “Sports only,” state as there is not yet any form of regulated online poker or casino currently authorized. That said, we expect Rhode Island to legalize and regulate some internet casinos sooner or later, but for the time being, please check out the link to your state below to see our top picks!
The state of West Virginia has come around to legalizing both online casinos and online sportsbetting. At this time, online poker is actually legalized and regulated, but there haven’t been any operators who have shown any interest—probably owing to the fact that the state is sparsely populated. You can follow our link to the Mountain State below to see what options might be available to you for alternative online casinos and sites where you can maybe play poker.
West Virginia has also indicated interest in joining up with one, or more, other states for some sort of interstate online poker operation, but we will have to wait to see what comes of that.
If your state isn’t in the list above, then you do not have any legal and regulated forms of online wagering available to you at this time, though Connecticut will shortly. That being the case, please feel free to follow our links below to learn more about other gambling offerings in your state and for our recommended online casinos.
DISCLAIMER: Even acting as a player rather than an operator, there are differences in the legality of online gambling from one state to another. We would encourage all of our readers to research the laws for themselves when making a decision. You can follow the state links on this page, or also look here.
Which will tell you what different individual state laws have to say about, ‘Unlawful Gambling.’ As we mentioned before, we have never found any instance of an individual player being prosecuted for the mere act of playing online in ANY of these states in all of our research.
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Realtime Gaming is one of the oldest and most well-known software platforms for online casinos. Of course, your mileage may differ from one online casino to another, so we would recommend starting here.
And using the search tools at the bottom to read reviews and user experiences of what Realtime Gaming casinos might be available to you in your state. While the software is excellent, when it comes to player treatment, Realtime Gaming (just in my opinion) doesn’t always seem terribly concerned with who they license to use their platform.
That said, the software is quick, reliable and extremely easy to use. It may come as a surprise even to those players in the United States who have regulated online casinos available to some of them, but Realtime Gaming offshore platforms often have a lower crash rate than even these. In fairness, most of that has to do with the fact that the regulated casinos also have a geotracker running (from your device) simultaneously and RTG has no reason to be concerned with that.
Realtime Gaming software has been tested and vetted for fairness and randomness. With that, many Realtime Gaming Casinos offer some of the best Video Poker to be found online, often with pay tables that result in a 99%+ return-to-player (RTP) with optimal strategy. Of course, the specific games an online casino chooses to offer might vary, so we would recommend that you try to determine what games are available at a particular online casino prior to making any deposits.
The Table Games offerings are fairly standard fare, so there won’t be any surprises there. Online casinos don’t tend to differ too much in that regard.
Many of the slots are proprietary material, and as such, wouldn’t really be found in Commercial Casinos. Still, with over fifty slot games generally available at any one casino, slot enthusiasts are sure to find something that they will like. In honesty, overall, licensed and regulated United States online casinos (in the states they are available) will generally have more slot games that you will recognize from land casinos.
The Video Keno returns are pretty terrible, but you really shouldn’t generally be playing Video Keno online anyway. I have no idea why, but returns that are actually worse than those in land casinos seem to be pretty standard whereas most other games have the same, or better, RTPs.
Realtime Gaming also offers Live Dealer Casino games on its platform, but not all RTG-powered casinos will necessarily have it, so make sure to look into that if Live Casino is your thing.
Over the past 5 or more years, the most prominent and successful US-friendly online gaming network has been Realtime Gaming. RTG was founded in Atlanta in 1998, but after the UIGEA law was passed in 2006, the company was sold to Hastings Ltd out of the Netherlands Antilles and their company headquarters was moved to Heredia, Costa Rica, found 6 miles outside the capital city.
RTG casino software has powered about 50 to 75 casinos at any given time, including the Bodog, Slots.LV and Bovada casinos. Intertops, Slotastic and Sun Palace are some of the RTG websites you may know. If you’re looking for other recommended Real Time Gaming casinos take a look at Las Vegas USA Casino, Vegas Casino Online, Sloto’Cash, iNetBet, Jackpot Capital, Ignition, Grande Vegas, Casino Extreme, Casino Brango, Kudos, Fair Go, Uptown Pokies, Slots Plus, Exclusive, BoVegas, VeitBet, Old Havana, Cherry Gold, Free Spin and Thunderbolt.
Rival Gaming is perhaps a lesser known software provider than is Realtime Gaming, but their software is still pretty good and they power almost a dozen online casinos that are available to United States’ players. Among these are sites such as 24VIP, Slots Capital, Vegas Crest Casino, Superior Casino and Desert Nights.
Rival is unique for having some of the best Video Keno Returns-to-player of any online gambling platform, which seems odd, because the Table Game returns are basically about average and only allowing 3-4-5x Odds on Craps is perhaps lower than necessary. Still, by any standard, it’s difficult to argue with some Video Keno games being as high as 96%. Naturally, you’ll want to check the Video Keno paytable against the Wizard of Odds site/calculator before making any deposits.
The House Edge of some of the Blackjack products is almost a full 1%, which is higher than many other online casinos who often look closer to one half of a percent. While the slots are considered excellent, please also know that Video Poker and Table Games graphics and sounds could perhaps be improved upon.
If you’re going to play the slots, some of which even come with little stories, we would recommend going through the HELP files or asking about the RTP for a particular slot game in chat. While most online casinos will have slot games returning in a fairly tight range of only 2-3%, Rival Gaming slot games can return anywhere from the low 90’s all the way up to 98%, so the difference in returns could make a world of difference in your playing experience.
The Video Poker offered by Rival, admittedly, is only about average. None of the paytables are anything terribly special and a few of them (such as 98.6% Joker Poker Kings) kind of suck by online casino standards. You’ll definitely want to stick to the game that return well over 99% (what few there are) for the best bang for your buck.
Players will also experience many different experiences from one casino to another as Rival Gaming could perhaps be better at vetting the casinos to whom they choose to license their platform. Once again, we STRONGLY recommend using lcb.org to research the reviews and player experiences for any casino that you are considering as they will vary greatly.
BetSoft Casinos has a history of being at the forefront of developing and offering some of the most advanced slot games on their platform. They were pretty early in the 3-D market and their biggest selling point is the fact that their games offer unique themes and interesting graphics. Betsoft can be found for many US players at casinos such as Drake and Black Diamond.
Let’s not lose ourselves in the slots and forget that many other Betsoft Casino offerings are quite good. For one thing, some Betsoft powered casinos may offer the single-deck Blackjack game which has an RTP of 99.62%, which is one of the best returns you’ll find online or otherwise. Of course, the Odds on Craps are, well, odd…3x across the board no matter the point. I guess that’s better than 2x odds across the board, but it’s still certainly something I’ve never seen anywhere else. The remaining Table Games are standard fare, but the Blackjack and Pontoon are excellent.
As mentioned, they are pretty much la creme de la creme when it comes to online slot offerings. It’s not even close. Even for US players in states with licensed and regulated online casinos, I think you’ll find some of the Betsoft online offerings from overseas quite impressive.
Be VERY CAREFUL when choosing a Video Poker game at a Betsoft Casino and stay away from the game they call, “Pyramid Poker,” completely as the returns are terrible. Normal video poker game returns can range all the way from low 94% to high 99%’s, so proceed with caution and make sure to know what tables are available at a given casino before making a deposit if you are a Video Poker player.
The software itself is excellent and most of the casinos that use it as a platform, including Lincoln Casino and Red Stag Casino, are highly reputable online gambling providers who are generally well-reviewed.
All of that said, unfortunately, the RTP’s are nothing special, so you’re in good hands if you happen to be playing on a WGT powered casino, but there’s no reason to seek it out if you are looking for the best returns to player.
In theory, they do have a Bonus Poker game that returns more than 101% to players, but no online casino that offers their services in the United States has that paytable available. I could be wrong, but I’d actually highly doubt that any online casino offers it—but you can definitely look around at the casinos available in your country (if you’re not in the US) because it would be an awesome find!
In general, casinos themselves that operate on this software platform tend to be rogue operators who are poorly-reviewed with players often being ripped off. There are sure to be exceptions to this rule, but more power to you if you want to spend your time and energy looking for diamonds in this rough—because I don’t.
The Blackjack games return north of 99.5%, assuming the casino where you find them will actually pay you if you hit a hot streak and want to withdraw your winnings.
The Video Poker is junk and currently only offers three games. The Live Casino experience might be fine, but again, you’d have to find an online casino that you actually could trust who uses this software and there are better Live Dealer experiences to be had anyway.
Overall, we wouldn’t totally avoid this slightly subpar casino platform, just make sure that you absolutely trust the casino offering it. Start with LCB reviews.
Americans have dozens of options when searching for online casinos. Even still, many players have questions about the murky legality behind US online casinos. This being said, let’s cover some of the most common questions and answers regarding US casinos.
Answer: Sure, this just depends upon what online casino you choose. If a no-deposit bonus is high on your list, shop around and look for these so that you can start off with free money.
A much different question is whether or not you should actually want a no-deposit bonus. Consider these things:
1.) Usually Not the Best Bonus:
2.) Most Casinos Have Minimum/Maximum Withdrawals:
3.) The Terms Make it Tougher:
4.) You Will Have to Deposit Anyway:
BOTTOM LINE: If you’re going to go after the bonuses at all, then you should analyze each individual bonus as well as the Terms & Conditions and go for the most profitable bonus---which will usually be the new player deposit bonus.
Answer: The first thing that needs to happen is that the casino has to accept Bitcoin to begin with and not all of them do. The second thing that needs to happen is you need to create a Bitcoin wallet (or other cryptocurrency, if accepted) and then obtain some of that cryptocurrency.
Keep in mind that the value of cryptocurrencies changes every day, sometimes drastically, depending on the crypto in question. While I prefer using USD for my online casino playing, this is mostly just a matter of acquiring your crypto of choice and finding a casino that accepts it.
Answer: Generally, this just means online casinos that accept Bitcoin. In rare cases, you might find an online casino that deals ONLY in Bitcoin, but these tend to be rogue operations and are not licensed by anyone, so make sure to do your homework before depositing there.
Answer: It depends. Whether offshore or licensed and regulated, every casino will offer a variety of methods by which a player can both deposit and withdraw funds.
For an example of an offshore casino, Bovada will accept deposit methods such as VISA and MasterCard gift cards and sometimes credit/debit cards. They will also accept Bitcoin and Litecoin. Additionally, they will sometimes accept Paypal, Venmo and a wide variety of other options. The biggest thing that you will want to note is what forms of withdrawal can you do and whether or not you have to deposit a certain way to be able to withdraw that way. For example, many online casinos will not let you withdraw into PayPal unless you have used PayPal to deposit.
When it comes to licensed and regulated online casinos, it’s basically the same thing. The two major differences with these are that you can usually deposit/withdraw at the cage in the physical casino linked to that online casino (if you wish) and you can also sometimes deposit at your local convenience store using a service such as PayNearMe.
Answer: It depends on the casino. The answer is generally yes for licensed and regulated casinos and generally no for offshore casinos, though there are probably exceptions in both cases. For deposit and withdrawal information, we’d recommend researching that on our online casino reviews or at the casino itself prior to creating an account.
Answer: It’s fair to say that the licensed and regulated ones should also be considered the safest as they are going to be regulated by some Government entity directly in that state. For that reason, they would have a very difficult time if they made a habit out of slow-paying or no-paying any players. Do keep in mind that you still want to be sure to read and abide by the Terms & Conditions as your winnings could still be forfeited if you violate any of those.
For those of you who are interested in more new player offers or who do not have access to state-regulated casinos, offshore internet casinos are generally considered safe. The only thing you really want to make sure to do is do your homework by researching user reviews that can be found on sites such as ours. Most legitimate operations are going to be good about paying players in a timely fashion. However, ALWAYS read the Terms & Conditions for using bonuses as they are often more strict at offshore casinos than regulated ones.
Answer: We expect that many states will, especially those with licensed and regulated Commercial casinos once they see how well online is performing in other states and that it doesn’t really hurt the land casino industry too badly. In general terms, the more liberal a state is on other forms of gambling, the quicker you might hope for them to expand into online. There are certain states, such as Utah, that we would be shocked to ever see authorize online gambling.
Answer: Please see the top of this page; we have them listed.
Poker sites have had run-ins with the law before – notably in 2006 and 2011 – which has created the perception that US online casinos are illegal.
In 2006, Congress signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) into effect, which makes it illegal for banks to knowingly facilitate gambling transactions when it’s deemed illegal under state law. In 2011, the US Department of Justice indicted owners of three different poker companies for violating the UIGEA and laundering money.
At no point has the federal government ever declared that online gambling is illegal, either for people to place bets or online casinos to offer real money games.
Answer: It depends on the state. There is no Federal law that prohibits a player from gambling online anywhere. The only thing that the UIGEA does is that it prohibits banks and offshore casinos from knowingly financially transacting with one another, and even then, that only applies to US banks. Additionally, former U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway once stated in a House hearing that it’s not illegal for Americans to bet online. But not all states approve online gambling. At the time being, the following states have greenlighted this form of entertainment: California, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.
The only state where it’s illegal for people to gamble online is Washington, although the Evergreen State has yet to prosecute anybody for the matter.
Different states have different laws when it comes to what is normally termed, “Unlawful Gambling,” but the strictest of these laws are usually focused on the operators of online casinos, rather than players. In fact, we can find no instance of someone being prosecuted for the simple act of playing online---regardless of what their state law has to say about it.
With that said, we cannot be held responsible if you violate the laws of your state, so we strongly recommend that you research the laws in your state and make your decision accordingly.
Answer: The short answer is, “No.” Many online casinos do, but there are many online casinos that are prohibited from operating in the United States by the jurisdiction that licenses them to operate there. Another example is Bovada, who generally will not operate in a US state where there are legalized and regulated online casinos already---so it depends on what state you are in for them.
If you look around at our casino reviews, you can pretty quickly identify which offshore online casinos will accept US players from your state.
Answer: Usually, yes. However, you’ll want to be careful when doing this at offshore online casinos (other than from your house) that way you don’t accidentally play from the same IP address that a different player is using as that could be seen as violating the Terms & Conditions of that online casino.
Also, many online casinos have a specific mobile platform that is customized to work on the mobile screen and software while others don’t. Some have specific mobile apps. A few online casinos might be website only, so when that is the case, desktop will usually be your best playing experience even if they kind of work on mobile.
Answer: Almost all of them will accept USD, the only question is what deposit and withdrawal methods are available. Additionally, many casinos will accept Bitcoin or other cryptos, but which ones are offered will vary a lot by casino.
Answer: If US players are permitted in the first place, then they will almost always be able to accept bonuses. Check the Terms & Conditions to be sure. One thing to look out for is that sometimes (and this is even true of regulated US online casinos) certain deposit methods will not qualify for taking a bonus.
can you guys suggest any other US casinos to play at apart from the ones you guys have listed?
There are quite a few US casinos. However we would advise you to stick with the ones listed on the website if you want to be paid out in a timely manner.
i’ve been playing at lincoln casino but sometimes their software crashes for me..i’m on Windows 10..any tips on what I can do to solve this? This is the only casino where I’m actually winning..lol.
Hi Franky, if your still having this issue I would suggest to email the casinos support and see if they have a solution.
We now have many casino listed that accept US players, take a look at https://www.realmoneyaction.com/casinos/
Hello, I would like to know if I am from Iowa can I play at your online real money casino? Thank you
Hi Bruce, yes you can play real money casino games online at the casinos listed on this page.