Is Online Gambling Legal in Your State?
Online gambling is a rapidly-expanding industry that’s becoming more prevalent. Players have their pick of casino games, sports betting, lottery and bingo to enjoy; with many states legalizing this form of gambling in order to raise funds for essential state services. Yet some remain concerned about its societal effects; they believe gambling leads to higher crime rates, political corruption and compulsive gambling; as well as being a form of regressive tax on poorer people – these arguments however aren’t convincing enough for most Americans that gambling is harmless.
State legislatures can create their own gambling laws and decide if and when various forms of gambling will be legalized within their borders. While some states have banned all forms of gambling altogether, others, like Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have legalized gaming; West Virginia will soon join these ranks, giving its residents access to top rated sites like BetMGM Casino online and Caesars Casino when gaming becomes legalized there.
Notably, certain forms of online gambling are neither explicitly legal or illegal under federal law; this has created an unruly patchwork of rulings and legislation at the state level; for example daily fantasy games were not around when UIGEA passed and so some states did not consider them gambling; as more forms of online gambling become popular this could happen again.
Utah is widely known for having some of the strictest gambling laws in the nation; however, tribal casinos do allow sports betting. Online casino legalization will likely occur later as Utah works to establish its sports betting industry first.
Florida currently allows retail casino gaming, pari-mutuel wagers on horse races and legalized state lotterie. Unfortunately, Florida does not explicitly authorize Daily Fantasy Sports although DraftKings and FanDuel provide Daily Fantasy contests in Florida. State lawmakers could consider legalizing iGaming in future legislative sessions but this could take until 2023 before becoming reality.
New Mexico law only currently permits legal online gambling through Native American-owned sites; efforts have been underway to expand this offering to include other casinos but its regulatory structure makes this difficult. To launch a legal online casino, operators must meet regulatory and licensing requirements in each individual state before the site can start operating legally. Furthermore, each state must approve it for launch before starting operations on it. A lengthy process, licensing casino websites requires years. Recently, however, the New Mexico Senate began working on legislation to simplify this process and legalize online gambling in New Mexico if approved – though for now New Mexican residents can use mobile sportsbooks instead to place bets.