100% Legal and Safe Regulated Online Gambling in the United States

As previously mentioned, in the United States of America, gambling laws are passed on the state level and governed by local authorities and regulatory agencies. While there are certain federal laws that also deal with gambling, states are largely given free rein to regulate this area however they see fit.

Every state has its own body in charge of overseeing and enforcing laws and legislation related to gambling. These regulatory agencies — like the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement or Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board — have a very important role in the gambling landscape.

First and foremost, these agencies are tasked with reviewing and approving gaming license requests. This means that every gambling operator seeking to do business in the state has to go through an extensive review process in order to be approved by the relevant state body and be granted the appropriate license before they can take a single wager.

The gambling commission’s job does not stop once the license is issued, though. They continue to oversee the operations of all licensed operators (online and land-based alike), making sure they do things by the book and stick to all relevant laws.

Another important job of state gaming commissions in the US is to serve as mediators between players and operators. If a player has a complaint about a casino or a bookmaker that they cannot resolve privately, they will turn to the gaming commission for help and resolution.

Although gambling is largely regulated on a state-by-state basis, recent years have seen some states enter interstate gambling compacts, allowing them to offer their services across the borders, with the other states in the pact. These agreements have mostly been created to cater to online poker operators, who can significantly benefit from shared liquidity and larger player pools.

To summarize, with the current legislation in the US, players can only participate in online gambling activities while physically present in a state where gambling is legal. While you do not have to be a resident of that particular state, you have to be within its borders for the duration of your gaming session and geolocation services will confirm your location to the operator before you are allowed to gamble. Playing from a different state is prohibited, even if you were to somehow get around geolocation technologies put in place to prevent it.

Why Choose a Legal and Regulated US Gambling Site?

While US players have always had access to a range of unlicensed and unregulated offshore sites, we strongly advise staying away from such operators. Participating in gambling activities on an illegal site puts your financial and personal information at great risk.

You should always go with a legal and regulated option available to you for a number of reasons, including:

• Safety of your funds
• Your personal information is protected and will not get into the wrong hands
• The gaming regulator has jurisdiction and can help you in the event of any disputes
• All games are regularly tested for fairness and randomness
• Access to responsible gambling tools and resources

How to Know if a US Gaming Site Is Legal?

Of course, it goes without saying that not everyone is an expert on online gaming and regulations, especially when they can vary so much from state to state. For an ordinary player, the biggest concern is often that they cannot be certain if a particular site they want to play on is actually legal. Luckily, it is easy to find out if a site is legit or not, once you know what key clues to look out for.

Signs that an online gambling site is fully legal, licensed, and regulated:

• The Gaming Regulator Seal: All licensed US sites will have a seal of approval from the state gaming authority displayed prominently in the page footer. You can also confirm this information is accurate, by looking on the state regulator’s website, which will have a list of all the licensed operators in that state.
• Land-Based Casino Connection: All regulated sites across the United States must have a land-based partner in the state in which they operate. This information should be readily available on the site and can usually be verified on the site of the land-based casino as well.
• A Name You Know: The licensing process in the United States is very strict and thorough, requiring rigorous background checks and substantial licensing fees. This means that only established and well-known industry names pass through the requirements and are able to obtain a license. Legitimate licensed operators will be established brands that have a name that you are likely to have already heard of and are somewhat familiar with.
• Clear Terms of Service: All US-licensed sites have very clear and concise terms of service available on the site, stipulating how old you have to be to play, what state the site is licensed to operate in, etc., as required by law. If terms are missing or seem unclear, it is probably not a regulated operator.
• Missing Customer Service Info: Legitimate, legal gambling sites aim to keep their customers happy and part of that is providing satisfactory customer service. You should be able to easily locate information on how to contact the operator in case of any issues. Customer service phone number, email address, and/or live chat info should be clearly listed on the site.

History of Online Gambling Legislation in the United States

In-person gambling has long been an American institution, with the iconic Las Vegas being regarded as the casino capital of the world. However, the US has had a rather turbulent relation with online gambling over the years.

For about a decade, international online casinos, sports betting sites, and internet poker rooms operated in the US. Players were able to access poker rooms like PokerStars and Full Tilt, as well as a variety of online casinos and sportsbooks.

However, in 2006 the infamous Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act — better known under its acronym UIGEA — was passed and everything changed. While UIGEA did not specifically make online gambling illegal, it did make it illegal for financial institutions to facilitate transactions to and from online gambling operators.

UIGEA created a lot of confusion in the industry and caused some operators — like partypoker, for example — to withdraw from the market. Others decided to ignore it and kept offering services to those in the US. While the sites that continued to operate in the US had to deal with some banking issues due to the UIGEA, things seemed pretty normal for the most part.

Then, in 2011, perhaps the single most significant event in the US online gambling history took place. On April 15, 2011, the US Department of Justice unsealed indictments against 11 individuals associated with three major online poker operators — PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet. The DOJ seized the operators’ domains as well as 75 bank accounts from 14 countries and made it clear that offshore gambling operators were no longer welcome in the US.

Some believed that this was a step in the right direction and saw it as a sign that US officials were looking to regulate online gambling on the federal level. However, for the next couple of years, there was almost no movement on the federal front and very little progress within individual states.

In April 2013, Nevada became the first state to offer regulated online poker in the United States. However, the games were only available to players physically present in the state. In the months to follow, two more states joined the fray, launching their own regulated online gaming markets. Delaware began offering online poker in October 2013 and online casinos games one month later, in November 2013. New Jersey launched both online poker and online casino games in November 2013.

Up to this point, most efforts remained on the state level, as creating interstate poker networks was legally questionable due to the Wire Act.

The Wire Act of 1961 was enacted with the goal of preventing interstate sports betting using telephone lines. However, online gaming opponents used the pre-internet law to advance the narrative that interstate online poker was illegal. However, in February 2014, New Jersey and Delaware entered into the first-ever Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement.

Aptly named, the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MIGA) allowed the online poker operators that were offering their products in both NJ and DE the ability to combine their player pools. This meant that players in those two states could compete against each other in the same tournaments and cash games on the same network.

New Jersey joined MIGA in late 2017, creating the first tri-state player pool in the US, launching in April of 2018. Almost immediately, WSOP.com — operating on the 888poker platform — took the lead in the New Jersey market, demonstrating the value of interstate online poker player pools.

To this day, WSOP remains the only online poker operator to offer shared liquidity across its network, despite the fact that legal regulated online poker is now offered in Pennsylvania (legalized November 2019) and Michigan (legalized January 2021).

West Virginia (legalized June 2019) and Connecticut (legalized June 2021) have also legalized online gaming in recent years. While companies have been eager to move forward with online casinos and online sports betting, the population of these smaller states has made poker operators apprehensive about launching without a clear path to shared liquidity.

Although federal courts have ruled the Wire Act does not apply to online poker, without a law explicitly making it legal or a commitment by the DOJ not to prosecute under the arcane law, state gaming regulators have been hesitant to allow interstate online poker. But hopes are high that shared liquidity will come to Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2023 and possibly even to West Virginia and Connecticut.

Sports Betting and PASPA

Another big legal issue that needed to be addressed was that of US legislation surrounding online sports betting and sports betting in general. With the 1992 PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act), lawmakers made sports betting illegal across the country, with the exception of just a few states.

Nevada was the most notable exception, with full-service sportsbooks being a part of many casinos in the state. Other states — including Delaware, Montana, and Oregon — were exempt from the complete prohibition affecting most of the country because they already had state legislation on the books that allowed for some limited forms of sport betting.

Then, in 2018, the state of New Jersey won a historic battle in the US Supreme Court. The court ruled that PASPA was unconstitutional and allowed each individual state to regulate sports betting within its own borders, however it sees fit.

Following this historical decision, operators in a great number of US states set up brick-and-mortar sportsbooks and online gambling sites, allowing their residents and visitors (as long as they are US citizens) to legally bet on sports. The move by states to offer 100% legal and regulated sports betting is still underway with more new states opening their markets every year.

New York was the most recent state to legalize online sports betting. The Empire State passed new legislation at the end of 2021 allowing for mobile sportsbooks and recommending nine operators to receive sports betting licenses. On January 8, 2022, four NY sportsbooks went live and took their first bets, to the great excitement of NY sports fans.