Read this first: legal sports betting does not mean legal blackjack

The single most common mistake American players make is assuming that because their state has a legal sportsbook app, they can also play blackjack on it. They cannot, in most states, and the gap is enormous.

In those states the sportsbook app on your phone is fully legal and the casino tab either does not exist or leads to a free-play social product with no cash payout. The distinction matters for how you read every bill on this page, because legislatures separate the two verticals deliberately. There are four buckets, and only one of them gets you a blackjack table.

When you see a headline that says a state “legalized online gambling,” check which of those four buckets it belongs to before you assume blackjack is coming.

The six status categories used on this page

Every state and the District of Columbia is assigned exactly one of the following statuses. The definitions are strict on purpose, because most trackers blur “a bill was filed” into “the state is close.”

A related but distinct obstacle is tribal exclusivity, where a compact gives federally recognized tribes the sole right to conduct Class III gaming. We flag those in the notes and cover the mechanics on our tribal gaming page.

Master table: all 50 states and the District of Columbia

Bill numbers below refer to the most recent measure that would authorize online casino gaming, not online sports betting and not internet lottery. Where a state has never had such a bill, it appears in the “none filed” groups at the end. Tax rates for live states are the current statutory rates; for pending or failed bills they are the rates the bill proposed. Sessions listed as 2025 to 2026 are two-year legislatures in which a bill filed in the odd year survives into the even year. The table is split by status so you can read your own group without scanning 51 rows.

Live markets and enacted laws

State	Status	Most recent online casino bill	Session	Lead sponsor	Tax rate	Stage as of Aug. 2026
New Jersey	LIVE	A2578, P.L. 2013 c.27; amended by A5803, P.L. 2025 c.66	2013, amended 2025	Sen. Raymond Lesniak (2013)	19.75 percent since July 1, 2025	Launched Nov. 21, 2013; authorization runs through 2028
Delaware	LIVE	HB 333, Delaware Gaming Competitiveness Act	2012	Rep. John Viola	Lottery revenue-share model, not a flat tax	Launched Nov. 2013; platform moved to Rush Street Interactive in 2024
Pennsylvania	LIVE	HB 271, Act 42 of 2017	2017	Rep. Jason Ortitay	54 percent online slots, 16 percent table games and poker	Launched July 15, 2019
West Virginia	LIVE	HB 2934, West Virginia Lottery Interactive Wagering Act	2019	Del. Jason Barrett	15 percent privilege tax	Launched July 2020
Michigan	LIVE	HB 4311, Lawful Internet Gaming Act, PA 152 of 2019	2019	Rep. Brandt Iden	20 to 28 percent, graduated	Launched Jan. 22, 2021
Connecticut	LIVE	HB 6451, Public Act 21-23	2021	Governor’s bill	18 percent, rising to 20 percent in Oct. 2026	Launched Oct. 19, 2021
Rhode Island	LIVE	S 948 and H 6348	2023	Senate President Dominick Ruggerio	61 percent online slots, 15.5 percent online table games	Launched March 2024; single operator
Maine	PASSED, NOT LIVE	LD 1164 (HP 769), Public Law 2025 Chapter 538	2025 to 2026	Rep. Aaron Dana	18 percent of adjusted gross internet gaming receipts	Became law without the governor’s signature Jan. 11, 2026; no launch date

Two entries deserve a caveat. Delaware’s model is a lottery revenue share rather than a percentage tax written into a gaming statute, so a single number would mislead. Maine’s rate is set in Public Law 2025 Chapter 538, and because the market has not launched, no revenue has been collected under it; treat the figure as the statutory rate rather than an observed one.

Active bills as of August 2026

State	Most recent online casino bill	Session	Lead sponsor	Tax rate	Stage as of Aug. 2026
Illinois	HB 4797, Internet Gaming Act	2026	Rep. Edgar Gonzalez Jr.	25 percent	Re-referred to Rules Committee, March 27, 2026
Ohio	HB 298 and SB 197	2025 to 2026	Reps. Brian Stewart and Marilyn John; Sen. Nathan Manning	28 percent (HB 298); up to 40 percent (SB 197)	Both pending in committee; the 136th General Assembly runs through Dec. 2026

Bills that failed in 2025 or 2026

State	Most recent online casino bill	Session	Lead sponsor	Tax rate	Stage as of Aug. 2026
Indiana	HB 1432	2025	Rep. Ethan Manning	26 percent, then 22 to 30 percent	Never heard in Ways and Means; leadership declined to move iGaming in 2026
Maryland	SB 761 (referendum) and SB 885 (implementation)	2026	Sen. Ron Watson	Set by implementing bill; prior versions ranged from 20 to 55 percent	SB 761 withdrawn by sponsor March 13, 2026
Massachusetts	H.4431, An Act relative to internet gaming	2025 to 2026	Rep. David Muradian Jr.	15 percent	Sent to study March 16, 2026; shelved until the 2027 to 2028 session
New Hampshire	SB 168	2025	Sen. Timothy Lang	45 percent	Stalled in Senate Ways and Means; charitable gaming operators opposed
New York	S2614 and A6027	2025 to 2026	Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr. and Assemb. Carrie Woerner	30.5 percent	Left in Senate Racing, Gaming and Wagering; sponsor stood down in June 2026
Virginia	SB 118 and HB 161	2026	Sen. Mamie Locke; House companion	20 percent	Passed both chambers in different forms; conference committee collapsed March 14, 2026
Wyoming	HB 162	2025	Rep. Robert Davis	16 percent	Died in House committee for want of a second; no 2026 vehicle

Constitutionally blocked, no bill filed

State	Why a statute is not enough
Alabama	No lottery and no commercial casinos; an amendment is required. The 2024 HB 151 gaming package, carried by Rep. Chris Blackshear, did not include internet casino
California	Tribal exclusivity; Propositions 26 and 27 both failed in 2022
Colorado	Gaming limited to three mountain towns by Article XVIII
Florida	Amendment 3 (2018) reserves casino expansion to voter initiative; Seminole compact controls
Georgia	Constitution bans casino gambling; sports betting resolutions have failed repeatedly
Idaho	Article III, Section 20 bars casino gambling
Nebraska	2020 amendment authorizes games of chance only at licensed racetracks
North Dakota	Constitution limits gambling; tribal casinos operate under compact
South Carolina	Article XVII, Section 7 permits only the state education lottery
South Dakota	Casino gaming constitutionally confined to Deadwood and tribal land
Tennessee	No casinos of any kind; online sports betting is the only legal product
Texas	Article III, Section 47 bars lotteries and gift enterprises; no 2026 regular session
Utah	Article VI, Section 27 forbids the Legislature from authorizing any game of chance
Washington	RCW 9.46.240 makes internet gambling a class C felony; tribal exclusivity

No activity, no bill filed

State	Situation as of Aug. 2026
Alaska	No commercial casino industry
Arizona	Tribal exclusivity under the 2021 compacts
Arkansas	Amendment 100 fixes casino gaming at four licensed sites
District of Columbia	Online sports betting only, run through the DC Lottery
Hawaii	One of two states with no legal gambling of any kind
Iowa	Commercial casinos and legal sports betting, no internet casino vehicle
Kansas	State-owned casino model complicates internet expansion
Kentucky	Historical horse racing machines occupy the political space
Louisiana	Parish-by-parish gaming approvals make a statewide product awkward
Minnesota	Eleven tribal nations hold exclusive Class III rights; no sports betting either
Mississippi	Legislative energy is on mobile sports betting, not casino games
Missouri	Sports betting launched Dec. 1, 2025; casino expansion needs a constitutional vote
Montana	Lottery-run sports betting only; biennial legislature, next regular session 2027
Nevada	Interactive gaming licensed for poker only; biennial legislature, next session 2027
New Mexico	Tribal compacts govern Class III gaming; no online sports betting statute either
North Carolina	Online sports betting live since March 2024; no casino vehicle
Oklahoma	Tribal exclusivity under the model gaming compact
Oregon	Lottery and tribal casinos; no commercial casino industry to license
Vermont	Sports betting launched Jan. 2024 through the Department of Liquor and Lottery
Wisconsin	Tribal exclusivity; no commercial casinos and no sports betting outside tribal land

The seven live states in detail

These are the only jurisdictions where you can legally play real-money blackjack against a licensed operator from inside the United States. Each runs on a different market model, and the model shapes what you get: how many operators compete for your deposit, how deep the table game library goes, how aggressive the promotions are.

Tax rates matter to players more than people expect, because a state that taxes online slots at 54 percent and tables at 16 percent produces a very different product mix than one with a single flat rate.

New Jersey

New Jersey is the reference implementation. The enabling statute is P.L. 2013, Chapter 27, which originated as Assembly Bill 2578 and was signed on Feb. 26, 2013, after Gov. Chris Christie conditionally vetoed two earlier versions. Internet gaming went live on Nov. 21, 2013. Sen. Raymond Lesniak had pushed the concept since 2010 and is generally credited as its architect.

Regulator: the Division of Gaming Enforcement, inside the Department of Law and Public Safety, licenses and polices internet gaming. The Casino Control Commission handles casino licensure itself. That two-body split is unusual and is one reason New Jersey’s enforcement record is thicker than most states’. Our regulator guide breaks down who does what in each state.

Market model: open licensing tethered to Atlantic City. Only a holder of an Atlantic City casino license may hold an internet gaming permit, but each licensee may contract with multiple online brands, which is why New Jersey has more than two dozen distinct casino apps for nine physical properties. Servers and live dealer studios must be physically located in Atlantic City.

Tax: 19.75 percent of gross internet gaming revenue, paid into the Casino Revenue Fund. That rate took effect July 1, 2025 under A5803, enacted as P.L. 2025, Chapter 66, replacing the 15 percent rate in place since 2013. The same law moved internet sports wagering from 13 percent and fantasy sports from 10.5 percent to the identical 19.75 percent figure, with internet sports wagering carrying an additional 1.25 percent for Atlantic City marketing. It was a budget measure, not a policy shift on gaming.

Sunset: New Jersey does not authorize internet gaming permanently. P.L. 2023, Chapter 71, which moved as A2190, set the current authorization to expire in 2028 unless reauthorized. The original 2013 law ran ten years; a 2023 fight over a two-, five- or ten-year extension ended at five. Expect the argument again in 2027.

Delaware

Delaware was first. The Delaware Gaming Competitiveness Act of 2012, House Bill 333, was signed by Gov. Jack Markell on June 28, 2012, and full casino games went live in November 2013, a couple of weeks before New Jersey. Delaware’s approach was and remains the most centralized in the country.

Regulator: the Delaware Lottery, within the Department of Finance, operates the games. The Division of Gaming Enforcement inside the Department of Safety and Homeland Security handles investigations and licensing of vendors.

Market model: a lottery monopoly delivered through the state’s three racinos, Delaware Park, Bally’s Dover and Harrington Raceway. One platform, one set of games, no competition on price or promotions. From 2013 to 2023 it ran on 888 technology; in 2023 the Lottery selected Rush Street Interactive as its vendor under a five-year contract with five one-year renewal options, and the BetRivers-powered platform went live in 2024. The switch produced a step change in volume: internet casino gross revenue rose from roughly $15 million in 888’s final full year to roughly $102 million in Rush Street’s first twelve months.

Tax: Delaware does not levy a flat percentage tax. Revenue is divided under a lottery revenue-sharing formula among the state, the vendor and the three racinos, with the state’s share by far the largest. Any tracker that lists a single tax figure for Delaware is simplifying.

Blackjack notes: one platform means one blackjack lineup for the whole state. Delaware is also an original member of the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement, which pools online poker liquidity with Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan and West Virginia. That agreement covers poker only, and by design it cannot cover blackjack, which is banked by the house rather than played against other players.

Pennsylvania

Statute: Act 42 of 2017, which moved as House Bill 271 and was signed Oct. 30, 2017. Interactive gaming launched July 15, 2019. Pennsylvania’s package was the largest single gaming expansion any state had passed to that point, adding internet casino, internet lottery, satellite casinos, airport gaming and video gaming terminals at truck stops in one bill.

Regulator: the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, which publishes monthly interactive gaming revenue by casino and by vertical.

Market model: licensed to the state’s existing category 1, 2 and 3 casino licensees, each of which could buy interactive gaming certificates by vertical. The fee structure was $4 million for each of three verticals, slots, table games and poker, or $10 million for all three, with unclaimed certificates then offered to qualified gaming entities from outside the state. Each certificate holder may operate skins.

Pennsylvania deliberately taxed online table games at roughly the same rate as retail table games and taxed online slots at the punishing retail slot rate. There was no change to the interactive gaming rates in 2025 or 2026. The live fight in Harrisburg has been over untaxed skill game terminals in bars and convenience stores, which casino licensees argue compete with regulated product while paying nothing. Any resolution there does not alter the 54 and 16 percent interactive rates.

West Virginia

Statute: the West Virginia Lottery Interactive Wagering Act, House Bill 2934, which became law in March 2019 without the governor’s signature. The first sites went live in July 2020, making West Virginia the fifth live market. The regulator is the West Virginia Lottery Commission.

Market model: capped licensing tied to the state’s five casino properties, Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, Mountaineer, Wheeling Island, Mardi Gras and The Greenbrier. No more than five interactive wagering licenses may be issued. Each licensee may run up to three skins. The application fee is $250,000 and licenses renew every five years for $100,000.

Tax: a flat 15 percent privilege tax on adjusted gross interactive wagering receipts, the same rate for slots, table games and poker. That is the lowest headline online casino tax in the country and a large part of why West Virginia, with a population under 1.8 million, has a functioning competitive market at all.

Blackjack notes: West Virginia signed on to the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement in 2023, again for poker liquidity only. The state has hosted in-state live dealer studios, and the flat 15 percent rate gives operators no reason to prefer slots over blackjack.

Michigan

Statute: the Lawful Internet Gaming Act, Public Act 152 of 2019, introduced as House Bill 4311 by Rep. Brandt Iden and signed Dec. 20, 2019. Launch was delayed by rulemaking and the pandemic; the market opened Jan. 22, 2021 and immediately became the second largest in the country. The regulator is the Michigan Gaming Control Board.

Market model: the only genuine commercial-plus-tribal hybrid in the United States. Three Detroit commercial casinos and twelve federally recognized tribes may each hold an internet gaming license, for a theoretical maximum of fifteen operators, each with one skin. Tribal operators offer statewide internet gaming under the same act rather than under a separate compact product, which is why Michigan is the model every state with significant tribal gaming looks at first. The mechanics of how that was negotiated are covered on our tribal gaming page.

Tax: graduated on adjusted gross receipts under MCL 432.314, at 20 percent below $4 million, 22 percent from $4 million to $8 million, 24 percent from $8 million to $10 million, 26 percent from $10 million to $12 million and 28 percent above $12 million. Detroit’s three commercial licensees pay an additional municipal share to the city. Tribal licensees pay under a separate formula.

Connecticut

Statute: Public Act 21-23, introduced as House Bill 6451 at the governor’s request and signed May 27, 2021. Online casino games went live Oct. 19, 2021, after the Department of the Interior approved amended tribal compacts. The regulator is the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, Gaming Division.

Market model: a two-operator duopoly, and the tightest live market in the country. Only the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Mohegan Tribe may offer online casino games, each through a single commercial partner. In practice that means two apps for the entire state. The Connecticut Lottery Corporation received sports wagering authority but not casino authority. If you want online blackjack in Connecticut, you have exactly two choices, and both are tribally licensed.

Tax: 18 percent of gross online casino gaming revenue for the first five years after launch, rising to 20 percent for at least the following five years. Because the market opened Oct. 19, 2021, the 20 percent rate takes effect in October 2026. This was written into the 2021 act rather than imposed later, so it is a scheduled step-up, not a tax increase fight. Sports wagering is taxed at 13.75 percent.

Rhode Island

Statute: Senate Bill 948 and its House companion H 6348, signed by Gov. Daniel McKee on June 22, 2023, with the operative provisions effective Jan. 1, 2024. Senate President Dominick Ruggerio was the lead Senate sponsor. Bally’s went live with a technical trial on March 1, 2024 and opened to the public on March 5, making Rhode Island the seventh live state. The regulator is the Division of Lotteries within the Department of Revenue, with the Department of Business Regulation handling licensing of vendors and employees.

Market model: a single-operator monopoly. Bally’s Corporation holds the exclusive right through its two Rhode Island properties, Bally’s Twin River Lincoln and Bally’s Tiverton. There is one app and no competition. Rhode Island also runs the only mandatory in-person registration requirement any live state has imposed, though it has been relaxed over time; check the operator’s current terms before assuming you can open an account entirely online.

The host towns of Lincoln and Tiverton take 1.45 percent on slots and 1 percent on table games. That split is not a rounding difference. Rhode Island keeps 61 cents of every dollar of online slot revenue and 15.5 cents of every dollar of online table game revenue, which is why the state’s live dealer product is comparatively serious for a market of about 1.1 million people. Bally’s operates a roughly 4,000 square foot live studio at Twin River Lincoln running blackjack, roulette, baccarat and game shows around the clock. If you want to understand why a small state built a real live table operation, look at that 15.5 percent line.

Maine: passed, but not live

The bill: LD 1164, carried as House Paper 769 and titled “An Act to Create Economic Opportunity for the Wabanaki Nations Through Internet Gaming.” Rep. Aaron Dana, who represents the Passamaquoddy Tribe in the Legislature, was the lead sponsor. It was referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Veterans and Legal Affairs in March 2025 and reported out on May 30, 2025 with a divided report, the majority recommending passage as amended. The Legislature approved it in June 2025 and it sat over the interim. Gov. Janet Mills, who had opposed earlier versions, announced on Jan. 8, 2026 that she would allow it to become law without her signature. It is chaptered as Public Law 2025, Chapter 538, and creates a new Chapter 39 in Title 8 of the Maine Revised Statutes.

The model: tribal exclusivity, and it is the most aggressive version of that model in the country. Only Maine’s four federally recognized tribes may conduct internet gaming: the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the Penobscot Nation, the Mi’kmaq Nation and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians. Each contracts with a commercial platform. Caesars is aligned with three of the four, holding licenses through the Penobscot Nation, the Mi’kmaq Nation and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians. DraftKings is aligned with the Passamaquoddy Tribe. Maine’s two commercial casinos, Oxford Casino and Hollywood Casino Bangor, are shut out entirely.

The rate: the operator collects and remits 18 percent of adjusted gross internet gaming receipts to the director of the Gambling Control Unit for distribution to the Treasurer of State. The statute earmarks that money in unusually specific slices: 2.5 percent to a dairy stabilization program, 1.5 percent to the Opioid Use Disorder Prevention and Treatment Fund, 2 percent to the Emergency Housing Relief Fund, 5 percent to the Maine Veterans’ Homes Stabilization Fund and 1 percent to the Fund for a Healthy Maine. Those earmarks were a large part of how the bill passed.

The regulator: the Gambling Control Unit inside the Maine Department of Public Safety. Its published definition of internet gaming names blackjack first: “a card game, dice game or other game of chance approved by the director, including but not limited to blackjack, poker, dice, craps, roulette or baccarat, offered through an approved mobile application or other digital platform.” That matters, because a handful of state statutes are vague enough that whether blackjack is covered turns on regulator discretion. Maine’s is not vague.

Why it has not launched: three things are in the way

Reasonable projections put the earliest realistic Maine launch in late 2026 and the more likely one in early 2027. We are not putting a date on it, because every date announced so far has passed without a launch.

Where bills failed, and who killed them

This is the part most trackers skip. A bill number and a “failed” label tell you nothing. What tells you something is which interest group showed up to the hearing, what they said, and whether that interest group will still be there next year. Here are the 2025 and 2026 failures in the states that were actually close.

State	Bill	Proposed rate	How it died	Who opposed it
Virginia	SB 118 and HB 161	20 percent	Conference committee collapsed March 14, 2026	Nobody on ideology; the House and Senate could not agree on lottery hold harmless funding
New York	S2614 and A6027	30.5 percent	Never moved out of committee; sponsor stood down June 2026	Hotel and gaming trades unions, video lottery facilities, and a governor’s office that never endorsed it
Maryland	SB 761 and SB 885	Set by the implementing bill	Hearing canceled March 10; sponsor withdrew March 13, 2026	Six commercial casino operators split, casino labor against, plus a referendum requirement
Massachusetts	H.4431	15 percent	Sent to study by unanimous committee vote March 16, 2026	The state treasurer, legislative leadership and public health advocates
Indiana	HB 1432	26 percent, then 22 to 30 percent	Never heard in Ways and Means; Speaker pulled it again Jan. 22, 2026	Thirteen land-based casinos and the counties that depend on them
New Hampshire	SB 168	45 percent	Stalled in Senate Ways and Means	Charitable gaming operators and the nonprofits they fund
Wyoming	HB 162	16 percent	Motion to report out favorably received no second	Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone gaming operations on the Wind River Reservation

Virginia: died in conference, 20 feet from the finish line

Virginia came closer than any state in 2026. Two internet gaming bills passed their respective chambers: Senate Bill 118, chief patron Sen. Mamie E. Locke, and House Bill 161. Both would have put internet gaming under the Virginia Lottery Board, required an applicant to already hold a casino gaming operator license, charged a $500,000 initial licensing fee and taxed adjusted gross internet gaming revenue at 20 percent.

The bills did not die on ideology. They died on arithmetic about where the 20 percent goes. SB 118 split the proceeds 3 percent to a Gaming Regulatory Fund, 2 percent to the Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund and 95 percent to a Modern Public Education Fund. HB 161 split them 5 percent to the problem gambling fund, 6 percent to an Internet Lottery Hold Harmless Fund running until 2037 and 89 percent to the general fund, moving to 95 percent to the general fund after Jan. 1, 2027.

That Internet Lottery Hold Harmless Fund is the real story. Virginia already sells lottery products online, and lottery revenue is dedicated to K-12 education. The House position was that internet casino gaming would cannibalize online lottery sales and that schools should be made whole out of casino tax receipts before anything else was distributed. The Senate position was that education should simply take 95 percent of the whole pot. The conference committee could not bridge it before adjournment on March 14, 2026, and both bills died. Virginia’s five authorized casino projects were the intended licensees and remain the constituency pushing for this. A 2027 bill will have to settle the hold harmless question in drafting rather than in conference.

New York: no governor, no bill

Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr., who chairs the Senate Committee on Racing, Gaming and Wagering, filed Senate Bill 2614 on the first day of the 2026 session, his fourth consecutive attempt. The Assembly companion, A6027, was carried by Assemb. Carrie Woerner. The bill would have amended the racing, pari-mutuel wagering and breeding law to authorize interactive gaming and interactive lottery gaming, taxed base taxable gross gaming revenue at 30.5 percent, charged existing casinos, video lottery facilities, licensed sportsbook operators and tribal entities a $2 million license fee and charged independent platform providers operating under their own brand $10 million. Addabbo’s public estimate was roughly $1 billion a year in recurring tax revenue plus about $150 million in first-year license fees.

It never moved out of committee. Addabbo stopped pushing before the session ended in June 2026 and said plainly that the reason was that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office never endorsed the bill. There was no veto. In Albany, a major gaming expansion without executive support does not get a floor vote, and the downstate casino licensing process consumed the administration’s gaming attention for years. The opposition is not primarily moral; it is the hotel and gaming trades unions and the existing video lottery facilities, both of which fear that a statewide internet casino product undercuts the labor-intensive properties the state just spent years licensing. S2614 technically remains in the Senate Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee until the term ends Dec. 31, 2026, but it is finished.

Maryland: the referendum problem

Maryland is a two-step state. Because commercial gaming expansion in Maryland has been submitted to voters before, Sen. Ron Watson’s approach has been to pair a constitutional referendum bill with an implementation bill. In 2026 that was Senate Bill 761, “Expansion of Commercial Gaming, Internet Gaming Referendum,” cross-filed with House Bill 1255, which would have authorized the State Lottery and Gaming Control Commission to issue internet gaming licenses and directed revenue to public education contingent on voter approval in November 2026; and Senate Bill 885, the implementing framework that would only take effect if the referendum passed.

The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee canceled the scheduled March 11 hearing on March 10. Watson withdrew SB 761 on March 13, 2026, without a public explanation. That is the third consecutive year a Maryland iGaming bill has failed.

The opposition is concentrated and well organized: the state’s six commercial casino operators are split, casino labor is against, and the politics are complicated by the fact that Maryland voters were told in 2008 and again in 2012 that casino expansion would fund education, a promise that produced years of arguments about supplanting rather than supplementing school budgets. A referendum requirement also forces a bill to survive both a session and a statewide campaign, roughly doubling the money and risk. Maryland did advance a separate bill prohibiting sweepstakes-model online casinos in the same session, which tells you where the appetite actually is.

Massachusetts: sent to study, which means dead

House Bill 4431, “An Act relative to internet gaming,” sponsored by Rep. David K. Muradian Jr. of Grafton, would have let the Massachusetts Gaming Commission license the state’s three existing casino operators for up to three online skins each, for a maximum of nine apps, taxed at 15 percent of adjusted gross revenue. The bill was referred to the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies in August 2025, drew a three-hour hearing on Nov. 13, 2025, and had its reporting deadline extended to March 16, 2026.

Opposition came from an unusual combination: the state treasurer, who runs the lottery and worries about cannibalization, legislative leadership concerned about gambling harm, and public health advocates. Massachusetts has an unusually well-funded gambling research program attached to its 2011 casino law, and that research infrastructure gives skeptics data that legislators in other states do not have. Muradian has signaled he will refile in the 2027 to 2028 session.

Indiana: leadership pulled the plug twice

Indiana’s 2025 vehicle was House Bill 1432, sponsored by Rep. Ethan Manning, which combined online casino and internet lottery. It would have let casinos and racinos buy an online gaming license for $500,000 with three skins per property, taxed internet gaming at 26 percent through July 2026 and then on a sliding 22 to 30 percent scale, and raised the online sports betting tax from 9.5 percent to 20 percent. It cleared the House Public Policy Committee but was never heard in Ways and Means, which killed it.

For 2026, sponsors split the two verticals, reasoning that an internet lottery bill alone would be easier to pass. The lottery bill cleared a House committee in early January. On Jan. 22, 2026, House Speaker Todd Huston confirmed that neither internet lottery nor online casino would advance. Instead Indiana passed House Bill 1052, banning dual-currency sweepstakes casinos outright, signed by Gov. Mike Braun in March 2026 and effective July 1, 2026.

Indiana is the clearest example of the land-based cannibalization argument in the country. The state has thirteen casinos, several in economically fragile river towns, and their operators and the counties that depend on them have consistently argued that an app on every phone eats the properties. Whether that is empirically right is contested, and the Michigan and Pennsylvania revenue data suggest online play grows the total market rather than simply shifting it. In Indiana the argument has won three years running anyway.

New Hampshire: charitable gaming got there first

Senate Bill 168, sponsored by Sen. Timothy Lang with several co-sponsors, would have let the New Hampshire Lottery Commission license no fewer than three and no more than six online gaming platforms, each partnered with an existing licensed gaming facility in the state, at a 45 percent tax on gross online gaming revenue, split 50 percent to the general fund, 25 percent to an education fund and 25 percent to a property tax exemption reimbursement fund.

It stalled in the Senate Ways and Means Committee. New Hampshire is a genuinely unusual case because its retail casino sector is a charitable gaming sector: licensed operators run games and route a share to nonprofit charities. Those charities and the operators who serve them mounted the opposition, backed by a study commissioned through the state’s charitable gaming study commission that concluded online expansion would cannibalize rather than complement the existing rooms. When your opposition is a coalition of local charities, the political cost of voting yes is high and the bill does not move. That 45 percent rate, among the highest ever proposed in an American iGaming bill, also gave commercial operators little reason to lobby hard for it.

Wyoming: the tribes said no

House Bill 162 in the 2025 session, sponsored by Rep. Robert Davis, would have authorized interactive gaming, including slots, blackjack and poker, under the Wyoming Gaming Commission, using licensing terms modeled on the state’s existing online sports betting framework and taxing operators at 16 percent of monthly interactive gaming revenue. The first $300,000 collected annually was earmarked for county problem gambling programs.

The bill died in the House Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee in an unusual way: a member moved to report it out favorably and no other member seconded the motion. The opposition was led by the operators of Wyoming’s tribal casinos, principally the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone gaming operations on the Wind River Reservation, which argued that a statewide internet product would pull revenue off the reservation without any compact benefit. Problem gambling concerns were the secondary argument. Wyoming’s 2026 budget session required a two-thirds vote just to introduce a non-budget bill, and no iGaming measure cleared that threshold. A legislative committee looked at gaming revenue distribution and tax rates in other states during the 2026 interim without advancing a bill.

Ohio: still technically alive, and going nowhere fast

Ohio is the one state in the “failed” narrative that is not formally dead. Two competing bills were introduced in May 2025 and both remain in committee in the 136th General Assembly, which runs through December 2026. They are mutually exclusive in their core design choice: whether an online casino license is a privilege reserved for companies that already employ Ohioans in a building, or a product license any qualified operator can buy.

Ohio’s existing casino and racino operators back the first and oppose the second. That testimony ratio is the reason neither bill has moved. An original HB 298 provision setting a March 31, 2026 launch deadline has already lapsed.

Illinois: filed, referred, buried

Rep. Edgar Gonzalez Jr. filed House Bill 4797, creating the Internet Gaming Act, on Feb. 2, 2026. It is materially identical to the version that stalled the year before: Illinois Gaming Board oversight, a limit of three branded skins per licensee, a 25 percent privilege tax on internet gaming revenue directed to the State Gaming Fund, plus responsible gaming and workforce provisions. First reading was Feb. 6, it was assigned to the Gaming Committee on March 4, and it was re-referred to the Rules Committee on March 27, 2026 under House Rule 19(a). In Illinois, a re-referral to Rules is where bills go to be forgotten.

Illinois has the most complicated gambling politics of any state on this list because it has four separate incumbent constituencies to satisfy: casinos, racetracks, the lottery, and roughly 8,000 licensed video gaming terminal locations in bars and truck stops. The VGT operators are the decisive bloc, they are geographically distributed across every legislative district, and they see internet casino as a direct competitor. Add a state that raised its sports betting tax twice in three years and operators who are wary of Illinois rate risk, and a 25 percent bill has few enthusiastic backers on either side.

Structurally blocked: the states where a bill is not enough

In a dozen states a sponsor could file a perfect internet gaming bill, get it through both chambers unanimously and have the governor sign it, and there would still be no legal online blackjack. Something above the statute is in the way. There are three kinds of block, with very different timelines.

Block type one: a constitutional prohibition

• Utah. Article VI, Section 27 has barred the Legislature from authorizing any game of chance, lottery or gift enterprise since the 1896 constitution. Utah is one of two states with no legal gambling of any kind. A 2024 resolution to put a lottery on the ballot did not get out of committee. Nothing is close.
• Texas. Article III, Section 47 directs the Legislature to prohibit lotteries and gift enterprises, with carved-out exceptions added over decades for charitable bingo, charitable raffles and the state lottery. Casino gaming of any form requires a joint resolution and a statewide vote. Texas also has a biennial legislature, so there was no regular session in 2026 and the next one convenes in January 2027.
• Georgia. Article I, Section II, Paragraph VIII bans lotteries and casino gambling, with exceptions for the state lottery and charitable bingo and raffles. Georgia has spent several sessions on sports betting resolutions without passing one, and casino gaming, let alone online casino gaming, is a further step behind that.
• South Carolina. Article XVII, Section 7 permits only the state education lottery. There are no casinos in South Carolina and no realistic path to online blackjack without an amendment.
• Idaho. Article III, Section 20 expressly prohibits casino gambling and specifies that the state lottery may not include casino-style games. The language is unusually explicit and was written to foreclose exactly this.
• Tennessee. Article XI, Section 5 prohibits lotteries, amended in 2002 to permit a state lottery. Tennessee has no casinos at all. Its online sportsbook market, which launched in 2020, is the state’s only legal wagering product and does not touch casino games.
• Alabama. No lottery, no commercial casinos, no constitutional authorization for either. A comprehensive gaming package in 2024 that would have created a lottery, casinos and a gaming commission passed the House and failed in the Senate by a single vote. Even that package did not include internet casino gaming. Alabama would need to build the entire structure before online blackjack became a question worth asking.

Block type two: gaming is constitutionally confined to a place

• Colorado. Article XVIII, Section 9 confines limited gaming to Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek. Colorado has legal online sports betting because voters approved it separately in 2019, which is a good illustration of the sports-versus-casino distinction: one product required a statewide vote and got it, the other has not been asked.
• South Dakota. Casino gaming is constitutionally confined to Deadwood, plus tribal casinos operating under compact. Sports betting was extended to Deadwood and then, by a 2024 constitutional amendment attempt, considered for statewide mobile without success.
• North Dakota. The constitution sharply restricts gambling; tribal casinos operate under compacts and charitable gaming is the main non-tribal form.
• Nebraska. Voters approved games of chance in 2020, but the amendment authorizes them only at licensed racetrack enclosures. An app is not a racetrack enclosure.
• Arkansas. Amendment 100, approved in 2018, authorizes casino gaming at four specific licensed locations. Online sports betting flows through those licensees. Statewide internet casino gaming would require going back to the voters.
• Florida. Article X, Section 30, adopted as Amendment 3 in 2018 with about 71 percent support, gives voters the exclusive right to authorize casino gambling in Florida, which in practice means a citizens’ initiative and a 60 percent supermajority. The Seminole Tribe’s 2021 compact is separate: it is federal-law based and covers statewide mobile sports betting through a hub-and-spoke structure. It does not authorize commercial online casino gaming, and Amendment 3 makes creating one extraordinarily difficult.

Block type three: tribal exclusivity

Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, states negotiate compacts with federally recognized tribes governing Class III gaming. Many of those compacts grant the tribes substantial exclusivity in exchange for revenue sharing, and they typically include a poison pill: if the state authorizes competing commercial gaming, the tribes’ revenue-sharing obligations lapse. That turns a policy question into a budget question, because a legislature that authorizes online casino gaming can lose hundreds of millions in existing tribal payments the same day.

• California. Article IV, Section 19 prohibits casinos of the type operating in New Jersey and, following Proposition 1A in 2000, authorizes Class III gaming on tribal land. In 2022, Propositions 26 and 27 both failed, the second by a landslide, after the most expensive ballot fight in American history. There is no online casino bill in California and no serious prospect of one until the tribal coalition wants it.
• Washington. Washington is the harshest. RCW 9.46.240 makes knowingly transmitting or receiving gambling information over the internet a class C felony, subject to an exception for activity authorized under state gambling law and tribal-state compacts. Sports betting is legal in Washington only inside tribal casinos. This is the only state where a player-side criminal statute is squarely on the books.
• Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona. All have compacts that give tribes the controlling position in Class III gaming. Arizona authorized event wagering in 2021 through a compact amendment; Minnesota has not authorized sports betting at all despite years of trying, largely because the tribal coalition and the racetracks cannot agree. In none of these states is a commercial online casino statute plausible without the tribes writing it.

The counterexample is Michigan, which is why it gets so much attention. Michigan passed a statute under which tribes offer statewide internet gaming alongside commercial licensees, and it worked. Maine went the opposite way and gave the tribes exclusivity, and it is now in federal court. Both are being watched closely by legislators in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Oklahoma.

Nevada: the state everyone gets wrong

Assembly Bill 258, passed in 2011, directed the Nevada Gaming Commission to adopt interactive gaming regulations and amended NRS 463.750 accordingly, with internet poker written into the statutory definition of interactive gaming. The bill was substantially rewritten after the April 2011 federal online poker indictments, and as adopted it made any license contingent on a federal authorization that never came. Assembly Bill 114 in 2013 removed the contingency and authorized interstate compacts, and Nevada’s poker market opened that year.

The Commission’s Regulation 5A framework covers interactive gaming generally, but Nevada has only ever approved poker, and the reason is commercial rather than legal: the Strip’s operators do not want a statewide app competing with a business built on getting people into buildings. Nevada’s legislature is biennial, so there was no 2026 regular session and the next convenes in February 2027. No online casino bill is pending.

If you are in Las Vegas and want to play blackjack, you walk to a table. If you want to play it on your phone for money, there is no licensed way to do it.

What is realistically in play for 2027

Predicting legislatures is a good way to look foolish, so this section is about structural position rather than odds. Here is where each serious candidate actually stands going into the 2027 sessions.

Everything else needs a constitutional amendment, a compact renegotiation or a shift in tribal politics. Those happen on a three-to-six-year clock. If you are waiting for legal online blackjack in Texas, Georgia, California, Florida or Washington, do not plan around it.

The counter-trend nobody was tracking in 2023

Two things moved faster in 2025 and 2026 than online casino legalization did.

Our sweepstakes page covers what that model actually is and where it still functions.

The federal layer, and why sports betting spread while blackjack did not

State bills do not operate in a vacuum. Four federal instruments set the outer boundary, and understanding them explains the single strangest fact on this page: that 39 states plus the District of Columbia took online sports bets in 2026 while seven took online blackjack bets.

Session calendars: why some states cannot act in a given year

A recurring source of bad reporting is treating every state as though it can pass a law any January. Several cannot. This table covers the states where the calendar itself is a constraint on the next attempt.

State	Session structure	What that means for 2027
Texas	Biennial, odd years only, 140 days from the second Tuesday of January	First opportunity since 2025; nothing can happen again until 2029 if it fails
Nevada	Biennial, odd years only, 120 calendar days from the first Monday of February	Only window before 2029
Montana	Biennial, odd years only, 90 legislative days	Only window before 2029
North Dakota	Biennial, odd years only, 80 legislative days	Only window before 2029
Virginia	Annual; 60 days in even years, 30 days extendable to 45 in odd years	2027 is the short session, a real constraint on a complex gaming bill
Wyoming	General session in odd years up to 40 legislative days; budget session in even years requiring a two-thirds vote to introduce non-budget bills	2027 is the general session, the easier of the two for a gaming bill
Indiana	Long session in odd years through late April; short session in even years	2027 is the long budget session, historically when Indiana moves gaming policy
Maryland	Annual, fixed 90 days from the second Wednesday of January	A referendum bill must pass in 2027 to reach the November 2028 ballot
Ohio	Two-year General Assembly; bills die at the end of each	HB 298 and SB 197 expire in Dec. 2026 and must be refiled in the 137th General Assembly
New York	Two-year term; bills carry from the odd year into the even year	S2614 expires Dec. 31, 2026; Addabbo must refile for the 2027 to 2028 term

How to read an online casino bill if you care about blackjack

If you want to follow a bill yourself rather than wait for a headline, these are the clauses that determine whether you will actually get a blackjack table, and they are usually not the clauses that get reported.

Our live dealer section covers how those studios are built and certified, which is the practical consequence of clause two.

Common questions about this tracker

Sourcing, corrections and how fast this changes

Every bill number, tax rate and date on this page was checked against a state legislature, a state regulator, a state constitution or an enacted public law, and the page carries the date it was last checked. Where a fact could not be confirmed at a primary source, we have said so in the text rather than rounding it into a confident sentence. Two things on this page are explicitly unresolved as of Aug. 23, 2026: the status of the threatened people’s veto campaign against Maine’s law, and the outcome of the Churchill Downs litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine.

For who oversees what, see our list of state gaming regulators. Primary sources for the busiest states include the New York Senate bill page for S2614, the Ohio House page for HB 298, the Massachusetts page for H.4431, the Maryland General Assembly page for SB 761 and the Maine Gambling Control Unit’s internet gaming section. This page is information, not legal or tax advice. It does not tell you whether any particular act is lawful where you are, and gambling law varies by state, by tribal jurisdiction and sometimes by county. If money or liability is at stake, talk to a lawyer licensed in your state. For what happens to your winnings once you have them, see our page on tax on blackjack winnings, which covers why the $1,200 slot reporting threshold does not apply to table games.

Before you play

A legal market is a safer market, but it is not a safe bet. The house edge on blackjack sits near half a percent under good rules and optimal play, and it climbs sharply on 6:5 payouts, dealer-hits-soft-17 tables and side bets. Over enough hands, the math wins. Set a deposit limit before you start rather than after you need one, and use the self-exclusion and cool-off tools every licensed operator is required to provide.