STATE-BY-STATE-POLICY MAP
HOW AMERICA REGULATES SPORTS BETTING
Since 2018, sports betting has gone from illegal almost everywhere to legal in 38 states — and no two of them run it the same way.
Click any state for its full profile: who takes the bets, how the money is taxed, and what protects the bettor.
Policy Landscape
The State of Gambling in America, 2026
The big picture
Americans legally wagered roughly $167 billion on sports in 2025 — about 95 percent of it through phones — generating close to $3 billion in state taxes. Missouri, the newest market, launched in December 2025. And yet the biggest states are still on the sidelines: California, Texas, and Georgia — over 75 million people combined — have no legal sports betting at all.
How we got here
For 25 years, a federal law called PASPA banned sports betting nearly everywhere outside Nevada. In May 2018 the Supreme Court struck it down, ruling that Congress couldn't force states to enforce a federal prohibition. New Jersey launched legal betting within a month — and a state-by-state land rush followed. That's why American sports betting is not one system but roughly forty of them, each a different experiment in regulating the same activity.
The money fights
The original deals are being renegotiated everywhere. 2025 was the year of the tax hike — New Jersey, Maryland, and Louisiana all raised operator rates, and Illinois pioneered the per-bet fee, which operators promptly passed through to bettors as 25-to-50-cent surcharges. The pattern to watch: states treat sportsbooks as a revenue source that can't leave, operators respond with worse odds and fewer promotions, and the cost quietly migrates to the bettor.
The new frontier: prediction markets
The biggest fight in American gambling right now is between states and federal law. Platforms like Kalshi offer "event contracts" on game outcomes, regulated federally by the CFTC as financial markets — available at 18 instead of 21, even in states with no legal betting. State regulators call it unlicensed bookmaking; courts have split (New York won, Tennessee was blocked), and the question is expected to reach the Supreme Court. Meanwhile FanDuel and DraftKings launched their own prediction apps, using the federal side door into states that lock them out.
Crackdowns
States spent 2025–26 closing loopholes: sweepstakes casinos banned in New York and California, pick'em fantasy games forced to convert or shut down, and offshore enforcement shifting to the payment rails — Florida's attorney general went straight after Visa and Mastercard.
Consumer-Protection
After a wave of betting-integrity scandals, the conversation shifted from whether to legalize toward protecting people inside legal markets. New York is set to become the first state requiring monthly statements showing exactly what each user deposited, wagered, won, and lost. Player props are under scrutiny. And in Congress, the SAFE Bet Act would set federal minimum standards — ad bans during live broadcasts, affordability checks, a national self-exclusion list. It hasn't passed, but it frames where the debate is heading.
WHY THIS SITE EXISTS
The Human Cost
31,000
Monthly contacts to the national problem gambling helpline
49%
Of 2025's help-seekers were aged 18-34
3x
Growth in a state's helpline calls if legal betting was rolled out
17%
30%
Share of bets that are parlays, from 2018-2024
Research on young adults finds phone-based sports bettors have roughly 2.4 times the odds of gambling problems compared with peers who don't bet, and nearly two-thirds of American adults report having gambled before age 21. None of this means betting can't be recreation. It means the stakes of getting regulation right are real people's money and mental health — which is what this site is actually about.
THE QUESTION UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING
The promise of legalization was channelization — moving bettors out of the illegal market and into licensed, protected ones. Every policy on this map is a bet on that idea.
Does a 51% tax fund schools, or push bettors offshore? Did Illinois's per-bet fee raise revenue, or drive away a quarter of its bets? Compare the states and judge for yourself. That's the point of the map.
GLOSSARY
Key Terms, Explained
Handle — The total amount wagered. Not profit, just volume: most of it gets paid back out to winners.
Hold / GGR — What the sportsbook keeps after paying winners (gross gaming revenue), typically 7–10% of handle. The number most states tax.
Vig — The book's built-in fee. Odds of −110 mean risking $110 to win $100; the extra $10 is the vigorish.
Parlay — One bet combining multiple outcomes; all must hit. Bigger payouts, much worse odds — and the fastest-growing bet type in America.
Prop bet — A wager on something inside a game (a player's points, first touchdown). At the center of most integrity scandals.
Promo / bonus bets — Free-bet credits used to attract customers. Whether operators can deduct them from taxable revenue is a quiet fight worth millions.
Regulator — The state agency that licenses operators and enforces the rules. Every state profile names its regulator.
License / skin — Permission to operate, usually tethered to a casino or track; a "skin" is an online brand riding on a partner's license.
Geolocation — The tech confirming you're physically inside a state when you bet. It's why an app works in Manhattan and stops at the bridge.
Tribal compact — A negotiated deal between a state and a sovereign tribal nation under federal law (IGRA). Florida's whole market runs on one.
Revenue share — The compact alternative to taxes: a negotiated cut in exchange for exclusivity. Guaranteed money — until a dispute pauses the checks.
Handle tax vs. revenue tax — Nearly every state taxes what books win; Tennessee alone taxes what bettors wager — 1.85% of every dollar staked.
Per-wager tax — Illinois's invention: a flat 25–50¢ state fee on every online bet, on top of the revenue tax. Operators passed it to bettors.
PASPA — The 1992 federal ban on sports betting outside Nevada, struck down by the Supreme Court in 2018 (Murphy v. NCAA). Where this map begins.
Channelization — The core goal of legalization: moving bettors from illegal markets into legal, taxed, protected ones. The measuring stick for every policy here.
Offshore sportsbook — An unlicensed site based outside the U.S.: illegal, untaxed, and offering zero consumer protection.
iGaming — Online casino games (slots, blackjack, poker). Legal in only about seven states and stalling everywhere else.
DFS / pick'em — Daily fantasy sports, the legal gray zone that predates modern betting. Pick'em games looked so much like props that states forced conversions.
Sweepstakes casino — A dual-currency workaround offering casino games without a license. Banned in New York and California; more states lining up.
Prediction market / event contract — A federally regulated exchange for trading on real-world outcomes, including games. Functionally betting, legally a derivative — that's the fight.
CFTC (not the FTC) — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversees derivatives — and through them, prediction markets. The FTC is a different agency with no role here.
SAFE Bet Act — The proposed federal law setting national minimum standards: live-broadcast ad bans, affordability checks, a national self-exclusion list. Not passed — yet.