Where Is Sports Betting Legal? Every State, Explained (2026)

As of mid-2026, sports betting is legal in 39 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. More than 30 of those offer statewide online betting; the rest limit wagering to casinos, tribal venues, or lottery-run systems. Eleven states, including the two biggest, California and Texas, still have no legal sports betting at all. The newest arrival is Missouri, the 39th state, live since December 1, 2025. The newest online law is Wisconsin’s, signed in 2026.

Every state wrote its own rules, which is why “is it legal here?” ranges from “yes, pick any of 12 apps” to “yes, but exactly one app” to “not for years.” This page is the map. The state pages linked throughout go deep on each market.

The map, in three lists

✅ Statewide online betting (mobile apps work): Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida*, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire*, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon*, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island*, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, plus Washington, D.C.*

*Asterisked = single-operator or lottery-run: legal, but you don’t choose your app. Florida is the extreme case; see below.

🏟️ Legal but limited (retail-only, tribal-only, or venue-tied): Arkansas, Delaware, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada**, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington

**Nevada has full mobile betting but still requires one-time in-person registration at a partner casino to activate an app (confirmed 2026).

❌ No legal sports betting (the 11 holdouts): Alabama, Alaska, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah

The four market models

Knowing your state’s model tells you what “legal” actually means there:

The same lens explains app availability everywhere. See which betting apps are legal in your state for the operator-by-operator view, including the five jurisdictions that still allow betting at 18 (New Hampshire, Montana, Rhode Island, D.C., and Wyoming; Kentucky left that club in April 2026 when it raised its age to 21).

When did sports betting become legal? The 30-second history

• 1992: Congress passes PASPA (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act), freezing sports betting nationally. Nevada keeps its sportsbooks under a grandfather clause; Delaware, Oregon, and Montana keep limited legacy games.
• May 14, 2018: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down PASPA in Murphy v. NCAA, ruling Congress can’t commandeer states into keeping betting bans. New Jersey, which spent seven years litigating for this, wins. Legalization becomes a state-by-state choice.
• 2018–2020: The first wave. New Jersey launches within weeks; Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and a dozen others follow. Tennessee opens the country’s first online-only market on November 1, 2020.
• 2021–2024: The big-state wave. Arizona, then New York (whose 2022 online launch instantly became the largest market), Ohio, Massachusetts, Kentucky, North Carolina. Florida’s Seminole compact survives its five-year court war, ending at the Supreme Court in June 2024.
• 2025–2026: The stragglers move. Missouri squeaks through a ballot measure by a few hundred votes and launches December 1, 2025. Wisconsin signs online betting into law in 2026. What remains are the hard cases.

Who’s next? The holdout watchlist

Ranked by realistic odds of moving:

• Georgia & Minnesota: perennial “almost” states. Bills advance most years and die in chamber politics; both are genuine candidates for the next legislative cycle.
• Oklahoma: tangled in state-tribal compact politics; legalization likely arrives as part of a broader tribal gaming deal.
• Texas: 60% public support, every pro-team owner on board, but a biennial legislature and a Senate blockade. Next window: the 2027 session. Launch 2028+ even if it passes.
• California: the biggest prize in American gambling, frozen since voters demolished both 2022 measures ($450M spent, Prop 27 lost 82 to 18). Nothing on the 2026 ballot; a tribal-led 2028 initiative is the realistic scenario.
• Alabama, South Carolina, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah: no serious momentum. Utah and Hawaii are the only two states with no legalized gambling of any kind.

The wildcard: prediction markets

One 2026 storyline scrambles the whole map. Federally regulated prediction markets (Kalshi and others) offer sports-outcome contracts nationwide, including in California and Texas, under CFTC derivatives regulation rather than state gambling law. In April 2026 the Third Circuit sided with the platforms (state law likely preempted); the Ninth Circuit appears headed the other way; the CFTC sued three states; Arizona filed criminal charges. However it resolves (circuit split, Supreme Court, or CFTC rulemaking), it will redraw what “legal in your state” means. We track it because your state’s betting rules may soon matter less than federal ones.

State-by-state guides

Deep dives on each market: which apps work, the age rule, what’s restricted, what’s changing.

• Florida: legal, but Hard Rock Bet only, the compact monopoly explained
• California: not legal, and why, the $450M ballot disaster and the 2028 path
• Texas: not legal until 2027 at the earliest, the biennial-legislature bottleneck
• Tennessee: legal and online-only, 12 apps, zero casinos, one unique tax
• Missouri: the newest legal state, a launch that passed by hundreds of votes
• Which apps are legal where you live, the four market models by operator

More state pages ship regularly. The goal is all 50.

FAQ

What’s the minimum betting age? 21 in almost every legal state. Five jurisdictions allow 18+: New Hampshire, Montana, Rhode Island, Washington D.C., and Wyoming.

Do I have to live in a state to bet there? No, you have to be there. Apps verify physical location by geolocation; visitors can bet like residents while inside the state.

Is betting from a banned state ever legal? No. Sites that accept you from California or Texas are offshore and unregulated. No state or federal agency protects your funds there.

Why did everything change in 2018? One Supreme Court case: Murphy v. NCAA (decided May 14, 2018). New Jersey argued PASPA unconstitutionally forced states to keep bans on their books. The Court agreed, and the state-by-state era began.

How fast is the map still changing? Missouri launched in December 2025, Wisconsin passed its online law in 2026, and Kentucky changed its age rule in April 2026. This page carries a “last verified” date because the map genuinely moves every few months.

Sources

• Murphy v. NCAA, 584 U.S. 453 (2018): Supreme Court opinion
• Fox Sports: where is sports betting legal (2026 full list)
• CBS Sports: where all 50 states stand on online sports betting
• Missouri Gaming Commission: launch notice (Dec 2025)
• Skadden: Third Circuit affirms Kalshi injunction (Apr 2026)
• AP: Wisconsin legalizes online sports betting (2026)