Why Gambling Remains Illegal in 11 States

Most Americans appear to be on board with legal gambling, but those who oppose it are not equally distributed. 

There are a few states where there is either tepid demand or active resistance:

Idaho

Idaho is perhaps the simplest case that will be discussed here. The law currently on the books states the following:

Risking any money, credit, deposit or other thing of value for gain contingent in whole or in part upon lot, chance, the operation of a gambling device or the happening or outcome of an event, including a sporting event, the operation of casino gambling including, but not limited to, blackjack, craps, roulette, poker, baccarat or keno.

No state legislator has put forth a bill to amend that law and Idaho showed itself to be hostile to the industry in the past when it banned daily fantasy sports back in 2016.

At this point local politicians clearly don’t see legal gambling as an issue that moves voters and with the population of Idaho sitting below two million, there isn’t enough financial upside in the market to justify a massive lobbying effort. 

Idaho may legalize gambling at some point, but there’s no evidence to suggest that will happen in the near future.

Due to its significant Mormon population, this state has a unique cultural profile that has not created a welcome environment for the gaming industry.

In anticipation of PASPA’s repeal, the state legislature passed a bill preemptively banning online sports betting and gambling back in 2012 and it hasn’t been challenged since.

Utah’s anti-gaming sentiment has been strongly linked to the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose official website lays out a strong condemnation of any form of gambling saying that ‘is motivated by a desire to get something for nothing’ which is ‘spiritually destructive’.

The church’s stance on this issue is likely intractable, but Utah’s shifting demographics could change the trajectory of legal gambling in the state. A Journal of Religion and Demography study from December 2023 estimated that Utah is now only 42% Mormon and after declining every single year since 2001 when it sat at 53%. 

This number falls well below the LDS church’s membership numbers — by just under 750,000 in 2021 for instance — but the study explains the discrepancy by noting ‘There are thousands of Utahns who have died, joined other churches, or moved out of the state who are nevertheless counted as Latter-day Saints and will continue to be counted for decades.’

Landing on a literally accurate number may not be possible as there is plenty of gray area when it comes to religion affiliation, but the broader trend is noteworthy. 

As Utah becomes less Mormon, its legislation could change as a result.

Alaskans are represented by a governor - Republican Mike Dunleavy – who has shown a taste for legalizing sports betting in the past, but his constituents don’t appear to share his enthusiasm.

Dunleavy introduced House and Senate bills in 2020 that would create a state lottery and pave the way for sports betting in The Land of the Midnight Sun but neither progressed out of committee. Neither did HBC 385, a 2022 attempt by Democratic representative Adam Wool.

Alaska finds itself in this category despite that modest legislative momentum because there are multiple historical examples of its populace rejecting pro-gaming proposals. 

Back in 1990 a measure to legalize casino gambling was thwarted by a significant margin (65-35) and more recently in 2008 the creation of a commission to authorize and regulate gambling facilities was defeated with 61.36% of voters rejecting it.

Public sentiment may have moved to some degree since then, but no meaningful counter evidence to suggest it has — and it’s notable that the voting margin on the issue was similar at two points of history 18 years apart. 

In some cases, there isn’t any specific reason to believe that the population of a state is against gambling, but legislation backing it can’t seem to get off the ground. 

That could mean the laws on a state’s books require a particularly large majority to pass a constitutional amendment, or it simply can’t find momentum in legislative sessions:

Hawaii

Hawaii could arguably be placed in the category above as it currently has some of the strictest anti-gambling laws in the United States alongside Utah.

That said, there has been more momentum for legalization legislation in Hawaii than Idaho, Utah, or Alaska, and a stronger reason to believe The Aloha State will legalize gambling.

Just this year multiple bills passed in the House (HB 2765 and HB 3376), but neither could find purchase in the Senate. The lack of support didn’t wasn’t the result of a singular factor, but perhaps the biggest reason they didn’t pass was the lack of an established tax rate that would allow for revenue projections.

Until a more specific bill is crafted it will have a hard time becoming law, but there is some weight behind the legalization effort in Hawaii with representatives from DraftKings and The Sports Betting Alliance both testifying to the state’s House Committee on Economic Development in February.

Legal gambling isn’t imminent in Hawaii, but there is some momentum for it.

Alabama is a difficult state to characterize because there are multiple factors putting negative pressure on legal gambling.

One is cultural as the leadership of the largest individual religious group in the state — Baptists at an estimated 31% of the population — has come out strongly against gambling. In February, leaders of the Alabama Baptist State Convention co-signed a letter that said the following:

PQ: "We urge Alabama Baptists to contact state legislators and other elected officials, especially those who have publicly voiced support for any expansion of gambling in our state  – whether a lottery, casinos and so-called 'gaming,' which is also gambling – all of which, if legalized, would bring destruction and devastation to the lives of countless families."

While Baptists don’t have quite the same sway the LDS church does in Utah, they wield meaningful power in the state. Another factor comes down to relations with local Indigenous tribes that already own three casinos in the state, and would be a part of any legal gambling structure.

State senator Greg Albritton told the Alabama Political Reporter last December that the biggest economic powerhouses in the state — the Business Council of Alabama and Alabama Farmers Federation — were not enamored with the idea of Poarch Band of Creek Indians and other potential casino owners rivaling their power.

PQ: “The big mules don’t want the competition,” Albritton said. “This is all political. Everything about this deal makes sense for the state. But it’s political, so nothing happens. It used to be that the fight was over the morals of the issue, but we’ve got gambling everywhere now and that’s not really a concern. Now it’s just political.”

The most recent attempt to get a legalization bill in place passed in the Senate  but in the House it was amended to exclude legalization of full casinos, table games, or sports betting. 

Reportedly it faced opposition from both the Alabama Farmers Federation and Poarch Band of Creek Indians for different reasons, demonstrating how difficult it will be to find a bill that will satisfy all of the state’s powerbrokers.

The biggest barrier to legal sports betting in Georgia appears to be a procedural one. 

In 2024 the State Senate passed a bill to legalize sports betting by a comfortable 35-15 margin, but turning that into law would require a constitutional amendment needing the support of 38 senators — and overwhelming 76 percent of the chamber.

That is an exceedingly high threshold to clear, even on a relatively bipartisan issue, and debate over how to spend the tax revenue of a legal gaming industry has made for enough resistance that getting such a resounding majority of the Senate to back any individual bill is extremely difficult.

Finding common ground won’t be an impossible task, but getting bipartisan agreement on the allocation of funds is never easy.

Just like in Georgia, passing gambling legalization legislation in Texas requires crossing a difficult threshold of support in the Senate.

Specifically 21 of 31 Senators would have to be on board, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has insisted that the Republican party (which holds at 18-13 majority in the chamber) is not sufficiently behind a legalization effort to justify holding a vote.

That claim is not verifiable, and it is possible that Patrick’s own opposition to gambling and belief that the issue ‘doesn’t move any votes’ is playing a role in his reluctance to put it on the Senate floor.

What the case may be, it’s impossible for the bill to progress unless it can earn a vote in the state’s upper chamber. That may be disappointing to Texans who supported legalizing online sports betting 47-36 in an April poll.

Minnesota is one of the more puzzling cases as it is difficult to pin down precisely what’s prevented legislation from passing in the past few years.

In September, Republican Rep. Pat Garofalo went so far as to compare the situation to the star-crossed Minnesota Vikings teams of the 1960s and 70s that were talented but never able to win a Super Bowl:

It’s like in classic Minnesota sports fashion, we were up by a touchdown with two minutes left, and we had the ball, and we turned it over,” Garofalo told the station. “The bad guys scored, and it went into overtime. We missed a field goal and now it’s – you know, it’s done.

Part of the issue is that the state’s Senate is gridlocked with 33 Republicans and 33 Democrats in the chamber and a single vacant seat. Current vice presidential candidate Tim Walz — who has served as governor of the state since 2019 — said he’d approve a bill earlier this year, but one never reached his desk.

Unlike some states where the role of indigenous tribes has been contentious, lawmakers have made proposals that include tribal-exclusive sports betting recently, but despite support from tribes and local professional teams it still hasn’t resulted in a legislative win.

While it tends to be an oversimplification to attribute legislative outcomes to one person there are a few states where the lack of gambling legalization can be placed at the feet of an individual lawmaker.

South Carolina

The specific bottleneck in The Palmetto State is its most powerful legislator. Governor Henry McMaster is staunchly anti-gambling. 

The position of the Republican — who isn’t up for re-election until 2026 — was outlined by spokesman Brandon Charochak in a Statehouse Report story in August.

In April, a bill did pass in the House before dying without a vote in the Senate, but getting it to the governor’s desk might be an exercise in futility anyway, as McMaster has veto power.

Until the Republican leaves office, it will be difficult to mount a strong legalization effort.

Indigenous tribes are involved in the gaming industry in one way or another in a number of states, but they have had a greater influence on the legislative batting in a few cases.

A notable instance that was resolved recently was the situation in Florida where the Supreme Court opted not to hear a challenge to the Seminole Tribe’s monopoly on betting in the state. In a couple of the remaining states without legal gambling, figuring out the precise role of local tribes has been a significant stumbling block.

California

In 2022 voters were presented with dual ballot measures regarding sports betting in the state that resulted in an advertising blitz with over $400 million was spent. 

The first — Proposition 26 — was backed by California’s tribes and would’ve allowed for sports betting at tribal casinos. The second was supported by industry giants like DraftKings and FanDuel and would’ve allowed for online and mobile sports betting, and was opposed by indigenous leaders.

Neither came close to passing as Proposition 26 gained just 33.02% of the vote while Proposition 27 was even less popular (17.72%).

Professor David McCuan, chairman of the political science department at Sonoma State University theorized that intensity of the political battle over the future of gaming in the state made voters sour on both propositions.

Whenever we have dueling ballot measures, and the competitors have an arsenal of dollars ... the competitors will go nuclear. And in a nuclear war everybody loses.The most powerful money in California politics is on the ‘No’ side of ballot measures.

The issue was not revisited this year, and the soonest it could come up again is 2026. If that happens, whatever new proposals come to pass will have to sort out how local tribes will participate in any legal betting framework.

At the Indian Gaming Tradeshow and Convention in Anaheim this year James Siva, the Vice Chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians made it clear that he thinks the role of the tribes in California’s gambling industry should be a central one.

While there has been some legislative progress in The Sooner State — like HB 1027 passing in the House by a solid 66-26 margin — getting a deal done acceptable to legislators and tribal leaders has been a challenge.

As it stands today local tribes have gaming exclusivity and some recent proposals have extended that exclusivity to in-person sports betting, but not the far more lucrative mobile and online sports betting market, which has been a non-starter. 

State senator Bill Coleman, who co-authored HB 1027 but witnessed it die in the Senate, summed up the situation like this in March:

There's been a history of a strained relationship [between Oklahoma’s government and the tribes] although it is getting better. So, I think it's just nobody, neither party's got a strong will right now to sit down and just roll their sleeves up.

From the perspective of tribal leaders, an agreement doesn’t seem imminent.

“Any discussion of sports betting really never left the ground after that because there was just too much posturing, too much disagreement on how the industry worked,” Matthew Morgan, Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association chairman told Oklahoma Voice in July.

Until more common ground is found, the state’s legalization push will be stuck in neutral.

Because the status of legalized gambling is being decided on the state level, each effort to make betting available to the public is subject to its own set of issues ranging from cultural backlash to legislative idiosyncrasies.

Some of the states that are holding out are similar to each other, and though we have categorized them in this research for ease of understanding, no two are quite alike. 

What the state-by-state resistance to legalize betting across the United States has in common is that it's unlikely to be successful in the long term. It’s possible that a couple of states that have a standout lack of interest like Utah and Idaho may resist in the years to come, but in most cases the current fight is over the best way to offer legal gambling, not whether it is acceptable as a concept.

It’s unclear which state will be the next domino to fall, although it’s unlikely to be California or South Carolina as the former can’t revisit the issue until 2026, and the latter is unlikely to until it gets a new governor. 

Minnesota will be a state to watch, considering how close it got in 2024 and the fact that its government appears to have a better relationship with local tribes than many of its counterparts around the country.

As is the case with much legislative gridlock, finding a way forward in holdout states will take a combination of cooperation, compromise, and local legislators perceiving a passed bill as a political win. It’s not easy for all of that to come together, but if it were impossible, 39 other states wouldn’t have managed it.