When you look at gambling legislation in the US, it becomes clear pretty quickly that there are huge variations in what is and is not legal depending on the state a player resides in. At some point in the not-too-distant past, all forms of commercial casino-style gambling outside of Las Vegas and Atlantic City were essentially prohibited. It is not that it did not happen, but it did not do so legally.


Changing times


Things have changed a good deal in recent years. It probably started with states legalizing riverboat gambling, which may have opened the door to a more permissive view of gaming overall. Then the federal PASPA ban on sports betting was overturned, and sports betting is now legal, in some form or other, across almost all the states, with more than half allowing online sports betting.

Federally regulated prediction markets, while not strictly gambling, have opened up the opportunities for most Americans to take a financial position on the outcome of almost any future event.


However, the one area of gambling in which the US lags behind similar markets is online casino gambling. Despite the US being the iconic home of casino entertainment, it is still very much a land-based affair. Online Casino gambling for real money is still only available in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Delaware, West Virginia, and Rhode Island. Maine has passed the necessary legislation but has yet to launch. While many states argue against online casino gambling on moral grounds, concerns about how it would affect land-based casinos are amongst the most oft-quoted reasons in the anti-lobby.


Let the numbers do the talking.


If you take the emotion out of it and look at the numbers, it quickly becomes apparent that it is not a case that people playing online means business is draining away from bricks-and-mortar venues.

They are, in fact, two very different markets. Online casino games are dominated by online slots and hyper-casual games that people can play on the go, while land-based casino clientele are often attracted to more traditional table games. Of course, there is crossover: table games are also popular online (particularly live-dealer varieties), and land-based slots are an essential part of a physical casino's revenue, but it is not as simple as saying more online gambling leads to fewer casino visits.


More paths to the same goal


In addition, it is not as simple as there being two channels – land-based and online casino. In a country where people enjoy casino games, it was inevitable that operators were going to find ways to bring gambling games to a wider audience than restrictive state legislators currently allow.

There is also a whole other world of social and sweepstakes casinos that allow players to use virtual currency to play online casino games, and these are not covered by gambling legislation. Even though players use virtual currencies (Gold and Sweeps Coins), they can still win real-money prizes in many jurisdictions. Because these are so much more widely available, this market sector is outperforming its real-money counterpart.

Online casinos are a whole other market that is not replacing the traditional casino but bringing in an entirely different demographic.


There is no doubt that it can be relatively confusing working out what is available where you reside. Even if you have figured out what you can do in your state, if you are vacationing elsewhere or visiting family and friends across the state border, everything can change.

The rules are pretty hard and fast for real-money online casinos, but the laws keep changing for social and sweepstakes ones. Finding the best online casinos in the USA can feel a bit like kissing lots of frogs in the hope of finding a prince. Fortunately, a service like Casino.org can lead players straight to Prince Charming (or even better, a great, safe, fair online casino).


What is apparent is that a good number of the leading online casino sites are backed by land-based casinos. While some are stand-alone operators, many land-based sites have either partnered with digital operators or developed their own online offerings.


Looking at the statistics


Overall, a recent Gallup poll found that US adults are actually gambling less frequently, with participation down from 64% to 45% between 2016 and 2026, but it was lottery participation that recorded the largest decline. Casino gambling also fell, with 14% of US adults saying they had visited a casino gaming floor in the last year, compared with 26% a year earlier. Internet gambling was one of the few sectors where respondents said they were participating more, but the change was marginal.

The drop in in-person casino gambling cannot be attributed solely to iGaming and is more likely due to a variety of economic factors and societal trends. Gallup noted that the differences between the categories are too large to fully explain why land-based participation has dropped so much.


The recent polling also showed that it is the wealthier and older Americans who are most likely to visit physical casinos. Other statistics suggest that online slots and hyper-casual gaming attract a younger demographic. Reports of individual gambling behavior do not necessarily reflect what the figures say when looking at the growth in the gambling industry when measured by gambling revenue in dollars.

It could be that increased gambling revenue is a result of a smaller pool of Americans gambling more frequently or playing for higher stakes.


There is also the distinct possibility that people who participate in sweepstakes and prediction markets do not classify it as gambling. Therefore, when asked by researchers if they participate in gambling, they say that they are not. When it comes to the disparity between numbers of gamblers and gross gambling revenues and profits, with real-money gambling revenue easier to track now, it could simply be that the figures are more accurate than they were when gambling revenues were largely flowing offshore.


Who to trust?


There is an old saying that everything is "lies, dammed lies, and statistics", which highlights how easy it is to manipulate and misinterpret data. The phrase was popularized by Mark Twain and seems to be as true today as it ever was. Those in favor of less restrictive gambling will say that online gambling is growing the market, and those against will use the same statistics to lobby in favor of stricter controls. It all depends on which perspective you take and who has the most persuasive argument.