Virginia Online Gambling: Top Sites, History, & Current Laws

Virginia online gambling is partially legal: online sports betting has been live since January 21, 2021, daily fantasy sports have been licensed since 2016, and four commercial casinos are now operating across the Commonwealth — but online casinos and online poker remain illegal as of 2026 after House Bill 161 died in conference committee in March 2026. If you’re 21 or older and physically inside Virginia, you can legally bet on the Commanders, Capitals, or Nationals through any of 12 licensed mobile sportsbooks regulated by the Virginia Lottery, play DFS through DraftKings or FanDuel, or drive to a Rosie’s Gaming Emporium for historical horse racing. You cannot legally play online slots or online blackjack from home.

Is Sports Betting Legal in Virginia?

Yes — online and retail sports betting are both fully legal in Virginia, and have been since January 21, 2021, when FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetRivers flipped the switch on mobile wagering across the Commonwealth. The Virginia Lottery regulates the market under Article 2 of Chapter 40, Title 58.1 of the Code of Virginia, which Governor Ralph Northam signed into law in April 2020. Unlike most states, Virginia has no commercial gaming commission — the Lottery pulls double duty as both the scratch-ticket agency and the sports betting regulator.

Virginia is one of the most online-heavy sports betting markets in the country — retail betting at the four open casinos accounts for under 1% of total handle. The state handled $574.6 million in February 2026 alone and ranks as the 10th-largest handle state nationally. If you’re inside state lines and at least 21, you can legally place a wager through any of the 12 active mobile sportsbooks.

• Minimum age: 21 for sports betting and casino gambling. 18 for DFS, lottery, charitable gaming, and pari-mutuel horse racing.
• Regulator: Virginia Lottery Board (for sports betting and casinos). DFS is regulated separately by the Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs under the Department of Agriculture.
• Geofencing: You must be physically located inside Virginia to place a wager. Apps use GPS and Wi-Fi triangulation — stepping into DC, Maryland, or North Carolina will lock you out immediately.
• Where you can bet: Mobile apps (iOS, Android), desktop browser, and retail sportsbooks inside the four operating casinos (Bristol, Danville, Portsmouth, and the transitional Norfolk property).
• Banned markets: No betting on Virginia college teams (game-level or prop), no proposition bets on any college sports nationwide, no betting on youth sports or the Olympics.

Best Virginia Sports Betting Apps (2026)

FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Caesars lead Virginia’s sports betting market, with FanDuel and DraftKings combining for roughly 70% of total handle. All 12 licensed mobile operators report into the Virginia Lottery, and every one of them runs on the same 21+ age minimum and the same state-level college betting ban. Below are our top four picks based on odds quality, app stability, bonus value, and payout speed.

Beyond the top four, Virginia has a deep sportsbook bench. BetRivers was one of the three day-one operators in January 2021 and is tethered to Rivers Casino Portsmouth. ESPN BET entered the market in November 2023 and leans hard into ESPN’s content engine for research. Fanatics Sportsbook launched in Virginia in early 2024 and has grown fast on the back of its 5% FanCash rewards program. Hard Rock Bet is tethered to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol, giving it a unique cross-promotion angle with the Appalachian resort.

Virginia Sports Betting Bonuses

Virginia sportsbook welcome offers are among the most competitive in the country — FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Caesars all run first-bet or bet-and-get promos that typically range from $200 to $1,500 in bonus bets. The headline bonus changes frequently, so always verify the current offer on the operator’s site before signing up. Here’s how the four biggest books stack up on the features that actually matter day-to-day.

Virginia Sports Betting Laws & Regulations

Virginia sports betting is governed by Article 2 of Chapter 40, Title 58.1 of the Code of Virginia, and is regulated by the Virginia Lottery — not a dedicated gaming commission. Operators pay a 15% tax on adjusted gross revenue, which ranks among the friendlier rates in the country (for comparison, New York charges 51%). The regulatory framework caps mobile-only operator permits between 4 and 12, though licensed casinos and major league sports franchises get permit slots outside that cap.

Tax Rate (15% of Adjusted Gross Revenue)

Virginia taxes sports betting at a flat 15% of adjusted gross revenue (AGR), with 97.5% of the tax revenue flowing to the state’s general fund and 2.5% dedicated to the Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund. That’s a middle-of-the-road rate — lower than Pennsylvania’s 36% or New York’s 51%, but higher than Nevada’s 6.75%. Here’s how VA compares to its closest neighbors:

Virginia Lottery Oversight (Unusual Structure)

Virginia is one of the few states where the Lottery — not a dedicated gaming commission — regulates sports betting and casinos. The Virginia Lottery Board handles licensing, compliance, audits, and problem gambling enforcement under § 58.1-4030 et seq. That dual role has drawn criticism: HB271, a 2025 bill to create a standalone Virginia Gaming Commission, failed to pass, and a similar effort stalled again in the 2026 session. For now, the same agency that runs Mega Millions also audits DraftKings.

College Sports Betting Rules (VA Teams Banned)

Virginia prohibits all betting on in-state college teams — no moneylines, no spreads, no totals — and bans all proposition bets on any college sport nationwide. That means you cannot legally wager on Virginia Tech football, UVA basketball, Old Dominion, VCU, or any other Virginia-based NCAA program, even when they face out-of-state opponents. You also can’t place player props on college games anywhere in the country. House Bill 1527, introduced in January 2026, would lift the in-state ban for Division I game-level wagers (while keeping the prop ban) and slap a 50% tax on the revenue, but that bill has not yet passed.

Online Casinos in Virginia

Online casino gaming is not legal in Virginia as of 2026. House Bill 161, sponsored by Del. Marcus Simon (D-Fairfax), would have authorized online slots, table games, and poker under Virginia Lottery regulation — with a $2 million platform fee, a $500,000 operator licensing fee, five-year licenses, and a 20% tax on AGR — but the bill died in conference committee in March 2026 after the House and Senate couldn’t reconcile differences over tax distribution and land-based casino protections. The companion Senate bill (SB 118) died alongside it.

That means if you’re physically in Virginia and want to legally play online slots, online blackjack, or online roulette for real money, you cannot. The only legal real-money casino play happens inside the four brick-and-mortar casinos (Bristol, Danville, Portsmouth, Norfolk’s transitional property) or at Rosie’s Gaming Emporium historical horse racing parlors. Social casinos and sweepstakes sites (Chumba, LuckyLand, etc.) operate in a gray area but do not offer real-money slots.

Online Poker in Virginia

Online poker is not legal in Virginia. HB 161 would have included online poker under the Lottery’s iGaming framework, but the bill’s failure in March 2026 means real-money online poker rooms remain unavailable to Virginia residents. Live poker is legal inside licensed casinos — Rivers Casino Portsmouth runs a 24-table poker room, and Caesars Virginia and Hard Rock Bristol both spread live cash games and tournaments. There is no interstate poker compact participation (Virginia is not in MSIGA alongside Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania).

Daily Fantasy Sports in Virginia

Daily fantasy sports are fully legal in Virginia and have been since March 7, 2016, when Governor Terry McAuliffe signed the Fantasy Contests Act (HB 775) — the first state-level DFS legalization in the country. DFS operators are licensed by the Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs (OCRP) under the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, not the Virginia Lottery. The minimum age for DFS is 18 (not 21), and 11 licensed operators currently hold Virginia DFS permits.

• DraftKings: The largest DFS operator in VA, offering season-long and daily contests across NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, PGA, UFC, soccer, and more.
• FanDuel: Co-market-leader with DraftKings; runs the same slate of sports and a strong beginner-friendly contest lineup.
• Yahoo Fantasy Sports: Licensed in VA, strong for NFL and MLB season-long leagues.
• Underdog Fantasy: Pick’em and Best Ball format, popular with props-style DFS players.
• PrizePicks: Peer-to-peer player prop contests; licensed in Virginia after restructuring its product to comply with state rules.

Virginia’s Casino Buildout: Five New Resorts

Virginia authorized up to five commercial casinos in 2020 — one each in Bristol, Danville, Portsmouth, Norfolk, and originally Richmond, though Richmond’s voters rejected the referendum twice (in 2021 and 2023) and Petersburg has since replaced it as the fifth approved host city. Four casinos are now operational (three permanent, one transitional), one is in active construction, and Petersburg’s $1.4 billion Live! Casino & Hotel is in the planning-and-permitting phase. Here’s the full lineup as of 2026:

Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol

Virginia’s first casino, Hard Rock Bristol opened as a temporary property in July 2022 inside the old Bristol Mall and flipped to its permanent 620,000-square-foot resort on November 14, 2024. The $515 million buildout includes 1,500 slots, 50 table games, a 303-room hotel, a 2,000-seat Hard Rock Live concert venue, and a retail Rock Shop. Hard Rock Bristol drew 110,000+ visitors in its opening weeks and paid out $12 million in jackpots in its first two weeks of permanent operation.

Rivers Casino Portsmouth

Rivers Casino Portsmouth was Virginia’s first permanent casino — opened January 23, 2023, beating Hard Rock Bristol’s permanent facility to the finish line by almost two years (though Hard Rock’s temporary opened earlier). The Rush Street Gaming-operated property sits along Victory Boulevard off I-264 and includes 1,400 slots, 57 table games, a 24-table poker room, the BetRivers retail sportsbook, and multiple restaurants. A hotel tower is planned but not yet under construction; management has publicly stated the goal is to open the hotel before the Norfolk full-scale casino opens in 2027.

Caesars Virginia (Danville)

Caesars Virginia opened its permanent $650 million resort in Danville on December 17, 2024, replacing a temporary property that had operated since May 2023. Built on the site of the former Dan River Mills finishing plant in Schoolfield, the casino is a joint venture between Caesars Entertainment and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians — a rare commercial-tribal partnership. The property features 100,000+ square feet of gaming space, 12+ restaurants and bars, and a 2,500-seat live entertainment theater. As of April 2026, Danville sales tax revenue is actually down versus the temporary-casino period, prompting local business debate over whether the casino is delivering the promised foot traffic.

Norfolk Casino (HeadWaters / Pamunkey + Boyd)

The Norfolk casino project has been the slowest of the five to materialize. The Pamunkey Indian Tribe won the Norfolk license in 2020 but spent three years revising designs before bringing in Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming as an equity partner in September 2024. Construction on the full $750 million resort began October 30, 2024, with a transitional casino opening roughly one month later to secure the license before Virginia’s deadline. The transitional property operates today; the permanent resort is scheduled to open in late 2027. The final resort name has not yet been announced (HeadWaters was the original branding, but that may change under the Boyd partnership).

Petersburg (Replacing Richmond)

Richmond voters rejected a casino referendum twice — by a 51-49 margin in 2021 and by a wider 62-38 margin in 2023 — and the General Assembly ultimately blocked Richmond from a third try. Petersburg stepped in: on November 5, 2024, Petersburg voters approved Cordish Companies’ Live! Casino & Hotel with 82% support, one of the most lopsided casino referendum results in US history. The $1.4 billion project will be built on an undeveloped 100-acre site off I-95. Construction has not yet begun as of 2026 — the project is in the permitting and design phase, with Cordish targeting a late-2020s opening.

Rosie’s Gaming Emporium (Historical Horse Racing)

Rosie’s Gaming Emporium is Virginia’s quasi-casino system — parlors that operate historical horse racing (HHR) machines, which look and feel almost identical to slot machines but settle bets based on archived horse races rather than a random number generator. Owned by Churchill Downs Inc. (which also owns the Colonial Downs racetrack in New Kent), Rosie’s operates eight locations across Virginia: New Kent, Vinton, Richmond, Hampton, Dumfries, Emporia, Henrico, and Collinsville. The Hampton flagship alone has 700 HHR machines. Rosie’s is the closest thing to slot gambling legally available in Virginia outside the four licensed casinos — and it predates the 2020 casino law by several years.

Virginia Gambling History

Virginia’s gambling history runs deeper than most states’, starting with one of the first government-sanctioned lotteries in North America — the Virginia Company Lottery of 1612, which funded the Jamestown settlement. Colonial-era horse racing flourished in the Tidewater region by the early 1700s, but Virginia spent most of the 20th century as a gambling-restrictive state until a pari-mutuel horse racing law passed in 1988 paved the way for Colonial Downs. Modern expansion arrived in a rush between 2016 and 2024: DFS in 2016, the statewide casino referendum in 2020, retail sports betting in 2021, and four permanent casinos between 2023 and 2024.

• 1612: The Virginia Company Lottery authorized by King James I to fund the Jamestown colony — one of the first government-sanctioned lotteries in North America.
• 1700s: Colonial horse racing flourishes in the Tidewater region; Virginia gentry establish some of the earliest organized racing circuits in the colonies.
• 1988: Virginia legalizes pari-mutuel horse racing via statewide referendum after roughly a century of prohibition.
• 1997: Colonial Downs opens in New Kent County, reviving Virginia thoroughbred racing.
• 2016: Virginia becomes the first US state to formally legalize and regulate daily fantasy sports (Fantasy Contests Act, HB 775).
• 2018: Historical horse racing (HHR) is legalized; Rosie’s Gaming Emporium opens its first location in New Kent in 2019.
• 2020: Governor Ralph Northam signs casino and sports betting legislation; five host cities approved (Bristol, Danville, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Richmond).
• January 21, 2021: Mobile sports betting goes live with FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetRivers as day-one operators.
• July 2022: Temporary Hard Rock Bristol opens — Virginia’s first casino of any kind.
• January 2023: Rivers Casino Portsmouth opens — Virginia’s first permanent casino.
• November 2023: Richmond voters reject the Urban One casino referendum for the second time (62-38).
• November 2024: Petersburg voters approve the Cordish Live! Casino & Hotel with 82% support, replacing Richmond as the fifth host city. Hard Rock Bristol opens its permanent $515M facility.
• December 2024: Caesars Virginia opens its permanent $650M resort in Danville.
• March 2026: HB 161 and SB 118 — the iGaming legalization bills — die in conference committee, keeping online casino illegal in Virginia for another year.

How to Sign Up & Place Your First Bet in Virginia

Signing up for a Virginia sportsbook takes under 10 minutes if you have your ID and a funding method ready. You must be 21 or older, physically located inside Virginia, and able to verify your identity with a Social Security number. Here’s the step-by-step process that works across every licensed VA operator (FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars, BetRivers, etc.):

1. Choose a sportsbook: Pick a licensed VA operator. FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Caesars are the most popular starting points.
2. Download the app: Available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Make sure the store is set to the US region.
3. Enter registration details: Full legal name, date of birth, home address, email, last four of SSN (for identity verification and tax reporting). You will not receive spam — this is regulatory.
4. Confirm location: The app uses GPS to verify you’re inside Virginia state lines. If it fails, enable location services and try again from an open area.
5. Deposit funds: Most operators accept debit/credit cards, online bank transfer (ACH), PayPal, Play+ prepaid cards, and in-person cash at participating retail casinos. Minimum deposit is usually $5-$20.
6. Claim the welcome bonus: Opt into the promo before depositing — some bonuses require a specific deposit amount or a qualifying first bet. Read the T&Cs.
7. Place your first bet: Start small. Use a moneyline or point spread on a sport you actually watch. Track your results — bankroll management matters more than any single pick.

Banking Options for Virginia Bettors

Virginia sportsbooks support the standard US banking toolkit — but withdrawal speeds vary more than deposit speeds, and PayPal is the gold standard for fast payouts. Every licensed VA operator is required to keep player funds segregated from operating capital, meaning your balance is protected even if the operator has a bad financial quarter. See our banking options guide for a deeper breakdown of deposit methods and fees.

• Debit / Credit Card: Visa, Mastercard, Discover. Instant deposits; some issuers block gambling transactions.
• Online Bank Transfer (ACH / VIP Preferred): Direct from your checking account. Deposits are instant; withdrawals take 3-5 business days.
• PayPal: The fastest and cleanest option for both deposits and withdrawals — often under 24 hours for payouts on FanDuel.
• Play+ Prepaid Card: Branded reloadable card from the sportsbook. Fast withdrawals (instant to card), usable anywhere Discover is accepted.
• Cash at the Cage: Deposit or withdraw cash in person at Hard Rock Bristol, Rivers Portsmouth, Caesars Virginia, or the Norfolk transitional casino.
• Wire Transfer: Best for large withdrawals ($5,000+); typically 3-5 business days.

Responsible Gambling in Virginia

Virginia funds problem gambling treatment and support through a 2.5% set-aside of sports betting tax revenue, and the Virginia Council on Problem Gambling runs the state’s 24/7 helpline at 1-888-532-3500. Every licensed VA operator is required to offer deposit limits, wager limits, time limits, time-outs, and self-exclusion tools directly inside the app. The Virginia Lottery Board maintains a statewide Voluntary Exclusion Program that bars enrollees from all legal VA gambling (sports betting, casinos, HHR) for the period they select.

• Virginia Problem Gambling Helpline: 1-888-532-3500 (24/7, free, confidential)
• Virginia Council on Problem Gambling: vacpg.org — resources, counselor referrals, treatment locator
• National Council on Problem Gambling: ncpgambling.org — national referral network and online resources
• Virginia Lottery Voluntary Exclusion Program: Statewide self-ban from all licensed VA gambling; enroll via the Virginia Lottery site
• In-app tools: Deposit limits, loss limits, session time limits, cool-off periods, full self-exclusion — available on every licensed sportsbook

Neighboring States

Virginia bettors often cross state lines to access markets VA doesn’t offer. Most notably, online casino gaming is legal in West Virginia (since 2020) but not Virginia — meaning a drive through the Blue Ridge can unlock real-money online slots that are illegal at home. Maryland has legal mobile sports betting but not online casinos. North Carolina launched mobile sports betting in March 2024. See our West Virginia gambling guide for cross-border details on WV’s iGaming market.

Frequently Asked Questions

For more on US betting markets and state-by-state regulation, see our sports betting hub and US gambling laws overview. You can also verify Virginia sports betting regulations directly at the Virginia Lottery casinos and sports betting page.