Credit Card Sports Betting Bans: Are More States About to Follow Ohio?

More states are very likely to follow Ohio, because the credit card sports betting ban has gone from a fringe idea to a fast-moving trend in barely a year. In May 2026, the Ohio Casino Control Commission proposed stripping credit cards from the approved ways to fund a sports betting account, and the public comment window has already closed. If the rule clears its final hurdles, Ohio joins roughly a dozen states that already restrict credit card deposits at licensed sportsbooks, with Colorado signing its own ban into law just days ago.

Here’s the part that matters for the “who’s next” question: this isn’t really about Ohio anymore. It’s about a payment method that lawmakers, regulators, and even the sportsbooks themselves have decided is more trouble than it’s worth. Let’s break down exactly what Ohio proposed, which states have already pulled the trigger, and where the next dominoes are likely to fall.

What Ohio Is Actually Proposing

Ohio’s regulator wants to amend its sports-gaming rules to remove credit cards from the list of approved deposit methods for online sports betting accounts. The change runs through Sports Gaming Rule 3775-16-03, and the Ohio Casino Control Commission filed it through the state’s Common Sense Initiative rule-review process. The public comment period closed on May 15, 2026, so the proposal is no longer up for debate from the cheap seats: it’s now moving through the machinery.

One important clarification, because some coverage has blurred it: this is a sports betting rule, full stop. Ohio does not have legal online casinos, so there is no iGaming side to this. Online sports betting has been live in the state since January 2023, and that is the only regulated online product the rule touches. If you fund a sportsbook account in Ohio, this is aimed squarely at you.

Here’s what would change, and what would not:

• Gone: Credit cards as a way to load money into your Ohio sports betting account.
• Still fine: Debit cards, bank transfers, ACH, online bank pay, and existing winnings. The everyday options most bettors already use are untouched.
• Not instant: Even with comments closed, the rule still has to clear a public hearing, a business-impact analysis, and a legislative review panel (JCARR) before it can take effect, likely no sooner than late summer.

Why Ohio Wants Credit Cards Gone

The reason is consumer protection: credit cards let people bet with money they don’t actually have, and the data on what that does to gamblers is genuinely grim. A credit card deposit isn’t your cash moving from one place to another. It’s a short-term loan, taken at the sportsbook’s pace, and most card issuers treat it as a cash advance with a fee and immediate interest. We dug into exactly how that math works in our explainer on why your card issuer treats a betting deposit as a cash advance, and the short version is that it’s the most expensive way to move money you’ll find.

There’s hard federal data behind the worry, and Ohio sits right in the middle of it. The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau studied credit card accounts and found that the share of accounts hit with a cash-advance fee spiked in the very first month sports betting went live in states like Kansas and Ohio. Bettors didn’t see it coming either: a lot of them complained they had no idea a sportsbook deposit would be coded as a cash advance until the fee landed on their statement.

Stack on the responsible-gambling angle and you can see why this keeps passing. Credit doesn’t create problem gambling on its own, but it removes the natural speed bump (running out of cash) that would otherwise end a bad session. Britain reached the same conclusion years ago and banned credit card gambling outright back in 2020. American states are just arriving at it one at a time.

Which States Already Ban Credit Cards for Sports Betting

Roughly a dozen states already restrict or ban credit card deposits at licensed sportsbooks, and the list is growing fast in 2026. The exact count depends on who’s doing the counting (whether you lump “restrict” in with “fully ban,” and whether you include rules that passed but haven’t taken effect yet), but the direction isn’t in dispute. Most legal states still technically allow credit cards. The ones tightening the screws are the trend, not yet the majority.

Here’s the landscape, grouped by how long the rule has been on the books:

• Long-standing bans: Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Vermont have barred licensees from taking credit card deposits since their markets opened or shortly after.
• Added in 2025: Illinois moved a credit card ban through its gaming regulator.
• Added in 2026: Maine and Virginia both enacted restrictions, and Colorado signed one into law this June.
• On deck: Ohio’s rule is in the pipeline, and Maryland, New Jersey, and New York have all floated measures of their own.

Tennessee is the cleanest example of how serious this gets. Its ban isn’t a regulator’s policy memo, it’s written into statute: the state’s sports gaming law flatly says a licensee shall not extend credit to a bettor. That’s not a slap-on-the-wrist licensing footnote. It’s the law. Bettors there fund accounts with bank transfers and debit cards instead, and the sky has not fallen.

Colorado Just Raised the Stakes

Colorado is the freshest and most aggressive move yet, and it landed while Ohio’s proposal was still cooling off. On June 2, 2026, Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 26-131, and it goes well beyond credit cards. The credit card deposit ban is just the headline. You can read the bill straight from the source on the Colorado General Assembly’s SB26-131 page.

Why does Colorado matter for the Ohio question? Because it shows the policy isn’t stalling at credit cards, it’s expanding. A year ago the conversation was “should we ban credit card deposits?” Now a state has wrapped that ban inside a broader package of deposit caps and marketing limits and gotten it signed. That’s the kind of momentum that makes a regulator in the next state over feel a lot less out on a limb.

So, Are More States About to Follow?

Yes, and the structure of how these bans pass is the biggest tell. A credit card sports betting ban can travel two completely different roads, which means a state doesn’t even need a friendly legislative session to make one happen. That’s what makes this spread faster than most gambling-policy trends.

• The regulatory route (Ohio’s path): A gaming commission rewrites its own rules. No floor vote, no governor’s signature, no waiting for a legislative window. If the regulator wants it, it can move on the regulator’s timeline.
• The legislative route (Colorado’s path): Lawmakers pass a statute and the governor signs it. Slower and harder, but more durable and often broader, since legislators can bolt on deposit caps and marketing rules.
• The operator head start: The biggest sportsbooks already dropped credit cards nationwide, so a state ban now codifies something the market mostly did on its own. That removes the “you’ll kill the industry” objection regulators used to face.

Put those together and the watch list writes itself. States with active bills or vocal regulators (Maryland, New Jersey, New York) are the obvious next candidates, and any state with a responsible-gambling-minded commission can take Ohio’s regulatory route without waiting on its legislature. The honest caveat: these are pending, not promised. Bills die, rules get tabled, and “considering” is not “passed.” But the path of least resistance now clearly runs toward the ban, not away from it.

The Catch: The Big Sportsbooks Already Quit Credit Cards

Here’s the twist most coverage skips: for a lot of bettors, Ohio’s rule changes almost nothing, because the biggest sportsbooks ditched credit cards voluntarily and nationwide before most of these state rules existed. When the companies that profit from your deposit decide they don’t want your credit card deposit, that tells you how this payment method actually performs.

• DraftKings cut credit card deposits in August 2025, the first major national book to do it. Our DraftKings review has its current banking menu.
• FanDuel followed in 2026, pulling credit cards across its U.S. platforms. The FanDuel breakdown covers the deposit options that replaced them.
• The rest of the field matched them through the spring, so by the time Ohio’s rule lands, most of the market will already be there.

So why bother with a state rule at all if the books already moved? Two reasons. A voluntary policy can be reversed the moment a competitor uses credit cards as a marketing edge, while a rule makes it permanent and applies to every operator equally. And a state ban catches the smaller books and future entrants that might otherwise keep credit cards around to stand out. The rule isn’t fighting the industry here. It’s locking in a decision the industry mostly already made.

What It Means If You Bet in Ohio

Practically speaking, plan on credit cards being a dead end for funding a betting account, and treat that as a feature rather than a bug. Even in states where it’s still technically allowed, the cash-advance fee, the instant interest, and the lost rewards make it the worst way to move money onto a sportsbook. The methods regulators are steering you toward are the cheaper ones anyway:

• Debit cards and bank transfers: No cash-advance treatment, no borrowing. The money is actually yours, which is the whole point.
• ACH, online bank pay, and digital wallets: Widely accepted, usually free, and they cap you at your real balance. See our rundown of banking options for online gambling for how each one works.
• A self-set deposit limit: Every licensed app offers one. If a state capping deposits at six a day sounds reasonable to lawmakers, a cap sounds reasonable for you too.

And if your card gets declined at a legal, licensed sportsbook, know that it’s almost never federal law doing it. The common myth is that the 2006 UIGEA statute bans credit cards for betting, but it only targets unlawful offshore gambling and explicitly exempts legal state-licensed operators. When a regulated book turns down your Visa, it’s the state, the operator, or your own card issuer, not the feds. (Our overview of the federal-versus-state split in U.S. gambling law untangles which layer is which.) The fix is simple: switch to a method backed by money you already have.

Frequently Asked Questions

The questions readers ask most about Ohio’s proposal and the wider credit card crackdown, answered directly.