West Virginia Online Gambling

It may not be as flashy as Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but the West Virginia gambling market is quietly one of the biggest in the United States. Online casinos, sports betting sites, Daily Fantasy Sports, horse racing betting, in-person gambling, lottery games, and sweepstakes casinos are all legal in the Mountain States. 

This page will cover the history of West Virginia gambling and tell you about the best West Virginia sports betting sites and online casinos currently available. We will also discuss some recent developments in West Virginia iGaming and touch on how the market may change in the near future.

Best West Virginia Gambling Sites

There are nine online casino sites and online sportsbooks in West Virginia. Our experts have reviewed every one. Here are the best West Virginia gambling sites available now, according to our experts:

West Virginia Gambling History

While West Virginia has been a trendsetter recently for its new iGaming laws, the state was not always so friendly to casino gamblers and sports bettors. 

Gambling was illegal or completely unregulated for the first 68 years of West Virginia’s history. Then, in 1931, the Mountain State legislature legalized horse and greyhound racing. Two years later, race tracks in West Virginia started hosting pari-mutuel betting on horse and greyhound races. 

Things went dormant again for a few decades, and West Virginia fell behind many of its neighboring states. Voters did not approve the creation of the West Virginia lottery until 1984. It took another 10 years before lawmakers legalized video poker and casino games. 

However, things ramped up in the 2000s. Video poker was legalized in 2001, and table games were officially introduced in 2009. By the 2010s, West Virginia’s legislature was one of the most progressive for online gambling. 

The state attempted to legalize sports betting in 2017, one year before the Supreme Court repealed the federal sports betting ban in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. It actually legalized sports betting in 2018. Legal West Virginia online gambling came just a year later, in 2019.

 Here is a complete timeline of West Virginia gambling’s history going back to 1931:

• 1931: West Virginia lawmakers legalize horse racing betting and greyhound betting. 
• 1933: The Charles Town Turf Club accepts the first ever legal parimutuel bets in West Virginia history. 
• 1937: Wheeling Downs opens and begins hosting greyhound races. 
• 1984: West Virginia voters vote yes on the Lottery Amendment to the state constitution. The West Virginia Lottery was created and began selling tickets in 1986. 
• 1994: The West Virginia legislature passes the Racetrack Video Lottery Act, legalizing video lottery games at racetracks in the state. 
• 2001: The Limited Video Lottery Act makes video poker legal all throughout West Virginia. 
• 2009: Lawmakers legalize in-person poker and other table games. 
• 2018: West Virginia passes HB 2751, legalizing in-person sports betting in the Mountain State. Online sports betting is legalized a year later. 
• 2019: Governor Jim Justice signs HB 2934 to legalize online casinos and poker, making it the fourth state in the US to do so.

Legal Gambling Options in West Virginia

As you can see from the section above, West Virginia is one of the best places to be for gamblers in the US. Here is an overview of the state of the West Virginia gambling market now:

Type of Gambling	Legal?	When Legalized?
Online Casinos	✅	2019
Land-Based Casinos	✅	1994
Online Poker	✅	2019
Land-Based Poker	✅	2009
Online Sports Betting	✅	2019
Retail Sports Betting	✅	2018
Daily Fantasy Sports	✅	2016
Horse Racing	✅	1931
Lottery	✅	1984
Charitable Gambling	✅	N/A

Sports Betting

With nine legal sportsbooks currently available in the state, West Virginia has one of the biggest sports betting markets in the US. This may seem a bit surprising, but it starts to make some sense when you look at how proactive the Mountain State legislature has been. 

West Virginia was one of the first states to accurately predict that the US Supreme Court would overrule the federal ban on sports betting in 2018. So, in 2017, a year before the decision, lawmakers got to work drafting a legal sports betting bill. 

The bill (HB 2751) passed in March 2018, just months before the Supreme Court announced its verdict. When the verdict became official in May 2018, sports betting officially became legal in West Virginia. 

Online Casino

When Governor Jim Justice signed HB 2934 into law in March 2019, West Virginia was just the fourth state to legalize online casinos. Today, it is still one of six states in the US with legal online casinos.

All five West Virginia land-based casinos have been allowed to operate up to three online casinos. This means there can be up to 15 legal online casinos in West Virginia at any one time. Nine are operating right now. 

It is unclear whether more online casinos will come to West Virginia in the coming years. Under the law, there is room for them, but some of our experts think that the market might already be too oversaturated for another online casino to open. 

Poker

Poker was one of the last forms of traditional gambling to be legalized in West Virginia. The voters and the state legislature approved horse racing betting, lottery games, video lottery, video poker, and charitable gambling before the state legalized poker rooms in 2009. 

West Virginia was less reluctant to legalize online poker. Online poker gambling was legalized in 2019 as a part of the broader 2019 West Virginia online casino bill (HB 2934). 

Daily Fantasy Sports

Daily Fantasy Sports competitions have been legal in West Virginia for as long as they have been around. Before recently, there was some debate about whether they were actually legal. In 2016, the state cleared up this debate by passing SB 529 and formally legalizing DFS sites. 

In 2024, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey reaffirmed this viewpoint, saying that Daily Fantasy Sports are legal in West Virginia and that DFS competitions are distinct from sports betting because they are not “wholly or predominantly decided by chance.”

Today, all the major Daily Fantasy Sports apps and DFS sites are legal in West Virginia, and there are very few restrictions on the types of competitions these sites offer. 

Lottery

Mountain State voters approved the creation of the West Virginia Lottery in 1984, following several other successful lottery referendums in nearby states throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The Lottery held its first draw less than two years after the public vote on January 9, 1986. 

Today, the West Virginia Lottery offers games such as Lotto America, Powerball, Mega Millions, and various scratch-off tickets. The agency also works with other state lotteries, as it was a founding member of the Multi-State Lottery Association.

Retail Sportsbooks

Retail sports betting was the very first type of sports betting legalized in West Virginia. Lawmakers legalized in-person sportsbooks in 2018, but lawmakers did not take long to add online sports betting to the market.

Since online sports betting was introduced in 2019, betting online is the most popular way to bet on sports in West Virginia. However, you still have plenty of in-person sports betting options in the Mountain State. 

There are currently five legal retail sportsbooks in West Virginia:

• Betly Sportsbook at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort
• Betly Sportsbook at Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack
• FanDuel Sportsbook at The Greenbrier Casino Club
• Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races
• Caesars Sportsbook at Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort

Land-Based Casinos

Land-based casinos were introduced to West Virginia in 1994 as “racinos,” where players could bet on horse and greyhound races and sports. These locations have since evolved to full-scale casino resorts with slots, video poker, table games, live poker, and other high-quality casino games. 

There are five legal land-based casinos in West Virginia:

• The Casino Club at the Greenbrier (White Sulphur Springs)
• Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races (Charles Town)
• Mardi Gras Casino and Resort (Nitro)
• Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort (Chester)
• Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack (Wheeling)

Sweepstakes Casinos

Sweepstakes casinos are completely available in West Virginia, but these sites are not really regulated. As these operators use virtual currency instead of real money, the sites are not governed like other West Virginia online casino sites. 

How are Gambling Sites Regulated in West Virginia?

Unlike some states, which have specific sports betting and online casino agencies, the West Virginia Lottery Commission regulates all West Virginia iGaming operators (online casinos, sportsbooks, online poker rooms, etc.). Every West Virginia gambling site must have a license to operate legally in West Virginia. 

If a casino does not have a Lottery Commission license, the Commission and the West Virginia Attorney General will work together to shut down the site and/or fine the owners of the unlicensed online casino. 

The Attorney General’s office and the Lottery Commission also work together to ensure licensed sites follow the state’s rules. The Commission keeps track of the casinos and will report any illegal activity to the Attorney General.