Legal statewide since January 2021. About a dozen online sportsbooks operate, including FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars, and bet365.
Legal and new. Voters approved casinos in five cities in 2020, and six are now operating — Rivers Portsmouth, Hard Rock Bristol, Caesars Virginia in Danville, plus temporary casinos in Norfolk and Petersburg. Live poker runs at Portsmouth (the largest room), Danville (a WSOP room), and Bristol.
Legal and regulated. Virginia was the first US state to pass a DFS law (the 2016 Fantasy Contests Act). In 2026, oversight moved to the Virginia Lottery and a roughly 10% tax was added.
Legal. Virginia has a large network of historical horse racing machines — Rosie’s Gaming Emporium, run by Churchill Downs — tied to live racing at Colonial Downs. The machines look like slots but pay off archived past races.
Legal and state-run, with full online sales. Virginia launched iLottery in 2020, and by 2024 online sales had overtaken retail — a national first.
Grey area. A proposed ban was folded into the 2026 iGaming bills, but those died in conference, so no ban passed. Sweepstakes casinos operate without a specific state framework.
Banned. The slot-like “skill games” in Virginia convenience stores were banned, upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2023, and a 2026 bill to re-legalize them was vetoed by Governor Spanberger.
Not legal — but it came close. In 2026, online-casino bills (HB 161 and SB 118) each passed a chamber before dying in conference committee. There is no regulated online poker either. Offshore sites accept Virginia players in a grey area.
Online-casino bills passed both the House and Senate separately in 2026 but died in conference committee, so iGaming stayed illegal. New Governor Abigail Spanberger also vetoed a bill to re-legalize “skill games.” Both are expected back in 2027.
Hard Rock Bristol and Caesars Virginia opened permanent casinos in late 2024, joining Rivers Portsmouth, and temporary casinos opened in Norfolk (2025) and Petersburg (2026) — six venues in all.
The Virginia Supreme Court threw out an injunction that had let unregulated “skill games” operate, putting the ban back in force — a saga that still shapes the state’s gambling debate.
Rivers Casino Portsmouth opened as Virginia’s first permanent commercial casino, with the state’s largest poker room.
Virginia’s online sportsbooks went live on January 21, 2021, quickly becoming one of the larger markets on the East Coast.
Virginia legalized sports betting and launched iLottery, and voters in five cities approved commercial casinos — a sweeping expansion in a single year.
A 2018 law authorized historical horse racing machines to revive Colonial Downs, and the first Rosie’s Gaming Emporium opened in 2019.
Virginia became the first US state to pass a law regulating daily fantasy sports — the Fantasy Contests Act.
Virginia is a partial market. Mobile sports betting and DFS are legal, and the new casinos run real live-poker rooms — but online casino and online poker are not legal. Like Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, and Indiana, Virginia opened sports betting and land-based casinos without opening up iGaming.
It came remarkably close in 2026. Online-casino bills — HB 161 and SB 118 — each passed a chamber, but a conference committee couldn’t reconcile the two versions before the session ended, so neither became law. Both are expected back in 2027. Meanwhile Michigan and Pennsylvania collect the online-casino revenue Virginia keeps leaving on the table.
For now, Virginians who want to play real-money online poker or casino games do so at offshore sites like Ignition, Bovada, and ACR Poker. The state doesn’t prosecute individual players, but offshore sites carry no Virginia oversight. For legal poker, though, the new casinos deliver — Rivers Portsmouth has the state’s biggest room, and Caesars Virginia runs a WSOP-branded room in Danville.
The practical reality: Virginia sports bettors use the legal apps (FanDuel, DraftKings, and others). For online casino games and poker there’s no legal option yet — most players use established offshore sites and withdraw via crypto, or head to Portsmouth or Danville for live poker.
Virginia has legal, regulated mobile sports betting and DFS — but no legal online casino or poker. For sports, use the licensed apps; for casino games and poker online, the only option is offshore. (For legal poker, the new casino rooms are excellent.)
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Solid all-rounder — poker + sports + casino with the best card deposit rates
Good — Poker + casino + sportsbook under one roof, crypto-first
Good — Best US poker site, solid casino, crypto-first
Strong casino library with 500+ games, fast crypto, but no poker room
Ignition’s sister casino — great for slots and blackjack, fast crypto payouts
Good casino, no poker — best for slots and blackjack variety
Ignition family casino — strong table games, fast crypto, slots-focused branding
Solid all-rounder — poker + sports + casino with the best card deposit rates
Good — Poker + casino + sportsbook under one roof, crypto-first
Good — Best US poker site, solid casino, crypto-first
Best US MTT schedule and rakeback — but ongoing bot/RTA concerns at mid-stakes
ACR’s sister site — same network, same games, rakeback option
Subscription sweepstakes poker from the official WPT — novel legal structure, thin games.
Solid all-rounder — poker + sports + casino with the best card deposit rates
Good — Poker + casino + sportsbook under one roof, crypto-first
The biggest regulated US name with casino, poker, and sportsbook under one login.
Polished app and strong brand, but thin video poker, no 24/7 support, and state-variable game counts hold it back from the top tier.
1x playthrough on the welcome bonus is genuinely rare and iRush Rewards is transparent — but the ~400-game library is small and player-reported support issues drag the experience down.
Slickest casino app in US regulated gaming on the surface — but Trustpilot sits at 1.2/5 on consistent complaints about slow withdrawals, poor support, and bet-grading disputes.
Virginia built a casino industry from scratch. It had no casinos at all until voters in five cities approved them in 2020; today six venues are operating.
The permanent casinos are Rivers Casino Portsmouth (the first to open, in 2023, with the state’s largest poker room), Hard Rock Bristol, and Caesars Virginia in Danville (which runs a WSOP poker room). Temporary casinos are open in Norfolk (tied to the Pamunkey Tribe and Boyd Gaming) and Petersburg (a Cordish “Live!” property), with permanent resorts to follow. Richmond is the outlier — its voters rejected a casino twice.
Beyond the casinos, Virginia has a distinctive land-based niche: historical horse racing. Churchill Downs runs a chain of Rosie’s Gaming Emporium parlors — slot-like machines tied to archived races — alongside live racing at Colonial Downs.
The Virginia Lottery licenses and oversees sportsbooks and casinos, with responsible-gaming rules and a Voluntary Exclusion Program — self-exclude for 2 years, 5 years, or lifetime across casinos, sports betting, and lottery.
DFS is regulated by the Virginia Lottery, and pari-mutuel racing and historical horse racing by the Virginia Racing Commission. Consumer protections apply to all licensed venues.
No Virginia protection. Offshore casino and poker sites are unlicensed — no fund segregation, no dispute recourse. If a site refuses to pay, you have none of the safeguards the regulated market provides.
Our guidance: For sports betting, use the Virginia Lottery-licensed apps. For online poker and casino games — not legal in Virginia — use established offshore operators with 5+ year track records and crypto payouts, or play live at a Virginia casino. Virginia does not prosecute individual players.
Virginia funds problem-gambling treatment for residents through a dedicated support fund. If gambling stops being fun — or if you're gambling to solve financial problems — free, confidential help is available 24/7.
Primary sources cited throughout this guide.
