Nevada Online Sports Betting

In the days of the Great Depression in 1931, Nevada became the first U.S. state to legalize casino gaming. Since that time, the state has built an impressive gambling industry that offers of range of gaming products that many other states in its region don’t offer such as sports betting and online gaming in particular. The Silver State features more than 320 physical casinos, many of which are located in Sin City itself, Las Vegas.

With these vast arrays of gaming options, you never have to search far when looking for gambling options in Nevada.

However, even Nevada has its limitations. Nevada doesn’t operate national Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) competitions, only its own in-state version, and Nevada is one of only five states that doesn’t have a lottery. Even more bizarrely, while horse racing is legal in Nevada, the Silver State doesn’t have any operating racetracks.

The state of Nevada offers a superb range of legal gaming options including in-state DFS competitions, sports betting (online and land-based), horse racing betting, poker (online and live), land-based casinos and charitable gambling.

However, one peculiarity of Nevada online sports betting is that you must finish your registration at one of your app's land-based spots before you can begin wagering.

Nevada has a 6.75% state tax on general gambling winnings and 0.25% for sports betting winnings.

Large gambling wins over $600 in the state of Nevada may possibly attract an additional Federal Tax.

Contact your tax attorney to assess your potential Federal tax liability if you have a big win in Nevada.

Nevada keeps it very simple when it comes to legal gambling age in the state, and applies a 21 years-of-age limit to all legal forms of gambling.

Nevada legalized sports betting in 1949. It was the first state to legalize and regulate sports betting, which previously operated under organized crime syndicates, in order to protect players’ and the state’s revenues.

It is worthwhile to note that in this day and age in Nevada that sports betting and all other types of legal betting in Nevada are run perfectly cleanly without crime association and all of Nevada’s gambling establishments are now corporately-owned, family-friendly locations.

In 2010, the first sports betting app was released in Nevada to make online sports betting available in the state. This made it extremely convenient for bettors to place a wager anywhere in Nevada. A trip to the local casino or the Vegas Strip was no longer required each time a player wanted to make a legal sports bet on a game.

Once the online sports betting capital of the United States, Nevada has since been surpassed by NJ online sports betting as the nation’s leader, but still offers some quality online wagering options.

Mobile apps (note, no desktop wagering – apps only) on Apple and Android devices have helped get locals and visitors to the State of Nevada over the legal age of 21 get more into the game more than ever before.

Tourists to Vegas and rest of Nevada are now discovering the convenience of sports apps so that they can avoid the long lines at the Nevada’s land-based sasinos during major events like the March Madness, the NBA Finals, and of course, the biggest of all U.S. sporting events, the Super Bowl.

Note – It is a requirement for use of a sports betting app that a geolocation system is used to make sure that the device using the app is located within Nevada state lines. If the mobile device is not inside Nevada, or if the geolocation service cannot find the phone or tablet for any reason, that sports bet will be rejected. Players operating their sports app close to the Nevada state line or in rural parts of Nevada with poor internet connections need to be aware of the geolocation tool when trying to bet in those remote locations.

In 2015, Nevada’s state attorney general and the Nevada Gaming Control Board officially declared that Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) is ‘gambling’ that DFS required a license to play in the State. Major DFS companies closed their doors to Nevada’s state’s residents immediately.

There were proposals in 2016 to come up with an alternative for licensing DFS operators. In fact, a bill was drafted that an almost exact copy of the Daily Fantasy Sports legislation that was passed in states that had already legalized DFS.

However, Nevada’ governor, Brian Sandoval, determined that there was no need to change the current regulations on DFS in Nevada. While DFS is not technically illegal to play in Nevada, DFS operators require a license similar to other types of gambling within the state. Only one non-traditional DFS operator has taken up a license so far, and as a consequence, DFS works very differently in Nevada than it does in the rest of the nation.

Like conventional DFS, (where a point value awarded to individual performances), Nevada’s DFS is similar to the traditional game. However, the Nevada DFS pari-mutuel-style of scoring is more similar to horse racing than traditional DFS.

For instance (using NFL for example), a DFS game participant can pick from a position grouping such as quarterbacks to win, place or show, and make bets such as exactas, trifectas and daily doubles by factoring in odds.

This is a radically different approach to conventional DFS betting, where you become a ‘virtual team manager/owner’, and you are required to keep within a salary cap, which you use to ‘buy’ players for your DFS team and assemble a team that amasses the most touchdowns, yards gained, receptions, tackles, sacks etc., and other key statistics each week or over the course of the season to accumulate points for your ‘virtual team’.

Whether Nevada sticks to its non-conventional DFS approach remains unclear.

If Nevada adopts the more conventional and widespread form of DFS, we’ll advise you of the changes immediately.

In May 2017, Brian Sandoval, the Governor of Nevada, signed a bill (SB 240) into law that extends Nevada state laws on sports wagering to include eSports events. The bill included legalized wagering on competitive gaming (eSports) as well as other awards shows like the Academy Awards, Emmys, Grammys and Golden Globes.

With the dissemination of global technology and increasingly fast internet speeds, eSports has changed quality video game play into full-time professional sports, whereby leading players now sign multi-million-dollar contracts with professional teams.

However, of course, somewhere must be the venue for these events and Las Vegas, Nevada has put itself on the map as one of the leading eSports venues with many its arenas sponsoring and hosting eSports tournaments and of course, its legal to bet on the events in Vegas too both in casino sportsbooks and the state’s online sports betting apps.

If you’ve not heard of eSports, it is important to know that the games themselves like Halo, Fortnite and Overwatch operate in such a way that they are roughly equivalent to the NBA, NFL and NHL as ‘leagues’, and ‘eSports’ describing the wider concept (like ‘sports’).

It’s now big business, with eSports betting revenue, tipped to reach the $100 billion mark worldwide later in 2018 and much of that is expected to flow through Nevada’s legal sports betting set-up.

For Nevada residents over the age of 21, all off track betting, course/track side (for limited state fairgrounds only – the state has no fulltime racetracks) and online betting options on Horse Racing are all legal under the State’s Gaming Laws.

Trackside Betting

Although there are no longer any full-time operating racetracks in the state of Nevada, there is however one live racing venue in Nevada; a track at the Elko County Fair in Elko, Nevada open for just a couple of weeks every year. Tourist buses sometimes run between Las Vegas and Elko when the races are on, so tourists can add ‘a day at the races’ to their Nevada holiday experience.

Off Track Betting (OTB) in Nevada

The large majority of Nevada’s horse racing industry centers on off-track betting at the state’s many legal land-based casinos. In addition, you can find simulcast betting at many casinos throughout the state.

Online Horse Racing in Nevada

Online racebooks for residents and visitors to the state of Nevada provide the convenience of betting anywhere/anytime on a mobile device or PC and for the most part, have small initial deposit requirements.

Nevada residents and visitors over the age of 21 all have legal access to Nevada’s online horse betting sites that offer betting on races throughout the U.S.A and across the world. If you’re unable to find the time to get to a casino or simulcast facility to bet on big events like the Kentucky Derby or The Triple Crown, you may still easily place wagers on the big race with an online account and do it all 100% legally.

Visit our Page on Nevada’s Online Gambling laws for more information on the states online gambling regulations and reviews of the most popular online casinos