Washington, D.C.

Last verified September 27, 2026

By the Legal Sportsbooks US editorial team

Washington, D.C.

Online and retail

Legal since

May 3, 2019 (law in effect); May 2020 (first online app)

Minimum age

Regulator

DC Office of Lottery and Gaming (OLG)

Licensed apps

5 online sportsbooks

State law

D.C. Code 36-621.01 et seq.

Is sports betting legal in Washington, D.C.?

Yes, online and in person. The Sports Wagering Lottery Amendment Act of 2018 (D.C. Law 22-312) took effect on May 3, 2019, and the Office of Lottery and Gaming (OLG) licenses and regulates every book. The minimum age is 18. Since July 15, 2024, the stadium licensees and team-backed Class C licensees have been allowed to take mobile bets across the District, except on federal land and inside the two-block zones around the stadium books.

Where you can bet

D.C. issues three classes of operator license. A Class A license is tied to one of four designated venues named in the statute: Capital One Arena, Audi Field, Nationals Park and the St. Elizabeths East Entertainment and Sports Arena. It covers a book inside the venue and one branded app. A Class B license covers a book at a business such as a bar, restaurant or hotel, and all of its betting, mobile included, has to happen on the premises. A Class C license is online only. It goes to a pro team that plays at least 90% of its home games in D.C. at a designated venue, or to the team's sportsbook partner.

OLG's license list, revised April 30, 2026, shows five apps licensed to take bets districtwide. Caesars Sportsbook (Capital One Arena), FanDuel (Audi Field) and BetMGM (Nationals Park) hold Class A licenses. DraftKings, approved July 25, 2024, and Fanatics, approved September 6, 2024, hold temporary Class C licenses. S&S U Street, LLC, at 1314 U Street NW, holds a provisional Class B license. In September 2024, OLG moved the betting kiosks at DC Lottery retailers from Intralot's GambetDC to Caesars.

Apps have to block bets from the federal enclave, where OLG says gambling is prohibited. Within two blocks of each stadium, only that venue's Class A operator may take bets. You can't bet on a college game played in D.C., or on a D.C. college team wherever it plays. High school sports are off the board.

Tax rates depend on the license class: 20% of gross sports wagering revenue for Class A, 10% for Class B and 30% for Class C.

How D.C. legalized sports betting

Lottery and the first online gambling law (1981 to 2012)

The law behind the DC Lottery, the Law to Legalize Lotteries, Daily Numbers Games, and Bingo and Raffles for Charitable Purposes (D.C. Law 3-172), took effect on March 10, 1981. Every later sports betting change amends that 1981 law. The Council rejected a lottery contract for an Intralot joint venture in December 2008, then approved an Intralot contract in December 2009, according to the D.C. Inspector General. The Chief Financial Officer's office signed it in March 2010 after adding Intralot's internet gaming system.

A budget bill the Council passed in December 2010 authorized online poker run by the Lottery, and it became law in April 2011 without congressional objection. Critics said many Council members hadn't known it was in the bill. The Council repealed the program 10 to 2 on February 7, 2012, before any game went live.

The 2018 act and congressional review

The Supreme Court struck down the federal sports betting ban in Murphy v. NCAA on May 14, 2018. D.C.'s bill, Bill 22-944, went to the Committee on Finance and Revenue and passed on first and second reading on December 4 and December 18, 2018. After mayoral review it became D.C. Act 22-594 on January 23, 2019. It then went through a 60-day congressional review period under the Home Rule Act. Congress didn't block it, and it took effect on May 3, 2019. The act gave OLG the power to license private books and to run its own mobile product, either by licensing mobile operators at a 20% tax or by contracting with a limited number of partners, whichever returned more revenue. As written, every operator owed 10% of gross revenue.

The Intralot contract and GambetDC (2019 to 2024)

OLG chose the contract route. On July 9, 2019, the Council voted 7 to 5 to approve a five-year, $215 million contract with Intralot (No. CFOPD-19-C-041) on a sole-source basis, with no competitive bid. The debate turned on Intralot's lobbyist, who had been drawn into the ethics scandal around Council member Jack Evans, and on three downgrades of Intralot's credit rating since September 2018, which Council member David Grosso raised. The Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Support Act (D.C. Law 23-16, effective September 11, 2019) let each Class A operator run an app within two blocks of its venue and raised Class A and Class B application fees to $500,000 and $100,000. OLG adopted its sports wagering rules on August 30, 2019.

Intralot's GambetDC app launched in May 2020 as the only app allowed districtwide. On July 31, 2020, OLG issued its first operator license, a provisional Class A license to William Hill at Capital One Arena, now Caesars. BetMGM (Nationals Park) and FanDuel (Audi Field) later received Class A licenses. In March 2024, OLG's executive director, Frank Suarez, wrote to the chair of the Council's business committee that Intralot would subcontract the platform to FanDuel. FanDuel replaced GambetDC as the Lottery's app on April 15, 2024.

The 2024 opening

The Fiscal Year 2025 budget, passed in June 2024, carried Council member Kenyan McDuffie's Sports Wagering Amendment Act of 2024. It let Class A operators take mobile bets throughout the District, created the Class C license, set the 20%, 10% and 30% tax rates from August 1, 2024, raised the Class A fee to $1 million and set the Class C fee at $2 million. The emergency version took effect on July 15, 2024, when Mayor Muriel Bowser returned it unsigned, and Caesars and BetMGM went districtwide. The permanent law (D.C. Law 25-217) took effect on September 18, 2024. FanDuel moved its app from the Intralot deal to its Audi Field license, and Intralot and the Lottery let their sports betting contract lapse. The same act had sent sports tax revenue to the Child Trust Fund starting October 1, 2024; the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Support Act (D.C. Law 26-55, December 6, 2025) repealed that dedication.

2026 proposals

Council member Wendell Felder introduced the Internet Gaming and Consumer Protection Act of 2026 (Bill 26-656) on April 9, 2026. It would license online casinos at a 25% tax and a $2 million fee, set the age at 21 and ban sweepstakes casinos. It was set for an April 21 hearing before the Committee on Human Services. We found no Council vote on it as of September 27, 2026.

Sports betting court cases in D.C.

We found no court challenge to the 2018 act, its amendments or any OLG licensing decision.

District of Columbia v. Intralot, Inc. and Veterans Services Corporation (False Claims Act settlement, 2025)

On January 14, 2025, Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb announced that Intralot and its subcontractor, Veterans Services Corporation (VSC), would pay the District a combined $6.5 million. His office found that the companies won the Council's 2019 sole-source approval by promising that VSC, a certified business enterprise, would do 51% of the work with its own resources. In fact an Intralot subsidiary supplied most of it, and VSC routed payments back to Intralot. By 2021 the companies had submitted more than 100 invoices that the office called fraudulent. Intralot's share under its settlement agreement, dated January 10, 2025, was $5 million.

KalshiEX LLC v. CFTC (D.D.C. No. 1:23-cv-03257; D.C. Cir. No. 24-5205)

Kalshi sued the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in federal court in D.C. on November 1, 2023, after the agency barred its contracts on which party would control Congress. Judge Jia M. Cobb granted Kalshi summary judgment and vacated the order, holding that the contracts didn't involve "gaming" or unlawful activity under the Commodity Exchange Act; her opinion is dated September 12, 2024. On October 2, 2024, a D.C. Circuit panel (Judges Millett, Pillard and Pan) denied the CFTC's motion for a stay, finding it hadn't shown irreparable harm. The appeal was argued on January 17, 2025. The CFTC moved to drop it on May 5, 2025, and the court dismissed it on May 7. The case concerned election contracts. We found no ruling by a court in D.C. on sports event contracts.

National Association of Consumer Advocates v. Blockratize, Inc. (D.C. Super. Ct. No. 2026-CAB-004388)

The consumer group sued Polymarket's operator, related entities, Shayne Coplan and Matthew Modabber in D.C. Superior Court on June 26, 2026. The complaint alleges that Polymarket paid creators to post videos of staged bets and wins, and that it aimed ads at college-age users. The case is pending.

Moeller v. Blockratize, Inc. (D.C. Super. Ct. No. 2026-CAB-004615; D.D.C. No. 1:26-cv-03083)

Philip Moeller filed a class action against Polymarket in Superior Court on July 2, 2026, over the same influencer videos. A federal docket for the case opened on September 2, 2026 (D.D.C. No. 1:26-cv-03083). It is assigned to Judge Amit P. Mehta and pending.

D.C. in the multistate prediction-market fight

D.C. hasn't sued any prediction market or sent one a cease-and-desist letter that we could find. The District has signed the December 22, 2025 amicus brief of Nevada, Ohio and 36 other states supporting Maryland in KalshiEX LLC v. Martin (4th Cir. No. 25-1892), argued May 7, 2026 and still undecided on September 27. Attorney General Schwalb also signed the April 30, 2026 comment letter from 40 states and D.C. telling the CFTC that sports event contracts aren't swaps.

Rulings in other circuits

The Third Circuit sided with Kalshi against New Jersey on April 6, 2026 (KalshiEX LLC v. Flaherty, No. 25-1922). New Jersey petitioned the Supreme Court on September 2, 2026 (No. 26-299), and Kalshi's response is due November 9. The Ninth Circuit ruled against Kalshi in its Nevada appeal on August 28, 2026 (KalshiEX, LLC v. Assad, No. 25-7516), and Kalshi sought rehearing en banc on September 9. On September 25, 2026, the Sixth Circuit held that the act doesn't preempt Ohio's or Tennessee's gambling laws (KalshiEX LLC v. Schuler, Nos. 26-3196 and 26-5235). None of these binds courts in D.C.

Prediction markets and daily fantasy

Kalshi and Polymarket list all of their markets in D.C., per a CBS Sports tracker updated in September 2026. Novig (Ludlow Exchange, LLC d/b/a Novig), a CFTC-designated contract market since June 16, 2026, also serves the District, since its eligibility page excludes only Nevada, Arizona and Michigan. The 2018 act lets the Attorney General sue in Superior Court for an injunction or a civil penalty of up to $50,000 for a violation of the sports wagering law, and the office hasn't used that power against a prediction market that we could find.

The statute excludes fantasy contests from sports wagering if prizes are set in advance, outcomes reflect skill and no result depends solely on one athlete or one team. Since 2024 the exclusion also requires at least two participants who are natural persons, and the operator doesn't count as one.

Help with a gambling problem

The Office of Lottery and Gaming refers players to the national helpline: call 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), text 800GAM or chat at ncpgambling.org/chat. OLG also runs a self-exclusion program.

Sources

Common questions

How we track and verify state laws

What does Legal Sportsbooks US track?

Every state's legal status, the date betting became legal, the minimum age, the regulator and the licensed apps, plus the legal history and court cases behind them, for all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Our page on how we track and verify state laws explains the details.

What do the statuses mean?

Online and retail means licensed mobile apps and in-person sportsbooks both operate. Online only means betting happens through licensed apps, with no retail sportsbooks. Retail only means you can bet in person at licensed venues, but there's no statewide app. Not legal means no licensed sportsbooks operate. Legislation pending means a bill or ballot measure is moving, but betting hasn't launched. Not yet verified means we haven't confirmed the state's current status.

Can I bet on sports where I live?

The rules follow where you are when you place the bet. Licensed apps use geolocation to confirm you're inside a state where they can operate, and some states limit betting to certain premises. Find your state in the state index, or read our guide to location rules.

How old do you have to be to bet on sports?

It's 21 in 33 of the 40 jurisdictions with legal sports betting and 18 in five: Washington, D.C., Montana, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Wyoming. In North Dakota and Washington, the tribal casino sets the age.

How current is the tracker?

State laws and licenses change, so every state entry records the date it was last verified. If a status looks out of date, the state regulator's website has the official answer.

Is this legal advice?

No. We summarize public information about state sports betting laws. Confirm the rules with your state regulator before you bet, and don't wager more than you can afford to lose.