All 50 states and DC

A tier is assigned from two inputs, in this order: what the state's law and regulator say, and what the operators we audit publish. The first decides whether the product is lawful at all; the second decides whether it is available in practice. When the two disagree, the law wins and the page says which of them produced the label.

That order matters because the two move at different speeds. A statute takes a session to pass and a regulator can act in a week, while an operator's state list can change on a Tuesday afternoon without a press release. A page that tracked only the lists would describe a market rather than a law, and one that tracked only the law would tell a reader to sign up somewhere no brand will accept them.

The tier is therefore a snapshot of a market at a date, not a legal opinion. It does not say whether a specific clause in a specific operator's terms is enforceable, and it does not predict what a state will do next. Both of those are questions this site declines to answer, which is why every state page carries its own date and source.

The counts on this page are jurisdiction counts, not population counts and not market-size estimates. The fifty states and the District are each one row, so a reader can find their own jurisdiction rather than infer it from a regional summary. DC is included because it has a regulator and a product, not because it is a state.

We do not publish a revenue figure for the category, a player count or a market-size estimate. Those numbers circulate widely in this market and almost none of them can be traced to a filing: an operator that is private does not report, a state that does not license the product does not collect, and a trade-body estimate is a marketing document with a chart.

We also do not count brands per state on this page. The count exists on every state page, where it is computed from the audited sample and dated, and repeating it here would invite a reader to compare a number that changes weekly across fifty-one rows.

Three sources, in this order: the state's gaming regulator or lottery, the statute or enforcement action itself where one exists, and the operator's published state list. Each state page names its regulator and links the regulator's own site when we have a working URL, so a reader can check the claim at the source rather than take this page's word for it.

The operator lists are read from the terms and from the geo-block notice, both of which are dated. A list that cannot be dated is treated as a claim rather than evidence, and the state page says so where it matters.

The dates on this page are check dates, not publication dates. A state that has not changed since the last check keeps its older date, because moving a date without moving the content is the one thing this site treats as dishonest.

The useful question is narrow: in my state, is the product lawful, and which brands say they accept me today. Everything else on this page is context for those two answers, and the state page for a jurisdiction answers both with a date and a source.

The second useful question is what the lawful alternative is. In a state with a licensed casino or a licensed sportsbook, that alternative has a regulator behind it and a complaint route. In a state with neither, the promotional product is the only online option, which is a fact about the state rather than an endorsement of the product.

The third question, and the one this page cannot answer, is whether a specific brand will pay a specific reader. That depends on verification, on the terms version in force and on the queue, and it is answered by a small redemption rather than by a map.

States did not close this product in one way. Four mechanisms account for every closure on this map, and they matter to a reader because they predict how a market behaves afterwards. The ban tracker records each closure with its instrument, its date and the brand lists that lag behind it.

A statute. A legislature passes a bill that names the product or amends an existing gambling definition to reach it. This is the fastest and the most durable closure: there is an effective date, a text to read and a political majority behind it. It is also the easiest to track, because a bill is public before it passes.

Enforcement under existing law. A regulator or attorney general applies a statute that predates the product. There is no new text, so the closure arrives through letters, settlements or a complaint, and the market moves before any rule is written. Illinois and Michigan are the two examples in this series, and both show how quickly an unwritten position can clear a market.

Litigation. A court action produces an injunction or a judgment, and operators leave to avoid the exposure rather than because the law changed. The risk here is uncertainty: a case can be appealed, and a market that closes on a temporary order can reopen on the next ruling.

The operators leaving first. A brand decides a state is not worth the compliance cost and removes it from its list, with no legal change at all. This is the most common mechanism and the least visible, because it produces no document. It is also reversible, which is why the state pages date the list rather than describe it as permanent.

An open tier is not a permission and a closed tier is not a moral judgment. The first means no ban applies and at least one documented brand accepts the state; the second means a ban, an enforcement action or a universal operator exit. Neither answers whether a specific redemption will be paid.

In practice a reader needs three checks before spending anything: the state list on the brand's own terms page, the state page here for the legal position, and the brand's redemption section for the minimum and the window. The three take ten minutes and they are the whole of the due diligence this market allows.

The fourth check is the one most readers skip: whether the brand's list is dated. An undated list is a claim without a timestamp, and a claim without a timestamp is exactly what a stale affiliate page publishes. If nothing on the page says when it was checked, treat the list as a guess.

A state moves tiers rarely and usually visibly: a bill is filed, a regulator writes, an operator publishes a new list. When one of those happens the row changes, the count changes and the state page gets the detail, in that order.

What would not change this page is a new brand entering or leaving the market. That moves the brand table on a state page and the count on it, and it does not move the legal position, which is what the tier describes.

If a federal framework ever replaced the state-by-state position, this page would be rewritten rather than patched. Until then, the map is fifty-one separate answers, and the only honest way to present it is one row at a time with a date on each.