Live casinos accepting US players

The US online gambling landscape is changing rapidly with a number of states choosing to legalise and regulate online casino gambling. New Jersey have lead the charge in this regard and residents there have been able to  play live games from leading platforms at locally licensed and regulated online casinos for a few years now. Pennsylvania, Michigan and a growing list of other states are following suit.

Evolution (and subsidiary Ezugi) have been operating live dealer studios in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan for some time now, allowing locally regulated operators to offer their customers some quality live dealer action.

Playtech have more recently opened their studios in New Jersey (2021), Michigan (2021) and Pennsylvania (end of 2023), further improving the selection of live games for player in those states.


Locally regulated operations – state by state summary

If you are resident in any of the below states, you can play at locally based and regulated casinos. Almost all offer live dealer games, often streamed from locally situated dealer studios.

You must be resident AND located within the state to open and account and access that playing account.

To this end the casinos employ pretty sophisticated geolocation technology to identify customer location. You can read a little more about geolocation tech used by New Jersey casinos here. The situation in other states is similar.

A word of warning on attempts to circumvent this technology using VPNs. In most cases VPNs will not work as casinos will detect and reject VPN access. If by chance VPN access gets you through the gateway, you risk having to forfeit any winnings. There is precedent for this in New Jersey.

New Jersey

Lawmakers in New Jersey legalised online casino games in 2012. The first locally licensed operators started taking bets at the end of 2013. It is quite a mature online casino market now with a bunch of established operators (mainly local terrestrial casinos partnered with big brand European operators/providers).

New Jersey is leading the charge when it comes to live dealers. Locally licensed and situated live dealers have been serving players online there since 2016 thanks to an Ezugi/Golden Nugget partnership.

Evolution also operate a live dealer studio in Atlantic City, serving games to a bunch of casinos offering live dealers online. They also stream tables from within Atlantic City casinos, some of which (like roulette from Resorts Casino Hotel) may be played abroad.

Locally licensed operators currently include:

  • 888 (in partnership with Caesars)
  • Betway (in partnership with Digital Gaming Corporation)
  • Golden Nugget
  • Hard Rock Casino
  • Resorts Casino Hotel
  • BetMGM
  • Wynn Sports Interactive
  • PointsBet
  • William Hill
  • Draft Kings

Delaware

Delaware was actually the first US state to launch a locally licensed online casino. In November 2013 the Delaware Lottery started taking casino game bets online with RNG games powered by 888’s Dragonfish B2B platform.

At the beginning of 2024, 888’s 10 year provider license expired and BetRivers (owned by Rush Street Interactive) took over.

Delaware hasn’t evolved as quickly as other states, particularly when it comes to live dealer games which are still not offered. To date, there are no announced plans for the construction of dealer studios located in Delaware.

Nevada

America’s gambling capital moved early along with NJ and Delaware to legalise intrastate online gambling. But only online poker games were permitted (ie no blackjack, roulette etc). This remains the case today.

However, there are moves afoot to expand this to include casino games. We may well see live dealer tables streamed from the floors of Vegas’ iconic casinos in the future.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania’s state legislature gave online casino gambling the go-ahead in 2017. By July 2019 the first locally licensed operators were accepting bets online (RNG casino games and peer-to-peer poker initially).

In September 2019, Evolution was awarded a provider license and began construction of their Pennsylvania dealer studio (located in Philadelphia). The studio became fully operational in 2021.

Locally licensed operators that will be carrying Evolution’s live games to local residents include Parx Casino, PlayLive! (Cordish Gaming Group), Caesars and more recently Betway.

Michigan

Michigan’s legislature approved intrastate online gambling laws in 2019. The state’s Gaming Control Board began issuing licenses in December 2020 and the first online casinos to launch started accepting bets in January 2021.

Also in early 2021, Playtech announced they had begun construction of a dealer studio located in Southfield, on the outskirts of Detroit, with launch planned before the year’s end. But beating Playtech to the punch, Evolution’s Michigan dealer studio launched on 22 July. Nine locally licensed operators immediately began offering Evolution’s live games to their customers playing online within the state.

Locally licensed operators currently include:

  • William Hill
  • BetMGM
  • BetRivers
  • DraftKings
  • FanDuel
  • Golden Nugget
  • PokerStars
  • PointsBet
  • Barstool Sports

West Virginia

West Virginia is still a market in its infancy. Laws allowing for locally licensed online casinos passed in 2019. The first online casino started taking bets in July 2020 and until mid 2022 only RNG games were offered.

In June 2022 Evolution announced they had received regulator approval to offer their live games to West Virginian online casinos. Operators there now have access to a comprehensive suit of Evolution games including those streamed from their state-of-the-art studio in Pennsylvania.

Connecticut

Connecticut’s legislature (and Governor Ned Lamont) gave the green light to online casinos in May 2021. Owing to the fact that the games will be served out of Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal lands, approval at a federal level was required before operations could begin. This was given and locally licensed online casinos started taking bets in November 2021.

Evolution’s fourth US based live dealer studio is due to start taking bets from Connecticut in the second half of 2022.


Growth trajectory – online casino monthly revenues

The map of online casino regulated states. Very much an East coast story thus far.


A note on live (online) casino options for American (US resident) players

Since the passing of UIGEA way back in 2006, US players have had their work cut out for them finding online gambling sites accepting their custom. Many of the larger online gambling operators, those with a significant terrestrial presence or stock exchange listing and/or EU region license pulled out of the of the US market until such time as the legal position is clearer, or a licensing regime is introduced.

The list of casinos offering live dealer games is dominated by these larger operators – probably due to the large investment and higher marginal cost of offering this service to customers. 888, bet365, Unibet, William Hill, Bwin, Betfair, Genting, Betsson etc are all heavyweights in the gambling/online gambling world but all currently adopt a no-US-wide player policy.

As a consequence, finding a good live dealer casino accepting US customers is not easy, simply because there are not many of them. Although this is starting to change.

In the wake of the DOJ’s softened online gambling stance, and subsequent moves by certain states (lead by New Jersey), the big operators and live game providers are now slowly moving back into the US market on a state by state basis.

2018 was somewhat of a landmark year in this regard with Authentic Gaming and Foxwoods Casino teaming up to offer the first US based live dealer product to players outside the US (and within New Jersey).

Also in 2018 Evolution Gaming opened their first US based dealer studio, located in Atlantic City. Tables from this studio can now be played online by New Jersey residents at the likes of Unibet and 888 online casinos, with other big brands sure to follow.

Since then, the US intra-state online casino industry has expanded rapidly. New Jersey has been joined by Pennsylvania, Michigan, Delaware, West Virginia and Connecticut in offering residents access to locally licensed net casinos with more sure to follow. Live dealer studios now operate from with 4 of these states.

In time, as regulations permit, these tables may be made available to players across more US states. That is certainly the intent of some lawmakers in New Jersey looking to expand the reach of their online casinos.

Evolution’s Resorts Atlantic City Live Roulette…