Virginia Online Sportsbooks

Yes, and the specific authority matters. The General Assembly passed HB 896 and SB 384 in 2020, Governor Northam signed the amended package that April, and the provisions took effect on July 1, 2020, as Chapter 40 of Title 58.1 of the Code of Virginia. The first apps accepted wagers on January 21, 2021. What Virginia authorized is narrow and particular: statewide account-based mobile betting on most professional and out-of-state college events, run by permit holders and stripped of any wager touching a Virginia college team. Unlike states that bolt every online license to a physical casino, the Commonwealth built its market around standalone mobile permits first. The Virginia Lottery, the same agency behind draw games and scratchers, issues those permits, writes the regulations and audits operator returns.

Placing a legal wager comes down to two conditions: you have to be at least 21 and physically within Virginia’s borders at the moment the bet goes in. Your home address, your billing state and your citizenship do not matter for placing a bet. What matters is your GPS location at the moment you tap “place bet.” A visitor from Ohio can bet in Virginia; a Virginia resident on vacation in Florida cannot use a Virginia account there. The apps enforce this with geolocation software, covered later in this guide.

Because these operators hold Virginia Lottery permits, your deposits, your winnings and your account data carry real consumer protections. That is a meaningful contrast with the unregulated offshore sites that operate in states without legal betting. In Virginia you do not need them: using a regulated app means a licensed operator, audited odds and a state complaint process stand behind your account. Curious how Virginia’s setup compares with the patchwork elsewhere? Our guide to which states have legalized online gambling maps out the national picture.

A five-star sign-up banner tells you nothing about whether a book is worth your money. We rank Virginia apps on the factors that decide how much you keep over a season:

• Pricing and hold. The vig baked into a line is the single biggest long-term cost. We compare standard sides, totals and parlay pricing across books because a half-point of consistent value dwarfs any one-time bonus.
• Market depth. A good Virginia book covers more than the NFL. We weigh player props, alternate lines, futures, live markets and coverage of soccer, tennis, golf and combat sports.
• App reliability. An app that lags or freezes during a Sunday afternoon slate costs real bets. Stability under load counts heavily.
• Banking speed. How fast can you fund an account, and how quickly does a withdrawal actually hit your bank? Slow payouts are the most common bettor complaint anywhere.
• Bonus quality. We look past the headline number to the playthrough terms, minimum odds and expiration windows that decide whether an offer has real value.
• Loyalty value. Rewards programs vary wildly. We judge whether points and tiers translate into meaningful returns for a typical bettor.

We test these apps with real accounts and real deposits inside Virginia, then weight the results toward the things that affect your bottom line rather than marketing gloss.

Not every brand that has ever taken a Virginia bet is still standing, and the list shifts as operators enter, merge or exit. Here is how the current legal, Virginia-licensed field stacks up. For a national comparison of these same brands, browse our full online sportsbooks hub or the sportsbooks by state directory.

Which app suits you turns on your betting habits. Parlay and same-game-parlay players should lean toward DraftKings, FanDuel or BetMGM for their builders and boosts. Live and in-game bettors will prefer bet365 or theScore Bet for speed and coverage. If loyalty perks matter, BetRivers and Caesars reward regular play generously, and BetMGM shines if you travel to MGM properties. Global-sports fans should keep bet365 or Betway in the mix.

Most serious Virginia bettors keep at least two or three accounts. Line shopping across books on the same game is the simplest edge available to a recreational bettor, and because every Virginia app is legal and regulated, spreading your action carries no downside beyond managing a few more logins. Fund each with a method you trust and treat the sign-up bonuses as a modest head start, not the reason to pick a book.

1. Pick a licensed app. Choose from the operators above, all of which hold Virginia Lottery permits. Download from the App Store, Google Play or the operator’s website.
2. Register your account. Before any permit holder opens an account it has to confirm you are a real person over 21, so the sign-up form asks for your legal name, date of birth and home address. The last four digits of your Social Security number get requested too, purely to complete that identity and age verification.
3. Confirm your location. Enable location services so the app can verify you are inside Virginia. You cannot bet without it.
4. Claim your welcome offer. Read the terms first, then opt in during sign-up if you want the bonus.
5. Deposit funds. Add money by online banking, debit card, PayPal, Venmo, Play+ or another supported method. Most deposits post instantly.
6. Place your first bet. Pull up a Commanders spread or another market, drop it on your bet slip, set your stake and lock it in. Bet small at first while you get the feel of the app.

If you are new to real-money wagering entirely, our real-money betting rundown goes over bankroll basics, and the guide to the legal betting age in every state explains why Virginia sets the bar at 21.

Virginia books compete hard on sign-up offers, and the formats rotate. The most common structures you will see are:

• Bonus bets on sign-up. A book credits a fixed amount of bonus bets, often unlocked after your first wager settles or your first deposit clears. Bonus bets return winnings but not the stake.
• First-bet safety net. If your opening wager loses, the book refunds it as bonus bets up to a cap. This lowers the sting of an unlucky first bet.
• Deposit match. The book matches a percentage of your first deposit, usually with a playthrough requirement attached.
• Profit boosts and odds tokens. Ongoing perks that raise the payout on a qualifying bet, available to existing customers as well as new ones.

The headline dollar figure matters less than the fine print. Our dedicated sportsbook bonuses guide breaks down how to compare offers apples to apples.

Full Virginia licensing means the cashier looks and behaves like any mainstream banking screen, and most bettors keep two or three funding routes on hand. The choices you will run into break down like this:

• A linked bank account, tapped through online banking or an instant ACH transfer
• Your everyday debit card
• App-based wallets, with PayPal and Venmo the most widely accepted
• An operator-branded Play+ prepaid card that lives inside the sportsbook
• Cash loaded over the counter via PayNearMe at participating stores

Most deposits post instantly and carry no fee from the operator. Withdrawals typically go back to the same method you deposited with. PayPal and Venmo payouts are usually the fastest, often landing within hours; bank transfers generally take one to three business days. Books occasionally hold a first withdrawal for identity verification, which is a routine anti-fraud step rather than a red flag. Match the name on your deposit method to your account name to avoid delays.

A practical tip: keep location services and app permissions enabled, and let the apps update automatically. Most “the app won’t let me bet” complaints trace back to a geolocation plugin that needs a refresh or an outdated version.

In-play betting is fully available in Virginia and has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the market. Every leading app opens the board once play begins, repricing markets moment to moment as the contest develops. You can take a live spread, seize a revised total, wager on the next drive or possession, or cash out early to bank a partial win.

bet365 and theScore Bet stand out for live-betting speed and market depth, but the big domestic books have closed much of the gap. Live betting rewards bettors who watch the game closely and can spot when a line has not caught up to what is actually happening on the field. It also moves fast, so set a plan before tip-off rather than chasing every swing.

Here is the dated sequence that produced today’s market.

The legal foundation is the pair of 2020 bills, HB 896 and SB 384, signed by Governor Northam and codified in Title 58.1, Chapter 40 of the Code of Virginia. The statutes direct the Virginia Lottery to license and regulate operators, set the 15% tax on adjusted gross revenue, establish the 21-and-over age floor, and lay out the prohibited bets and prohibited persons.

The law originally capped standalone mobile permits, though licenses tied to Virginia’s voter-approved casinos sit outside that cap, which is why casino-linked books like BetRivers, Caesars and Hard Rock Bet have a clear path into the market. The Virginia Lottery publishes monthly revenue reports, audits operator numbers and can suspend or revoke a permit for violations.

This is where Virginia diverges sharply from most states, and it trips up new bettors constantly. Under Section 58.1-4039 of the Code of Virginia, three categories of wagers are banned outright:

In plain terms, you cannot bet on the Virginia Cavaliers, the Virginia Tech Hokies, VCU, George Mason, Old Dominion or any of the state’s other programs, win or lose, spread or moneyline. And you cannot place a college player prop on anyone, even a player at an out-of-state school. Violating the prohibition is classified as a Class 1 misdemeanor, so the apps simply do not offer these markets.

The one nuance that softens the college rule is the tournament exception written into the statute from the start. During a multi-game event such as the NCAA basketball tournament, you may bet on games that do not include a Virginia team, even if a Virginia team is elsewhere in the same bracket. So when VCU or Virginia is dancing in March, you can still bet every other matchup in the field, just not the games your in-state team plays.

Efforts to loosen the ban have surfaced repeatedly. Lawmakers floated bills in the 2022, 2023 and 2024 sessions to allow wagering on Virginia college teams, and each attempt stalled. The most recent try, HB 1527, died in committee on March 14, 2026, and even had it passed it would only take effect once Virginia stands up a dedicated gaming commission. As of the 2026 season the restriction stands: no bets on Virginia college teams, and no college prop bets statewide. Bettors who want that action have to settle for the many out-of-state matchups the books do offer.

Beyond the age floor, Virginia law prohibits certain people to keep the games clean and the regulatory system honest. Restricted individuals include:

• Anyone under 21
• Virginia Lottery employees and board members
• Sportsbook operators, permit holders and their employees, on their own platforms
• Athletes, coaches, referees and team or league officials, on events in their own sport or league
• Those privy to nonpublic details that shift the odds
• People who have signed up for the Virginia Lottery’s voluntary exclusion program

Operators cross-check registrations against these categories, and betting while excluded can void winnings and trigger penalties.

On phones this works smoothly as long as location services are on. On desktop you install a small browser plugin that performs the same check. Common snags include a disabled location permission, a VPN that scrambles your location (turn it off), or a spot near the state border where signals overlap. If an app blocks a bet you believe should be allowed, refresh the geolocation, confirm permissions and move away from the border. The system errs on the side of caution because the operator’s license depends on keeping bets inside state lines.

Two different tax questions matter here: what the operators pay and what you owe as a bettor.

What the books pay, and where it lands. Every licensed Virginia sportsbook hands over 15% of its adjusted gross revenue, the figure left after winning bets are paid out. That AGR is the handle minus payouts minus the deductions the statute permits, chiefly the cost of bonuses and promotional credits. The money then splits by formula: 2.5% of each operator’s tax payment is routed to the Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund, administered by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, and the remaining 97.5% flows into the state General Fund. The 2022 budget provision that limited promotional deductions to an operator’s first 12 months lifted collections sharply. In a busy month the tax now brings in somewhere between roughly $9 million and $14 million.

What you owe on a winning ticket. A bettor’s profits are taxable twice over, once to the IRS and once to the Commonwealth. Federally, an operator issues a Form W-2G on certain larger payouts, but the IRS treats every winning wager as reportable income whether a form shows up or not. On top of that, Virginia folds gambling winnings into ordinary income under its graduated individual rates, which top out at 5.75%. Hold onto your own log of wins and losses, because casual netting is not allowed and the conditions for writing off losses are tight. Treat all of this as general information rather than tax advice, and run your own numbers past a professional.

Virginia’s numbers tell the story of a market that started strong and kept climbing. First-year handle topped $3.2 billion with more than $20 million in tax revenue. By 2025 monthly handle routinely ran well above half a billion dollars, and the peak football months pushed far higher.

November 2025 set a record with $798.9 million wagered and $95.3 million in gross gaming revenue. December 2025 followed with $710.9 million in handle and nearly $12 million in taxes. Even quieter months stay large: March 2026, powered by the NCAA tournament, produced roughly $672.8 million in handle and $9 million in state tax despite a slight year-over-year dip. The consistent theme is a mature market where seasonal swings ride on top of a high baseline, with football driving the fall peaks and basketball carrying the late winter and spring. The addition of retail sportsbooks at the new casinos has broadened the market further without slowing the mobile growth that still accounts for the vast majority of bets.

Virginia voters approved casino gaming in a set of 2020 referendums, and the resorts that opened since then added a retail betting layer on top of the mobile market. Casino-linked sportsbook licenses sit outside the cap on standalone mobile permits, which is why several of the state’s biggest brands have a bricks-and-mortar home. If you prefer betting at a counter, watching on a video wall or handling cash, these venues are your destinations:

• Rivers Casino Portsmouth opened January 23, 2023, as the first permanent casino in the state, and its BetRivers Sportsbook is one of the largest retail betting lounges in Virginia, anchored by a 750-foot video wall that can display around 30 games at once, plus roughly 27 self-service kiosks.
• Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Bristol opened its permanent 620,000-square-foot resort November 14, 2024, in the state’s southwestern tip, with a Hard Rock sportsbook alongside nearly 1,500 slots and more than 50 table games.
• Caesars Virginia in Danville opened December 12, 2024, featuring a Caesars Sportsbook, a WSOP poker room and a full gaming floor.
• Norfolk opened a temporary casino in November 2025, with a permanent HeadWaters Resort and Casino targeted for later, and Petersburg’s Live! Virginia opened a temporary casino in January 2026.

Retail betting is a small slice of Virginia’s overall handle compared with mobile, but the casinos give the market a physical footprint and a social alternative to betting alone on a phone. If casino gaming interests you beyond sports, our Virginia online casinos guide covers where iGaming stands in the Commonwealth.

Setting aside the college carve-outs, Virginia books offer the full menu you would expect from a mature market. The core coverage includes:

• Pro football, the biggest driver of state handle, with sides, totals, player props, same-game parlays and deep futures on the Super Bowl and division races.
• Pro basketball and hockey, covering the full NBA and NHL slates with live betting and extensive prop menus.
• Baseball, including run lines, totals, first-five-innings markets and pitcher and hitter props across the major league season.
• Out-of-state college football and basketball, the full national slate minus any Virginia team, and minus all college player props statewide.
• Soccer, where bet365 and Betway shine with coverage well beyond the top European leagues.
• Golf, tennis, MMA, boxing, motorsports and more, rounding out a year-round calendar with everything from major championships to NASCAR at Martinsville and Richmond.

Bet types run the full range as well: straight bets, parlays, teasers, round robins, futures, live in-game wagers and same-game parlays. The one persistent gap is anything touching Virginia colleges or college props, which no licensed book can offer.

Regulated sports betting is not the Commonwealth’s only legal wager. Daily fantasy sports are legal and popular here, with an 18-and-over age floor rather than 21, so DFS is accessible to a slightly younger audience than sportsbooks. DraftKings and FanDuel run the largest DFS platforms in the state, and several pick-based fantasy products operate here as well. Our daily fantasy sports guide explains how contests and scoring work.

Pari-mutuel horse racing is also legal and long-established in Virginia. You can wager on races online through advance-deposit wagering platforms and in person at Colonial Downs in New Kent and the network of off-track betting locations across the state. Horse betting predates the sportsbook era in Virginia by generations and remains a distinct, separately regulated form of wagering, as our horse race betting primer details.

Kalshi is live for Virginia residents right now. The platform lists its sports event contracts as a designated contract market registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and it leans on federal commodities law to argue it can serve every state, Virginia included, without ever applying for a Virginia Lottery permit. As of the summer of 2026 no Virginia agency has closed that door: the Lottery has not issued Kalshi a cease-and-desist order, there is no Virginia lawsuit against the operator, and no bill to outlaw sports event contracts has moved through the General Assembly. In the state-by-state trackers, Virginia sits in the “live, no action taken” column rather than alongside the Marylands and Tennessees that fired off warning letters.

That quiet does not mean Virginia is on Kalshi’s side. Attorney General Jason Miyares signed onto the multistate amicus brief, joined by 37 attorneys general and the District of Columbia, that backs Ohio’s gaming regulators in KalshiEx LLC v. Schuler, the case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The coalition’s position is that sports event contracts are gambling and remain subject to each state’s police powers, directly contesting the CFTC-preemption theory Kalshi rides on. So Virginia’s enforcement machinery is idle, yet its top lawyer is on record fighting the preemption claim in another state’s courtroom.

The wider law is genuinely unsettled. In April 2026 the Third Circuit sided with Kalshi and blocked New Jersey from regulating the product, while other circuits and state courts have leaned the other way, leaving the split that most attorneys general expect the Supreme Court to resolve by 2027. Congress is circling too: the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act, introduced in March 2026, would bar sports and casino-style event contracts from CFTC-regulated platforms altogether. Until one of those threads resolves, a Virginia user can still open Kalshi, but the contract you buy answers to federal derivatives rules, not to the Virginia Lottery, and it carries none of the deposit protections, self-exclusion hooks or state complaint process attached to a licensed sportsbook. Our guide to prediction markets walks through how these contracts actually work.

Here is a quirk that surprises newcomers: Virginia has no major professional sports franchise of its own. The teams the region cheers for all play across the Potomac in Washington, D.C., or in Maryland.

Virginia came close to landing marquee pro teams. In December 2023, Monumental Sports unveiled a plan to move the Wizards and Capitals to a new $2 billion arena and entertainment district in Alexandria’s Potomac Yard. The deal collapsed in March 2024 amid disputes over financing and legislative support in Richmond, and the teams agreed instead to stay at a renovated Capital One Arena in D.C. through at least 2050. For now, Virginia bettors back neighboring teams rather than home-state ones.

College sports are massive in Virginia, and this is exactly where the betting rules bite hardest. The state’s flagship programs draw huge followings but sit off-limits to Virginia bettors:

You cannot place a single wager on any of these teams inside Virginia, and you cannot bet a player prop on any college athlete anywhere. What you can do is bet the rest of the national college slate: any game that does not involve a Virginia school, plus the non-Virginia matchups in a tournament where a Virginia team is competing. When the Cavaliers or Rams make a March run, the bracket around them is still fully in play.

While Virginia lacks a marquee pro franchise, it hosts events and generates betting interest around the national calendar:

• The NFL season and playoffs, which drive the state’s biggest handle months every fall and winter as Commanders fans and casual bettors pile in.
• The NCAA basketball tournament, the spring peak, when the tournament exception lets bettors play the full bracket minus Virginia teams.
• The Super Bowl, consistently the single largest one-day betting event of the year in the Commonwealth.
• NASCAR at Martinsville Speedway and Richmond Raceway, two of the sport’s traditional venues, both drawing solid auto-racing action.
• PGA Tour and major golf, along with tennis and combat sports, which round out the year for bettors who follow global events on books like bet365 and Betway.

A few practical habits separate bettors who last from those who burn out. First, shop your lines. Because every Virginia app is legal, holding two or three accounts and comparing the same game across them is the easiest edge a recreational bettor can capture. A team listed at -110 on one book and -105 on another is free value over a season. Second, set a bankroll you can afford to lose and size your bets as a small, consistent percentage of it rather than betting bigger to chase a bad night.

Third, keep your account secure. Use a strong, unique password on each book, enable two-factor authentication where offered, and never share login details. Fourth, read every bonus term before opting in, since a promotion with a seven-day expiration and a minimum-odds requirement can lapse before you use it. Finally, track your results. The apps show your bet history, and reviewing wins and losses honestly is the fastest way to spot leaks in how you bet. Treat sports betting as paid entertainment with an occasional upside, not as an income plan, and the experience stays a positive one.

• Virginia Problem Gambling Support Line, 888-532-3500. The front door for help in the Commonwealth, a free and confidential number staffed to connect callers with counseling and local treatment options. Start here if you are unsure where to turn.
• Virginia Council on Problem Gambling. The state’s nonprofit council raises awareness, trains providers, and points bettors and their families toward referrals, education and peer resources.
• Virginia Lottery Voluntary Exclusion Program. Enroll and you place yourself on a list that blocks account access at every regulated Virginia sportsbook for a term you choose, from a set number of years up to a lifetime ban, with operators required to honor it.
• DBHDS treatment funding. The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services administers the Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund, the pool that receives 2.5% of the state’s sports betting tax.
• The 24-hour problem gambling helpline, 1-800-522-4700. Call or text any hour for confidential support that reaches beyond state lines when you need it.

Inside the apps, use deposit limits, wager limits, loss limits, session reminders and cool-off timeouts. Set them before you need them. Never bet money you cannot afford to lose, never chase losses, and treat any losing streak as a reason to step back rather than double up.