West Virginia Online Casinos
Only a handful of states have legal real money online casinos and West Virginia is one of them. In fact, WV has been home to online casinos for several years and continues to expand its casino options.
Whether you live in West Virginia or are just visiting, you can gamble at legal online casinos or casino apps within state borders as long as you’re over 21.
We recommend trying the following five casino apps first (or next, if you’re already a player). This group represents the best online casinos WV has to offer.
BetMGM Online Casino WV
BetMGM Casino represents MGM Resorts, the international gaming giant. You’re unlikely to find an online casino with more options and opportunities for slot players.
There are more than 300 different slot titles and BetMGM adds to the collection regularly.
There are also dozens of table games, including harder-to-find games like Dream Catcher, Blackjack Fortune Spinner Pro, and Let It Ride. BetMGM is even home to a respectable selection of exclusive games you can’t find elsewhere.
Aside from the pure selection of games, both the online casino and the downloadable casino app are smooth and easy to use. Your casino play also counts toward your MGM Rewards membership, which progressively offers you more benefits like comps, hotel stays, and shopping discounts.
Bottom Line: BetMGM Casino may be the best all-around online casino app in West Virginia, and its game selection is both broad and diverse.
BetRivers Online Casino WV
BetRivers is a fun, festive online casino that takes great pride in trumpeting player achievements across the main display. If you hit a big payout, you’ll have your moment in the sun with BetRivers. It also happens to be one of the fastest paying online casinos out there.
BetRivers Casino also features an impressive array of great video poker games. There are selections from top video poker brands like IGT’s Game King and Ultimate X series. BetRivers should be circled on your list if you prefer a five-card draw game.
Finally, BetRivers has taken special pains to create an entire slot tournament suite for players. Twice a day, there are opportunities for you to compete with fellow BetRivers players and put some bonus money in your pocket. Best of all, these tournaments are promotions and are entirely free to play!
Bottom Line: BetRivers Casino is the online casino for the extrovert in you, as it helps you celebrate your big wins publicly and gives you daily chances to match wits and luck with other players.
FanDuel Online Casino WV
FanDuel Casino should ring plenty of bells for you. After all, West Virginia has welcomed the company’s daily fantasy sports contests for many years. However, FanDuel Casino is a big step forward from the company’s humble DFS beginnings.
For one thing, FanDuel Casino offers a long list of table games for players to enjoy. There are both virtual and live dealer casino games, including opportunities to play Mississippi Stud, Free Bet Blackjack, and I 💗 Suits Poker.
If you step back from the app, you may also notice one of its other main gifts. FanDuel Casino’s app navigation is top tier, and you will never struggle to find the games you want to play, even if you want to play free online slots in demo mode. If you’re irritated by confusing app designs, FanDuel Casino should be a welcome relief for you.
Bottom Line: FanDuel Casino is one of the best-designed and slickest online casino apps on the planet, and its list of table games is worth the trip alone.
DraftKings Online Casino WV
DraftKings Casino should be familiar to you in West Virginia. After all, if you wanted to gamble online prior to 2020, your choices were horse racing, FanDuel DFS, or DraftKings DFS. However, DraftKings has clearly spared no expense in bringing a fantastic casino product to West Virginia.
Like its archrival FanDuel, DraftKings Casino is a destination for table games. It’s probably the best online casino app for table games. There are dozens of ways to play real money online blackjack on the app alone, and almost every table game (online roulette, online craps, online baccarat, etc) under the sun is available.
DraftKings actively creates exclusive gaming options for its customers. Some table games and slot titles on DraftKings are unavailable anywhere else. It’s possible to have a unique gaming experience here. It doesn’t hurt that DK is one of the best payout online casinos as well.
Bottom Line: DraftKings Casino is the king of table games and deserves a try on that basis, but it is also a top producer of exclusive titles.
Caesars Palace Online Casino WV
Caesars Palace online casino is on the list for (nearly) one reason – its generous online casino bonuses. Caesars consistently offers more bonus money and bonus bets than almost any other real money online casino app on the market.
Caesars Palace online casino is also a great place to go if you like to play Megaways slots. These games offer nearly two dozen options, and they can offer hundreds of thousands of paylines on every spin.
Finally, Caesars Palace online casino has dozens of Slingo options. If you’ve never played Slingo, it’s a hybrid game with elements of slot games, keno, and bingo in a fun game of building your wins.
Bottom Line: Caesars Palace online casino is worth a stop because of all the bonuses, and there are some less-than-standard gaming options like Megaways slots and Slingo to hold your attention.
More WV Online Casinos
Along with the abovementioned online casinos in West Virginia, there is a handful of other online casino apps/sites. There’s nothing particularly wrong with these apps – they are legal, regulated, and professionally-run outlets.
In our estimation, the five sites above tend to outpace this group in terms of how positive the overall experience is. Still, there’s nothing wrong with coming to a different conclusion. So, here are the other options:
- Golden Nugget Casino WV
- PointsBet Casino WV
- Hacksaw Gaming Online Casino
- Play’n Go Casino
Please note that both Hacksaw Gaming and Play’n Go Casinos have yet to launch their products in West Virginia. However, both have secured a license to operate from the West Virginia Lottery, so their debuts in the state are only a matter of time.
Be sure to check back with us frequently, though. More competition means more bonus opportunities, and we’ll likely see improved bonuses from most of the apps discussed.
West Virginia Online Gambling Law
West Virginia’s online gambling law, the Lottery Interactive Wagering Act, became statutory in 2019, roughly a year after the state legalized online and in-person sports betting. As with the sports betting law, Gov. Jim Justice recused himself from signing off on the bill (because he owns the Greenbrier), but allowed it to pass into law without his signature.
Lawmakers in West Virginia were undoubtedly influenced by their recent experiences with legalizing sports betting, both good and bad. On the one hand, the new online casino law had much of the same format and verbiage of its sports betting predecessor.
However, legislators and regulators implemented a much more deliberate process for reaching the launch date. Both parties were undoubtedly reeling from the disastrous BetLucky episode that occurred almost coincident with the new law’s passage and did not plan to make the same mistake twice.
So, even though online casinos became legal in West Virginia in March 2019, the first legal online casino did not appear until July 2020. Though DraftKings Casino managed to be first to market, it only enjoyed a monopoly for a matter of weeks.
As it stands, there are just over a half-dozen online casinos available right now in WV. Two more are expected to debut sometime in 2023 or 2024, bringing the total to 10.
By law, there could be as many as 15 online casinos in West Virginia, as each licensee – the five casino locations in the state – is permitted to launch three brands on their licenses. However, whether West Virginia has enough population and action to support 15 online casinos remains unclear.
Land-based Gambling in WV
The debut of online casinos in 2020 was a watershed moment in WV, to be sure. However, West Virginia is not new to the gambling game. The state has long been home to numerous land-based options for playing. Here are the different ways to place a bet in-person in West Virginia.
Casinos
The most centralized locations for gambling in West Virginia are its five casinos. These properties are spread across the state, and you probably already know the location nearest to you if you’re a West Virginia inhabitant. Nevertheless, here are the casino properties and their towns of residence:
- Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races – Charles Town
- Mardi Gras Casino & Resort – Cross Lanes
- Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort – New Cumberland
- The Greenbrier – White Sulphur Springs
- Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack – Wheeling
You can find slots and table games at each one of these sites. In addition, four of the five have live poker rooms spreading Texas hold’em (among other games). The only non-poker location is the Mountaineer, whose poker room, sadly, did not survive the COVID-19 closures.
However, the most fascinating property of the bunch is the Greenbrier. It is a casino location unlike any other in the state or the country.
The Greenbrier is a fancy, old-school resort. There is golf, tennis, horseback riding, and numerous other genteel activities in a setting that harkens back to an earlier time of recreation.
Accordingly, the onsite casino is more of an amenity to the overall property, rather than the focal point of the business. It is also the only private casino in the entire country which is legally operating. You must be a member of the Greenbrier Resort itself or a guest of the hotel in order to enter, there is an enforced dress code, and the Casino Club is most assuredly not open 24 hours a day.
As the icing on the cake, the Greenbrier is owned by Jim Justice, the state’s only billionaire. He is also, of course, the governor of West Virginia.
Racing
Four of these five casinos are technically racinos. In other words, they have casino games onsite, but they also offer live racing.
Both the Hollywood and the Mountaineer offer thoroughbred racing at their respective tracks. The Hollywood maintains a year-round racing schedule and offers events every day between Wednesday and Saturday.
The Mountaineer, on the other hand, restricts or limits its race dates during the colder months of the year. Furthermore, the New Cumberland location is open for live racing on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. With this scheduling, you can almost always find a race date somewhere.
If you don’t want to make the trip, however, you can find plenty of horse races to bet through your phone or tablet. West Virginia is one of many states to allow its residents to bet on horse betting sites, so you can always head over to TVG or one of the other top sites if you don’t want to drive to the Hollywood or Mountaineer to bet on the Kentucky Derby, bet on the Preakness or bet on the Belmont Stakes, to name a few.
Now, the other two racinos in the state have managed to secure a rather ignominious distinction for West Virginia. Thanks to the live racing events at Wheeling Island and the Mardi Gras Casino, West Virginia is the only state in the country still offering greyhound racing.
Even strongholds like Florida and Texas have ceased their dog races due to lowering demand and concerns over the conditions in which the greyhounds are kept. If you are motivated to see a greyhound race on US soil, your last opportunities are at these two locations.
Lottery
The West Virginia Lottery spends much of its time acting as the de facto gaming commission in West Virginia. However, it also provides lottery games to residents and visitors in the Mountain State.
Lottery games available in West Virginia include draw games and scratchers. The draw games are spread between the popular multi-state drawings – Mega Millions and PowerBall – and the in-state draws with lower payouts. There is even a keno option that runs every few minutes.
The scratchers can be purchased from WV Lottery retailers across the state for as little as $1. Depending on the game that you choose, you could win a prize as rich as $250,000 instantly.
West Virginia is not an iLottery state at this time. Thus, you must buy any lottery tickets, be they for draws or instant wins, in person.
As a side note, all of the slot machines in West Virginia casinos are technically lottery machines. Even though you cannot tell the difference as a player, the internal mechanism spinning the reels for you is a randomized lottery draw, rather than a true slot machine mechanic.
WV Online Casinos FAQ
Can I play online casino games in West Virginia?
Absolutely. There are nearly a dozen legal online casinos legal in West Virginia, and the list is still expanding. If you are a fan of slot gaming, every single online casino app has them aplenty. If you prefer table games, you might have to be a bit more selective, but there still should be several online casinos that have the games you want.
Who regulates WV online casinos?
The West Virginia Lottery is the gaming regulator in the state. The lottery commission oversees all online casinos, so don’t hesitate to contact the WV Lottery if you encounter any concerns with one of its licensees.
What is the online casino gambling age?
21 or older. West Virginia has a blanket gambling age for online gambling and sports betting at the drinking age, and there is no indication that a reduction or change is coming soon.
Can I bet online in other ways in WV?
Yes. You can bet at West Virginia online sports betting sites if you want to bet on sporting events. There are options for professional and collegiate events on a host of site – many of which are integrated with some of the online casino listed above.
Online poker is technically legal in West Virginia. However, the need for a sizable player pool has kept interest from online poker sites low. In all likelihood, online poker won’t launch in WV until the state joins the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA), which allows states to mix their player pools.
Do I have to live in WV to play?
No. You don’t have to live in West Virginia to play WV online casinos. If you are of age, inside the state lines, and not on the state exclusion list, you can keep your residence wherever you like and still play.
Do I have to be inside West Virginia to play?
Yes. Both state and federal laws restrict your ability to play online casinos across state lines. You must be physically inside the Mountain State to place your bets.
If you think you might be able to skate on this requirement, you’re in for a surprise. Each online casino app in the state bears geolocation verification software, and it requires you to verify your location inside the state’s borders before you can play the games. This software errs on the side of caution and denies service if there’s any question, so don’t expect to blow past the restriction.
Are the casinos listed the only ones available?
Legally, yes. The casino apps mentioned above are the only regulated and legitimate online casino apps in West Virginia. However, a quick web search may tell a different story than that. You may find several online casinos that seem legitimate and appear willing to host West Virginians who want to play.
What you’ve encountered are casino sites that operate outside of the United States. These outfits, sometimes called “offshore” casinos, do not comply with American or West Virginia laws at all. Playing on one of them is, at the very least, of questionable legality.
There are logistical concerns that go beyond the legal question, though. If you play with one of these sites, you are working without the typical protections that you enjoy with legitimate sites. If you happen to have a dispute, you might not be able to get your money back or get any kind of satisfaction.