West Virginia Online Casinos

West Virginia casino history
Online casinos came to West Virginia as the second wave of online gambling legalization that began in 2018. Mountain State lawmakers had first thrown their efforts behind WV sports betting, but turned their attention to online casinos (and WV online poker) in early 2019. After both chambers of the West Virginia Legislature approved the West Virginia Lottery Interactive Wagering Act, it fell to Gov. Jim Justice to decide whether to sign off on the bill, veto it, or allow it to become law without a signature.

As Justice did with the sports betting legislation a year prior, he chose the third option. Online casinos became the law of the land in West Virginia in March 2019. However, the debut of online casinos did not occur in the Mountain State until more than a year later. The West Virginia Lottery, which acts as the regulator for online casinos, was tasked with creating rules to manage the new industry. However, the lottery commission had a problem brewing with the state’s online sports betting industry (the BetLucky debacle), and simply couldn’t get to writing the rules right away. Furthermore, lottery officials notably slowed down their process to avoid a similar incident.

The lottery finally produced a set of emergency rules for governing online casinos in April 2020. The rules included provisions for a $100,000 license fee for operators, a $10,000 fee for software providers, and a 15% tax on gross revenues. The legislature later confirmed these rules as permanent in 2021.

With the rules in place, online casinos began to appear in July 2020. DraftKings Casino was the first to launch its product, but DK did not enjoy its monopoly for long. BetMGM Casino appeared a month later, and the two apps were joined by BetRivers, FanDuel, Caesars, and Golden Nugget in 2021. PointsBet arrived in early 2022, and more apps such as WynnBet Casino are in the works.