- Online gaming legislation hasn’t moved in the US this year
- iGaming is limited to seven states
- Arkansas and Maine are the latest states to fold on iGaming legislation
It appears online gaming with internet slot machines and interactive table games, commonly known as iGaming, will remain limited to seven states after legislative efforts in several jurisdictions fizzled this year.
Arkansas and Maine were among the numerous states where legislation to allow online casino gaming was introduced in 2025. Both considered joining Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia in regulating internet casino platforms and apps.
This week, both efforts failed as lawmakers refused to get on board with expanding casinos to the internet.
Arkansas Online Casino Push Fades
Throughout their 2025 legislative session, Arkansas, lawmakers mulled bills to allow people aged 21 and older to gamble on their computers and mobile devices. One idea was to expand gambling to the internet — to accompany online sports betting — to raise funds for Arkansas college and university name, image, and likeness (NIL) programs.
After that drive stalled, state Rep. Matt Duffield (R-Russellville) filed legislation with seven Democratic co-sponsors to authorize iGaming. House Bill 1861 sought to allow the state’s three commercial casinos — Saracen, Oaklawn, and Southland — to partner with third-party online casino operators like DraftKings and FanDuel to conduct iGaming.
This week, Duffield yanked the bill from the House Judiciary Committee after the committee recommended completion of a study on how online gambling would impact the state. That means iGaming is dead in Arkansas for 2025.
Maine iGaming Trashed
Online gaming legislation in Maine met a similar fate. Lawmakers began a conversation about online poker and casino gambling earlier this month, with the state’s four federally recognized tribes poised to possess a monopoly on such gambling.
Maine lawmakers suggested giving the tribes the iGaming monopoly to complement their stronghold on online sports betting. Penn Entertainment and Churchill Downs, which operate the state’s two commercial casinos — Hollywood Bangor and Oxford — lobbied against the iGaming measure.
Maine’s iGaming bills in the Legislature were deferred this week for further study.
No New iGaming States
It’s been almost two years since Rhode Island became the seventh state to legalize online casinos (iGaming went live in the state in March 2024). While state lawmakers across the country have weighed whether to become the eighth iGaming jurisdiction, so far those efforts have proved unfruitful.
Along with Maine and Arkansas, iGaming considerations in 2025 were held in Hawaii, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and Wyoming. The measures in Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio remain active, though there’s been no recent movement.
As the 2025 legislative season kicked off, analysts at Deutsche Bank predicted no state would pass legislation authorizing online casino games. The forecast is seemingly coming to light.
While iGaming is a considerably larger tax generator than sports betting, the latter being a small-margin sector of the gambling industry, opponents of online casinos consistently raise concerns about brick-and-mortar casinos being negatively impacted and possible problem gambling increases.
The post Online Gaming Legislation in Arkansas and Maine Dead for 2025 as iGaming Halt Remains appeared first on Casino.org.
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