The Mountain State is one of the US’ most gambling-friendly regions, especially concerning people testing their luck, skills, and sporting knowledge over the World Wide Web. It is one of only seven US states to allow online casinos, along with New Jersey, Delaware, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, turning this into reality in 2019 via House Bill 2934. That same law also made Internet poker legal in West Virginia, which in November 2023 entered the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA) as the fifth party to do so. MSIGA is a legal framework that authorizes the pooling of online poker players while letting agreement members retain control over who offers Internet gambling within their borders.
However, despite West Virginia having no legal hurdles to offer remote poker action to its residents, no operators have entered this market. Section 29-22-4 of the West Virginia Code states that the State Lottery Commission licenses online gambling. Its Executive Director, John Myers, confirmed in a recent interview that this organization is ready to launch online poker for West Virginians; they are only waiting for operators to express a desire to offer their services here. According to the online poker website Legal US Poker Sites, no West Virginia poker laws are stopping this; it has yet to occur due to the belief that creating a sustainable poker network for a population of 1.8 million residents will be super challenging. Most cite this as the prime reason no Internet poker company has dared to venture into West Virginia post-2019.
Yet, with Mountain State’s late 2023 entry in the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement, BetMGM is now perceived as the potential number one candidate to be the initial online poker brand in West Virginia. It is well-positioned to lead the charge. John Myers predicted this would occur by late 2024, but his estimate proved wrong, and now the timetable has been moved to early to mid-2025 as the probable date when this may occur.
Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement
Online poker hit its stride in the mid-2000s, and this entertainment form in the US came across a massive hurdle in 2011 through the event known as Black Friday, or United States v. Scheinberg. That was a federal case against Cereus, PokerStars, and Full Tilt Poker, the three largest online poker companies operating in the US, which the US government claimed broke UIGEA by illegally processing payments for online gambling.
In 2013, US states were allowed to pass online poker legislation, with Nevada being the first to do so, followed by Delaware. Unfortunately, the poker player pool is less vast than the gaming and betting ones. Moreover, the Federal Wire Act prohibits platforms from accepting customers outside their state lines, limiting the traffic they can receive and creating a sizeable obstacle toward profitability.
An interstate online poker compact, named The Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement, was created to overcome this problem. It was birthed in 2014 when Delaware and Nevada joined forces and signed an agreement for player-sharing, with this coming to life in March 2015 and New Jersey joining this group in 2017. It took five years before another state joined MSIGA, Michigan, bringing its decent gambler pool to the pack in 2022, and West Virginia hopped aboard in 2023.
Under the instruction of Josh Shapiro, the Governor of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board recently got permission to discuss joining MSIGA. Despite its eagerness to do so, no official timeline has been announced regarding when this is likely to come into fruition.
The State of the West Virginian Gambling Market
West Virginia has had a robust history of gambling. The initial form of this pastime that got legalized in one of America’s most-forested parts was horse racing, originally permitted by law in 1931. Betting on greyhound racing soon followed suit, and after a multi-decade break, in 1984, the state lottery was founded, authorizing prize money draws. Ten years after this, VLTs became available at bars, clubs, and racetracks, where in 2001, video poker machines were deemed illegal.
In 2008, thanks to a local option referendum, casino gambling was permitted at The Greenbrier, and the following year, West Virginians decided to legalize table gaming as a result of a second vote.
House Bill 2751 passed in 2017, approving sports betting in the state, and the above-noted House Bill 2934 legalized Internet gaming and card gambling, making West Virginia the fourth US state with casino sites.
Today, there are five land-based gaming locales in the state (whose operators can operate online), which, per data from the American Gaming Commission, support over ten thousand jobs, creating an economic impact of $1.88 billion, and an annual tax of $474 million. Going by data from Alfonso Straffon, a former Deutsche Bank analyst, West Virginia’s online casinos have generated $191 million in revenues in 2024, for a tax rate of $28 million.
West Virginia’s taxation framework tries to balance operator retention and state benefits. For racetrack VLTs, operators keep 46.5% of net terminal income, while the rest gets allocated to programs like racing purses (7%), tourism (3%), and debt reduction (7%). Casino table games get taxed at 35% of adjusted gross receipts, and online gambling faces a 15% privilege tax.
