After a flurry of activity in statehouses nationwide over the past decade, the 2026 legislative sessions were comparatively quiet for gaming legislation. Still, multiple states passed bills that will impact the current gaming landscape - and could have significant impacts on the future.
Here are the five most consequential gambling-related bills lawmakers approved this year.
5. Washington expands college props
At a time when the NCAA is asking state lawmakers to ban college prop betting, Washington went the opposite direction.
Washington lawmakers approved a bill that would allow wagering on individual player prop bets such as points scored or yards receiving for athletes representing teams from outside the state. It was the only state this year to expand college prop betting and came as efforts to restrain or ban these bets gained little traction in any state.
Ban proponents, including NCAA president Charlie Baker, have argued these types of bets are more susceptible to manipulation and increase abuse toward student-athletes. Opponents, led by the regulated sports betting industry, have argued a legal market is the only way to catch nefarious actors who otherwise would turn to offshore books or the black market, leaving no chance for oversight.
It represents an ongoing battle that has been discussed in a growing number of statehouses as well as the halls of Congress.
The bill is also noteworthy for becoming the first legislation to expand mobile tribal gaming options within tribal lands. Washington bettors later this year can bet with any mobile book partnered with a state gaming tribe, not just the retail partner within a specific casino.
4. Indiana headlines wave of sweeps casino bans
Indiana became the first state in 2026 to legislatively ban sweeps casinos. It would not be alone.
Maine, Tennessee, and Oklahoma joined Indiana among states to pass bills explicitly banning dual-currency online casino games. After six states passed similar bills in 2025, more could follow later this year or next.
These games, which critics say circumvent state gambling laws, now generate billions of dollars in revenue. Though major operators offer free-to-play games, the companies make much of their revenue from purchase for “sweeps coins” or similar offerings that can be exchanged for prizes.
While operators have maintained they are a legal gaming offering and that their sweepstakes offerings are akin to the McDonald’s Monopoly promotion, lawmakers have not been swayed. After reassurances these bills would not ban popular free-to-play digital games such as Candy Crush or Clash of Clans, ban bills have gained widespread, bipartisan support in a growing number of state legislatures.
Meanwhile, no state seriously considered a bill to regulate and legalize these games, underscoring the precarious future they have in the dwindling jurisdictions where they remain legal.
3. Colorado restricts sports betting
Though the final version was far less limiting, Colorado’s sports betting restriction bill is still one of the more impactful gaming bills passed this year and further reiterates lawmakers’ growing concern about legal sportsbooks.
The passed version prohibits Colorado sportsbooks from accepting more than six deposits in one individual “gaming day.” It also bans push notifications or text messages to account holders to explicitly attempt to solicit deposits.
Books and their marketing partners can no longer create marketing that is “clearly meant for” individuals under age 21. Credit card deposits are also banned, though most major sportsbooks have already stopped accepting them.
The original bill would have banned all sports betting advertising between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. as well as during sporting events. The initial deposit limit was five instances within 24 hours, and the push notification restrictions were far more restrictive.
Still, the final version’s passage shows Colorado lawmakers are concerned about sports betting. Roughly a dozen other states have introduced similar bills aimed at reining in sportsbooks, and Colorado’s moves could foreshadow comparable action in other jurisdictions in the coming years.
2. Kentucky overhauls gaming regulations
Few aspects of gaming remained untouched by a wide-ranging bill passed with lopsided bipartisan support.
Among the changes, the Kentucky bill raises eligible sports betting ages, restricts certain college player prop bets, and changes regulatory structures for daily fantasy “plus” sites. It is also one of the first state-level bills to impact prediction markets.
The most direct impact will be an increase in the minimum age from 18 to 21, better aligning Kentucky with most of the other 38 states with legal sports betting. College player props will also be prohibited, but only for athletes that play for Kentucky teams. Operators such as PrizePicks and Underdog will also be under the purview of a new regulatory scheme.
The prediction market provisions could lead to the biggest changes.
Kentucky is proposing regulating and taxing major operators such as Kalshi and Polymarket as though they were sportsbooks. It also prohibits licensed sportsbooks from offering unlicensed prediction markets in other states, a measure that could directly impact FanDuel, DraftKings, and Fanatics.
It remains to be seen if these provisions will take effect. Prediction markets will surely argue they are not sportsbooks and likely fight the tax and regulation scheme in court. The sportsbook companies that offer prediction markets could also fight the Kentucky bill, especially because it would have a trickle-down impact in most if not all of their other state markets.
The age change and new regulatory schemes already made the Kentucky bill one of the nation’s most significant this year. The prediction market components could have greater, wider-ranging, and long-term impacts.
1. Minnesota bans prediction markets
Only one bill on this list faced a lawsuit less than 24 hours after it was signed into law.
Minnesota’s sweeping prediction market prohibition bill, the first of its kind in the nation, was challenged in court by the federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission the day after it was officially approved. Written to take effect Aug. 1, the bill now faces an uncertain fate as it is set to join a growing number of prediction market-related legal challenges.
The Minnesota bill is significant because it bans all event contracts on sports, current events, politics, elections, and a range of other areas. But it takes a deeper meaning as the initial legislative effort to combat the multibillion-dollar prediction market industry. Other state regulators and attorneys general have battled prediction markets, but no state legislature has used its powers to do the same.
This opens up another battle front on what has become the defining issue in the larger regulated gaming industry in 2026 - and arguably the most consequential development since the Supreme Court struck down the federal sports wagering ban in 2018. Minnesota’s bill will likely be tied to what appears to be an increasingly inevitable Supreme Court decision, a determination that in any scenario will fundamentally alter the trajectory of regulated online gambling in the U.S.
