Online casinos in California: is it legal?
California has no legal online casino or sports betting, and AB 831 (Chapter 623, Statutes of 2025) bans online sweepstakes casinos from January 1, 2026.
California's constitution has never authorised sports betting of any kind. Article IV, Section 19 hands out gambling permissions one at a time - a state lottery in subdivision (d), charitable bingo in (c), horse racing in (b), tribal casino compacts in (f) - and sports wagering is simply not on the list, while subdivision (e) says the Legislature "has no power to authorize, and shall prohibit, casinos of the type currently operating in Nevada and New Jersey." Taking or placing a sports bet is a crime under Penal Code 337a, which covers "pool selling or bookmaking, with or without writing, at any time or place" and carries up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. Voters were given the chance to change this in November 2022 and refused twice: Proposition 26, for in-person tribal sportsbooks, lost 67.0% to 33.0%, and Proposition 27, for online and mobile sports betting, lost 82.3% to 17.7%.
Tribal casinos (66 of them, under compacts with 79 tribes as of the 2022 Legislative Analyst's count), 84 licensed card rooms, the California State Lottery, and pari-mutuel betting on horse racing. Card rooms, tribal gaming and third-party proposition player services are licensed by the California Gambling Control Commission, with the Department of Justice Bureau of Gambling Control handling compliance inspections and approving every card room game before it can be offered. Online casino games are not licensed at all, and since AB 831 took effect (chaptered 11 October 2025) Penal Code 337o makes it "unlawful for any person or entity to operate, conduct, or offer an online sweepstakes game in this state," which shuts the door on sweepstakes-model online casinos.
None. A keyword search of the California Legislature's own bill database for the 2025-2026 session ('sports wagering', 'sports betting', 'gambling', 'online gambling') returns no bill and no constitutional amendment (ACA or SCA) that would legalise online sports betting or online casino. Every gambling measure in the session runs the other way or is purely administrative - AB 831 banned online sweepstakes games, AB 2617 ('Protecting Kids from Online Gambling') and AB 2446 (Attorney General investigations into prediction market wagering) tighten the rules, and the rest amend Gambling Control Act fees, cardroom licensing or horse racing satellite wagering.
This is general information taken from regulators' and governments' own published pages, not legal advice. Gambling law changes; check the regulator's current rules before you play.