Online Casinos in Alaska

Alaska Prohibits Unlawful Gambling, and Authorises No Casino

Alaska has no commercial casino and licenses no online casino. Its criminal code states the offence plainly: “A person commits the offense of gambling if the person engages in unlawful gambling.” The operator provisions are graded. “A person commits the crime of promoting gambling in the second degree if the person promotes or profits from unlawful gambling.” and “Promoting gambling in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.” Where the conduct is part of a gambling enterprise, “A person commits the crime of promoting gambling in the first degree if the person promotes or profits from an unlawful gambling enterprise.” and “Promoting gambling in the first degree is a class C felony.”

Everything turns on one definition: ““unlawful” means not specifically authorized by law.” What is specifically authorised is narrow. The Department of Revenue's Tax Division says on its own site that “we also regulate charitable gaming”, and the same department runs an Education Raffle funded out of permanent fund dividends: a dividend applicant may choose to “donate money from his or her PFD to public education”, and “Each entry goes into a drawing to be drawn by the Revenue Commissioner, or designee.” Neither charitable gaming nor a raffle is anything like an online casino, and nothing else in Alaska law authorises one. The underlying definition of gambling is standard — ““gambling” means that a person stakes or risks something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under the person's control or influence, upon an agreement or understanding that that person or someone else will receive something of value in the event of a certain outcome” — and so is the test for chance: ““contest of chance” means a contest, game, gaming scheme, or gaming device in which the outcome depends in a material degree upon an element of chance, notwithstanding that the skill of the contestants may also be a factor”.

Alaska's definition of an amusement device is unusually direct about where the line falls, which matters because amusement devices are one of the few things excluded from gambling: “"amusement device" does not include casino-style games, draw games, slot machines, roulette wheels, craps, video poker, or any other game that is a contest of chance.” No online casino is licensed in Alaska, and this site does not point readers at operators that are not licensed where they are.

The only form of play the statute treats gently is private: ““social game” means gambling in a home where no house player, house bank, or house odds exist and where there is no house income from the operation of the game”. A house bank or house income takes a game outside it, so no commercial product can rely on it.

No Sourced Position on Sweepstakes Casinos, but One Clause Worth Reading

No Alaska statute, rule, court decision or official opinion addressing sweepstakes or dual-currency casinos was found for this page, so this page records no sweepstakes status rather than inferring one. One clause is worth quoting anyway, because it is the clause that other states' analyses of virtual-currency play have turned on. Alaska's definition reads: ““something of value” means any money or property; any token, object, or article exchangeable for money or property; and any form of credit or promise directly or indirectly contemplating transfer of money or property or of an interest in money or property or involving extension of a service, entertainment, or privilege of playing at a game or scheme without charge”.

The phrase at the end — a privilege of playing at a game or scheme without charge — is the hook Washington State relies on. The Washington State Gambling Commission, on its own page about virtual casinos, states: “Therefore, games of chance such as those in Kater and Larsen that ask the player to wager virtual currency for the potential of winning more virtual currency are likely to constitute illegal gambling.” That conclusion is Washington's, drawn on Washington's statute, and it binds nothing in Alaska — but Alaska's definition still carries the same phrase. That makes the question live in Alaska rather than settled, and a live question is not a status. Until an Alaskan source addresses the model, this page records none.

Sweepstakes casinos and real-money casinos are separate products with separate rules, and neither is presented here as a licensed version of the other.