Online Casinos in Delaware

Delaware licenses real-money online casino play, and it does so through the state lottery rather than through a standalone casino regulator. The Delaware State Lottery Office operates what the statute calls the Internet lottery, and that term is defined to take in casino games as well as lottery tickets.

Who Regulates Online Casino Play in Delaware

A State Lottery Office exists as part of the Department of Finance and is administered by a Director responsible for the operation of a state lottery. Under Title 29, Chapter 48 of the Delaware Code, that Director is authorized to operate an Internet lottery in accordance with the chapter, other Delaware laws and federal law, and has the duty to make the rules governing it, including the type, number, payout and wagering limits of Internet lottery games.

The authorising law is the Delaware Gaming Competitiveness Act of 2012, House Bill 333 of the 146th General Assembly. The General Assembly's own record of the bill describes it as improving the ability of the Delaware Lottery and Delaware's video lottery agents to offer services to lottery players in an increasingly competitive marketplace, and states that the Act authorizes internet gaming under the control and operation of the Delaware Lottery, with Delaware's video lottery agents authorized to offer through their websites internet versions of the table games and video lottery offerings.

Enforcement sits with a different body. The Delaware Division of Gaming Enforcement, part of the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, says it is committed to ensuring the integrity of Delaware's gaming industry, and it is the agency that acts against unlicensed online gambling in the state.

What the Internet Lottery Covers

The statute defines the Internet lottery as all lottery games in which the player's interaction with the game operated by the Office occurs over the Internet, including Internet ticket games, the Internet video lottery and Internet table games. Internet table games are defined as a lottery game in which the player's interaction occurs over the Internet through a website or network of a video lottery agent, rather than at a table game in a video lottery facility, where the game is an Internet variation or compilation of a table game and is expressly authorized by rule of the Director.

In practice that means online casino games are offered through the online platforms of Delaware's licensed casinos. The Lottery's own iGaming page tells players to play online slots, table games and online sports from the platforms, and to get started by visiting their favourite Delaware casino online. Online sports wagering is a separate sports lottery product sold on those same platforms; it is not what makes Delaware a licensed online casino market, and the two should not be read as the same authorisation.

Age and Location Requirements

The minimum age for online casino play is 21. It is unlawful for an individual who is under 21 years old to wager on the video lottery, sports lottery, table games, internet table games, or internet video lottery. Internet ticket games are treated differently: those are lottery tickets, and the minimum age for them is 18.

Location is checked as well. No Internet lottery game may be conducted unless the software, computer or other gaming equipment used can verify that the player is physically present in the State at the time, and the Lottery Office must confirm that players are in fact verified to be physically located in the State when they place a wager. The statute allows play from outside Delaware only where the Office determines the games are not inconsistent with federal law and the law of the jurisdiction the player is in, or where they are conducted under an interstate compact the State is party to.

Unlicensed Sites and Sweepstakes Casinos

Delaware acts against online gambling offered to its residents without a licence, and it has applied that to the sweepstakes casino model. In April 2025 the State announced that an investigation by the Division of Gaming Enforcement into a dual-currency operator had found it was operating illegal online gaming. Delaware officials concluded that the operator had misrepresented its services as a promotional sweepstakes while enabling players to purchase coins for casino-style games leading to potential cash winnings, and the State said those types of real-money games offered to Delaware residents by an unlicensed entity violate the Delaware Constitution, the Delaware Penal Code and the Delaware Gaming Competitiveness Act of 2012. With the support of the Delaware State Lottery, the Division issued a cease-and-desist order, effective 2 April 2025.

No Delaware statute names sweepstakes casinos as a licensable or prohibited category of their own. The position recorded on this page therefore rests on the regulator's enforcement and the State's own statement of which laws such play breaks, not on a sweepstakes-specific ban. A sweepstakes casino is not a licensed real-money casino, and the two are never presented here as alternatives to each other.

The State's advice to its own residents is to exercise caution and only engage with online gaming platforms at authorized Delaware Casinos. This site does not point readers at offshore or unlicensed operators in any market.

Responsible Gambling

Delaware has its own helpline. The Delaware Lottery prints the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems Helpline as 1-888-850-8888 and says free, professional advice and assistance is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Council publishes the same number on its own site as a 24/7 confidential helpline, 888-850-8888. The National Council on Problem Gambling separately brands the national helpline 1-800-MY-RESET on its own pages, so more than one national number is in circulation; where a state body publishes its own helpline, that number is shown alongside it.

There is a statutory self-exclusion route. The Self-Exclusion Program lets people with a gambling problem voluntarily exclude themselves from all gaming activities at the licensed Delaware video lottery agents, named as Delaware Park Casino, Bally's Dover Resort & Casino and Harrington Raceway & Casino, and from their iGaming websites. The statute also requires the Director to cause each Internet site on which the Internet lottery is conducted to include an advertisement for and link to additional information for services for the treatment, education and assistance of compulsive gamblers and their families.