Online Casinos in Michigan

Michigan licenses real-money online casino play. The Michigan Gaming Control Board licenses and regulates online gaming and sports betting alongside the commercial and tribal casinos, and it publishes the list of legal internet gaming websites that a player can check a site against.

Who Regulates Online Casino Play in Michigan

The Board states its mission as ensuring the conduct of fair and honest gaming to protect the interests of the citizens of Michigan, and it lists online gaming and sports betting among the forms of legal gaming it licenses and regulates, together with commercial and tribal casinos, fantasy contests, pari-mutuel horse racing and casino-style charitable gaming.

The authorising law is the Lawful Internet Gaming Act, 2019 PA 152, which was created to require licensure for persons to offer internet gaming, to impose requirements for internet gaming, to provide for the powers and duties of the Michigan gaming control board, and to prohibit certain acts in relation to internet gaming and prescribe penalties. It took immediate effect on 20 December 2019. Internet gaming may be conducted only to the extent that it is conducted in accordance with that act.

What Counts as Online Casino Gaming in Michigan

The statute is specific about the games. An internet gaming operator's application must set out the types of internet games to be offered, which must include but need not be limited to poker, blackjack, cards, slots and other games typically offered at a casino, and expressly does not include pick numbers or other lottery games typically offered by the bureau of lottery. Lottery games, tribal class II and class III gaming on Indian lands, lawful fantasy contests and lawful internet sports betting all sit outside the Act.

An operator may offer internet gaming under a maximum of two separate brands, one each for interactive poker and other casino style games, and every site and app must clearly display the brand of the internet gaming operator or its affiliate. A wager received by a licensed operator is treated in law as gambling conducted in that operator's casino located in Michigan, whatever the participant's location when the wager is placed, and the routing of data across state lines does not change where a wager is made.

Age Requirement

The minimum age is 21. The Act defines an authorized participant as an individual who has a valid internet wagering account with an internet gaming operator and is 21 years of age or older, so only such a person may place an internet wager.

Unlicensed and Offshore Sites

Michigan's starting point is that gambling is generally illegal in the state unless it is specifically authorized by state law, and that only operators licensed by the Board are authorized to legally offer online gaming services in Michigan. The Board acts on that: it investigates operators offering services illegally in the state, tells them to cease and desist from gaming activities for which they are not properly licensed, and publishes the list of operators that have received those letters, noting the list is not exhaustive.

In April 2026 the Board reported that over the past four months it had issued cease-and-desist orders to 45 offshore gambling operators. It said unlicensed offshore gambling platforms operate entirely outside the framework of Michigan law, leaving players without the fundamental protections that licensed sites must provide, and that consumers who use illegal sites face the risk of unfair or manipulated games, withheld winnings, misuse of personal and financial data, and no meaningful avenue for dispute resolution. This site does not list or recommend those operators.

Sweepstakes Casinos in Michigan

Sweepstakes casinos are not a licensed form of online casino in Michigan and the Board has treated them as unlawful. Announcing a cease-and-desist letter in 2024, the Board said that so-called sweepstakes are unlicensed online lotteries and raffles under Michigan law, and that operating an unlicensed gambling operation is a felony under the Michigan Gaming Control and Revenue Act, punishable by imprisonment for up to 10 years or a fine of up to $100,000, or both. In February 2025, announcing cease-and-desist letters to unlicensed online casinos, it described operating under the guise of sweepstakes as one method such platforms use to evade regulatory scrutiny and circumvent traditional gaming laws.

There is no Michigan statute that licenses sweepstakes casinos, and none that names them: the prohibition comes from the general rule that gambling is illegal unless specifically authorised, applied by the regulator.

Problem Gambling Help in Michigan

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services publishes the Michigan Problem Gambling Helpline as 1-800-270-7117 for crisis intervention and referral to treatment, with trained counsellors available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by phone or virtually. The Gaming Control Board adds that calling 1-800-GAMBLER connects to the same Michigan helpline, answered by professionals under contract with the department. The National Council on Problem Gambling brands the national helpline 1-800-MY-RESET on its own pages.

Self-exclusion comes in two forms. The Responsible Gaming Database lets a person voluntarily self-exclude from all Michigan regulated online gaming or internet sports betting. The Disassociated Persons List covers the Detroit commercial casinos for life, with an opportunity to apply for removal after five years on the list.