Online Casinos in Rhode Island

Rhode Island licenses real-money online casino play, and it is one of the few states where the statute uses a term of its own for it. R.I. Gen. Laws chapter 42-61.2 calls it iGaming, places it under the state lottery, and brought it into force on 1 March 2024.

Who Regulates Online Casino Play in Rhode Island

The chapter's defined term for the regulator is the Division, which it states means the state lottery division of the department of revenue — the Rhode Island Lottery. Under § 42-61.2-3.4 the Division director must promulgate rules and regulations relating to state-operated iGaming and set policy for such gaming, covering the conduct of iGaming, patron complaints, internal controls, operational controls for online gaming accounts and age restrictions. Under § 42-61.2-13 the Division director must enforce the chapter, and that enforcement includes referring suspected criminal activity to the Rhode Island state police.

A second body appears in the same chapter. DBR is defined as the department of business regulation, division of gaming and athletics licensing. It is a licensing body named in the definitions; the operation and regulation of iGaming itself sits with the Division.

The constitutional and statutory basis for casino gaming in the state is § 42-61.2-2.1, under which, notwithstanding any other law and pursuant to the Rhode Island Constitution, the state is authorized to operate, conduct and control casino gaming at Twin River.

What Counts as iGaming

The statute defines iGaming as casino gaming, inclusive of online slot games and online table games, made available to players who have reached 21 years of age through the use of the internet through computers, mobile applications on mobile devices or other interactive devices approved by the Division, with wagers accepted by a server-based gaming system located at the premises of a hosting facility. Casino gaming in turn is defined as any and all table and casino-style games played with cards, dice or equipment for money, credit or any representative of value, including roulette, blackjack, big six, craps, poker, baccarat and paigow.

An online slot game is an online slot-machine-like game authorized by the Division within the scope of the term iGaming. An online table game is a casino-style table game authorized by the Division within that same scope, conducted by one or more live persons and played with the digital representation of cards, dice or equipment.

The definition is explicit about what iGaming is not. It does not include online sports wagering conducted under § 42-61.2-2.4 and regulated elsewhere in the general laws, including in § 42-61.2-16, nor sports wagering, pari-mutuel betting, off-track betting, jai alai wagering, or lotteries, charitable gaming, games of chance, bingo and pull-tabs. Rhode Island's online sports betting and its online casino are two separate authorisations, and this page is about the second.

Age and Location Requirements

The minimum age is 21. The statute requires the Division's rules to set age restrictions for online iGaming patrons, which shall be prohibited for players who have not reached 21 years of age, and the definition of iGaming carries the same figure.

Location is controlled tightly. Wagers in connection with iGaming may only be initiated, received or otherwise made within the State of Rhode Island, and the iGaming platform vendor may only accept wagers from players who have been affirmatively located as being physically present in Rhode Island at the time of their wager. The server-based gaming system must detect the player's physical location while they wager, and if it finds the player outside the state, or cannot detect a location at all, it must not accept that player's wagers. Play is only open to patrons who have established an online gaming account under the Division's rules.

There is a route to change that. Under § 42-61.2-18 the Division may enter an interactive gaming reciprocal agreement with a regulatory agency in another state or jurisdiction where interactive gaming is authorized, allowing wagers from people not physically present in Rhode Island and allowing people in Rhode Island to wager with the agreement's other parties, where the Division has determined the agreement is consistent with federal and state law.

Where the Games Are Hosted

A hosting facility is defined as the Lincoln gaming facility and the Tiverton gaming facility — the state's two casinos, which also offer video lottery terminals, table games, stadium gaming and sports betting on site. All wagers on iGaming games are deemed to be placed and accepted, and the games deemed to be operated on the Division's behalf, at the premises of a hosting facility. Unlike the floor games, iGaming may be offered without any restriction on hours of operation and is not limited by the days and times video lottery games or table games are offered.

Sweepstakes Casinos

No status is recorded for sweepstakes casinos in Rhode Island. No Rhode Island statute, regulator page, attorney general statement or legislative record found for this sheet addresses the sweepstakes casino model one way or the other, and this site does not infer a position from a neighbouring state, from a national trend, or from the fact that the state licenses real-money online casinos. A blank here means the question has not been settled on the evidence, not that the model is permitted and not that it is banned.

A sweepstakes casino is in any case not a licensed real-money casino, and the two are never presented here as alternatives to each other.

Responsible Gambling

Rhode Island has its own helpline. The Rhode Island Lottery publishes the Rhode Island Problem Gambling Helpline as 1-877-9GAMBLE (1-877-942-6253) and says it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with highly trained and multi-lingual staff; the same page describes the hotline as sponsored by the Rhode Island Lottery. For treatment, the Lottery points to Problem Gambling Services on 1-401-499-2472. 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.

The statute carries its own obligations. Section 42-61.2-14 requires the two gaming facilities, in cooperation with the state, to offer compulsive and problem gambling programmes that include problem gambling awareness programmes for employees, a player self-exclusion programme, promotion of a problem gambling hotline, and education on responsible gambling, and requires them to modify those programmes to include table games, sports wagering and iGaming to the extent those games are authorized at the facilities or through the internet or a mobile application.