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• Online Gambling In Vermont
• Vermont Online Gambling
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Vermont is one of the smallest and least populated states in the union. Plus, nearly 80 percent of the state is forest. That means a lot of trees, maple syrup, and little in the way of casinos and gambling.

And as for the online gambling arena, Vermont is about as behind the times as one might expect. Even lottery tickets are forbidden to be sold over the internet, and while some progress has been made on the daily fantasy sports (DFS) front, that game still falls within a legal “grey zone” at the moment.

Best Vermont Online Casinos (2021) With a population of just over 626,000 people, Vermont is known as a major gambling hub. Fortunately, lawmakers in this state are fairly lenient when it comes to the gambling industry and the popularity of casino gambling has been steadily growing here. Vermont gambling law makes it a crime to play cards, tables, dice or other games for money or anything of value in a common gambling or gaming house maintained for lucre and gain – which explains the state’s lack of gambling entertainment. What Are Vermont Gambling Laws Concerning Online Gambling? Despite the state’s gambling restrictions. Online Gambling in Vermont – Vermont’s Best Online Casinos The government of Vermont is not gambling-friendly when it comes to either land-based establishments or their online counterparts. You won’t find a casino of any kind in Vermont or be able to bet on sports.

Online Gambling Casino Real Money

In fact, gambling is against the law. There are no commercial casinos, tribal casinos, or racetracks. Vermont residents who like to gamble in casinos must travel to do so, heading to neighboring states, like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and even across the Canadian border to Montreal.

There is a state lottery in Vermont, and legislators have played around with the idea of different lottery games and where and when residents should be able to purchase tickets. Still, the lotto remains the only real-money gambling operating in Vermont at this time. There is no legal Vermont sports betting.

There are no land-based casinos in Vermont. The closest thing to a slot machine was the electronic state lottery terminals that offered lottery tickets and a small variety of lottery-style video games. The terminals were installed in 25 different bars across the state in 2015 as a part of a pilot project. They were removed when the state made them illegal a year later.

Pari-mutuel gaming has been legal in the state since 1959, but there are no longer any racetracks operating. At one time, the Vermont State Fair in Rutland held a short horse racing meet with pari-mutuel betting, but the Green Mountain Race Track in Pownal was really the state’s only true track. It opened in 1963 and held thoroughbred and standardbred horse racing events for four years. It then replaced them with greyhound racing. The track closed for good in 1992.

The Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort tribal casino in New York is among the closest casinos to Vermont’s largest city of Burlington. It’s about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from the city. The casino features 130,000 square feet of gaming space and more than 1,600 slot machines. Casino gaming is also available in Montreal across the Canadian border, less than a two-hour drive away.

The Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun tribal casinos in Connecticut are within four-and-a-half hours from Burlington. Plus, Atlantic City, where casino gambling has been legal since 1978, is a seven-hour drive away.

In 2015, State Rep. Ronald Hubert introduced legislation to allow the establishment of a casino in Vermont for the sixth straight year. For almost a decade, he has pushed the idea that a casino could bolster state coffers. However, none of his proposed bills have ever come out of the committee stage. Hence, it does not appear a land-based casino will be coming to the state anytime soon.

Sweepstakes casinos in Vermont

Social casino site options

Since there’s no real money involved, Vermont residents or visitors are free to play on social casino sites all they want.

Social casino games are a multi-billion dollar market. The most popular are app-based games for Android and iOS operating systems, which you can download to a mobile device. There’s also Facebook-based apps that are operated through the social media site.

These include casino-style games developed by industry leaders, such as Zynga, Activision Blizzard, KoreanNexon, and Supercell. Social gaming revenues reached more than $1.5 in the United States in 2016. However, Asia remains the largest market with $2.2 billion in revenue in 2015 and more than 500 million reported users.

Online gambling options

It is illegal to operate an online casino in Vermont. However, nearby states like New Jersey and Delaware have both established legal, licensed, and regulated online gaming markets where visitors to the states can play online slots.

Vermont residents and visitors may be able to access any number of offshore online casinos that offer online slots. However, getting money on and off the sites may prove difficult and runs afoul of federal law. Any form of gambling in Vermont could also be considered a misdemeanor, and the gambler could be subject to a fine.

Former Governor Peter Shumlin had expressed opposition to federal anti-iGaming movements and was interested in preserving the states’ rights on the issue. However, he did not seek re-election in 2016 and Phil Scott won the gubernatorial race. The issue of online gaming does not appear to be on any upcoming agenda for Vermont lawmakers.

Operator profile

The Vermont Lottery

Vermont voters passed a referendum to establish a state-run lottery in 1976. A year later, the Vermont Lottery Commission was established, and the state lottery began operating in 1978. In that first year of operations, the commission held its first legalized state lottery and sold its first instant scratch-and-win tickets. Two years later, it began running a Pick 3 online game.

For the first 10 years of lottery operation in Vermont, all profits were poured directly into the state’s General Fund. However, in 1998, lawmakers decreed that all profits from the Vermont Lottery go into the state’s Education Fund.

The Vermont Lottery is currently run by a small staff of just 21 full-time employees. There’s oversight from the Vermont Lottery Commission and its five commissioners, each of whom are appointed by the Governor and approved by the State Senate. Most profits still go through to the state’s Education Fund, but some are now earmarked to promote responsible gaming.

In addition to its own state lottery, Vermont also takes part in several Tri-State lottery operations with Maine and New Hampshire. These include the popular Powerball, Megabucks, and Mega Millions lotteries.

State legal environment

In 2018 the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA). Since then, states across the country have been scrambling to establish or change legislation regarding sports betting, mobile bets, and online gambling, and everyday Americans have been struggling to keep up.

Navigating the complex world where federal and state laws collide isn’t easy; it doesn’t help that the United States has a complicated and somewhat sordid past with gambling laws and operators. There are plenty of people eager for their own state to jump on the online gambling bandwagon, but they have a lot of questions–especially about what is or isn’t legal in their state. Here, we’ll break down some of the laws that are still affecting online gambling laws in the US and simplify where Vermont sits on the legalization of online gambling.

Laying out the Laws

The repeal of PASPA restored the right to make laws regarding sports betting to states, but there are still some federal laws that create grey areas for activities like online gambling. The Federal Wire Act of 1961, for example, is still undergoing interpretation by the DOJ as to whether or not it criminalizes online gambling across state lines. Aside from wishy-washy federal legislation, Vermont has some pretty clear anti-gambling laws.

Online Gambling In Vermont

The Bad News

Most forms of gambling are illegal in Vermont, with exceptions for the state lottery, daily fantasy sports, and non-profits or charitable organizations that operate “games of chance”. So if the VFW wants to have bingo night with a cash prize, they can. In true Vermont fashion, deer pools are also legal as long as it’s hunting season.

Pari-mutuel horse race betting is technically allowed, but you might have a hard time finding somewhere to place your bets since there aren’t any race tracks or land-based casinos in Vermont. Professional gambling, however, is prohibited as described in this guide about Vermont online gambling at online-gambling.com/us/vermont/.

The Good News

While Vermont is much more strict than some of its neighboring states about gambling, there is actually some hope that state legislators may consider legalizing online gambling in the future. Online gambling and online sports betting aren’t specifically mentioned in the state’s gambling laws, and recent bills are looking at what benefits sports betting could have for the state. Bill S.59, which was first introduced in 2019 and passed in June of 2020, will form a Sports Betting Study Committee.

Other states have been quick to adopt sports betting as a way to cover budget shortfalls brought on by the pandemic, but Vermont legislators aren’t so sure. To focus on questions about the pros and cons of legalizing certain forms of gambling, the committee created by S.59 will investigate exactly how the state could regulate and tax sports betting activities. While the bill doesn’t address online gambling specifically, sports betting operations in Vermont would most likely be online or mobile since there are no land-based casinos or bookmakers in the state. There’s no guarantee, but a willingness to consider online sports betting could lead to the legalization of broader online gambling.

Offshore Options

Even if Vermont and other states never legalize online gambling, Americans itching to play online may still have options. Senator Michael Sirotkin, a sponsor of bill S.59, urged fellow senators to consider that Vermonters are already making sports bets elsewhere. “Many of the bets being placed in Vermont now are going to our neighboring states and into other countries,” he said, referring to offshore betting sites.

He also added: “If we want to move sports betting to a legalized, regulated and tax approach, we need more information about the real-world track record of this activity and our own analysis of our different ways to structure a tax and regulated system.”

Legalese Loopholes

Vermont Online Gambling

Running online gambling sites is still fairly tricky for operators because of the grey area of legalization in the US, but individual gamblers are less at risk of prosecution. Some states have legalized online gambling, but play is still only legal within the state. Sites operating in those states are working under the present interpretation of the Federal Wire Act, which says that online gambling across state lines is federally illegal.

Vermont residents–and players from other states without local online casino sites–can and do play on offshore sites, however. These are online operators from out of the country that offer services to players in the United States with the expectation that they are outside the jurisdiction of US federal laws. Typically, the law doesn’t have the resources or the inclination to pursue offshore betting sites or the individuals who use them, but these sites do come with their own risks.

It’s a Gamble

Online Gambling Vermont Lottery

Because offshore gambling sites aren’t regulated by US state or federal law, they aren’t held to any specific standards. This can lead to some sites taking advantage of players with predatory practices like limits on withdrawals, deferred cashouts, and putting off customer questions or contact altogether. When gambling on offshore sites there are no guarantees.

Online Gambling Vermont Jobs

If you’re holding out for better ways to play in Vermont, contacting your state senators and telling them you want safer online gambling options may help spur online gambling legislation for interested Vermonters like you! Will this span any results? It is hard to say. However, if enough people show interest in the issue, the state will certainly have to do something about it.