Delaware Online Gambling

Delaware is something of an odd choice to be at the forefront of gambling law in the United States.

Delaware Park Online Opened in 1933, Delaware Park is the longest-running gambling venue in the Blue Hen State. This thoroughbred racetrack and casino is behind the Delaware Park Online brand. Delaware Park features a few dozen online slots along with two table games. Delaware Park offers live table games and full service Tournament and Cash Poker Rooms. Enjoy all your favorite games including Blackjack, Roulette, Craps, Three Card Poker, Fortune Pai Gow Poker, Lucky Ladies, High Card Flush, Hot Roller Craps, Heads-up Hold’ Em, Cajun Stud Progressive.

It is a small, unassuming state best known for its strategic advantages in the area of incorporating a business and for its favorite son, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Nonetheless, in contrast to its reputation and its gradual foray into casino-style gambling, Delaware has jumped with both feet into the internet gambling arena. It was the only state other than Nevada and New Jersey to have legalized online gambling in any form until Pennsylvania joined the list in 2017. In fact, it was the first to do so in 2012, beating the two usual suspects.

So far, the results have been underwhelming and below initial projections, though those projections were likely too optimistic. Delaware only reported $1.4 million and $1.8 million in its first two years of offering online gambling. However, revenues shot up to $3 million in 2016, so it appears things are on the upswing.

Essentially, Delaware’s internet gambling is consolidated in one single platform. Each of the three land-based casinos are licensed to offer their own branded paths to online gambling, but ultimately, it’s a unified system managed by 888 Holdings.

Within that system, Delaware’s law actually allows for a quite broad interpretation of what can be offered. The director of the Delaware Department of Gaming Enforcement has, by law, quite a bit of latitude to decide the range of offerings, and the current holder of that position has not been eager to exclude anything. So, Delaware residents enjoy a favorable set of options for online gambling.

Sweepstakes casinos in Delaware

Social casino site options

Social casino options are much the same for Delawareans as in other states. All the typical apps, like Zynga, Slotomania, and Big Fish Casino offer an opportunity to play slot machines and other games without risking any money.

Unfortunately, unlike New Jersey, it does not appear that the real-money sites in Delaware feature a play money option that ties directly into the branded sites.

MyVegas is typically one of the better options for social gaming, but its effectiveness is limited by players’ proximity to its partners’ real-world locations. Delaware is not particularly close to any of the MyVegas partners.

The closest would be either Borgata in New Jersey or Resorts World Bimini in the Bahamas, and neither one of those options is exceptionally convenient.

Delaware sports betting

Under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), Delaware was one of four states exempted from the federal ban on sports betting. The state is allowed to offer parlay wagering. For the past decade or so, the state lottery has offered sports betting in the form of three-team NFL parlays.

When the Supreme Court struck down PASPA in full in May of 2018, Delaware immediately set its sights on expanding DE sports betting offerings. Perhaps surprisingly, the First State lived up to its nickname by becoming the first state post-PASPA to offer sports betting.

Gov. John Carneyplaced the first bet in the state on June 5. All three of Delaware’s casinos have active sportsbooks and are available to collect wagers.

So far, Delaware casinos have collected nearly $40 million in bets and held nearly $5.2 million through the end of September 2018. For a state with fewer than 1 million inhabitants, Delaware residents seem to be getting busy with sports betting.

Online casino options

Land-based slots environment

Delaware’s move toward land-based gambling has been a gradual progression, rather than a full-bore sprint toward legalization.

Dating back to 1933, the state legislature created a racing commission, and through numerous legislative sessions, the state has slowly increased the prominence of gambling. In doing so, gambling has become the state’s fourth largest source of revenue, so the presence of gambling in the First State is likely quite stable.

Delaware has only three land-based casinos. In a vacuum, this sounds like a tentative number for a state to license, but considering that Delaware is less than 2,500 square miles in area and has less than one million total residents, three casinos is a solid presence. All three are racinos – gambling venues that contain a racetrack, which supports Delaware’s long history of horse racing.

All three casinos also contain slot machines and table games. Each has more than 2,000 slot machines for play. In a quirky twist, all slot machines in Delaware are technically video lottery terminals, meaning that their operation is overseen by the Delaware Lottery, and taxes from their operation feed into the state funds via the lottery’s contributions.

However, the slots player in Delaware will see little functional difference. They still pay out in cash, and they still offer the same relative level of payout percentage – between 87 and 95 percent by law.

Land-based slots options

Operator profile

Delaware Park Racetrack

Delaware Park is the oldest gambling facility in the state of Delaware. With the state legalization of horse racing in 1933, William DuPont Jr. (of the DuPont family) designed a one-mile dirt oval track and expansive facilities for both guests and the horses.

“DelPark” is the only location for thoroughbred horse racing in the state. Today, Delaware Park is a full-service racetrack and casino, offering thousands of slot machines, live table games like blackjack, craps, roulette, and pai gow, and both a poker room for cash play and a poker tournament room.

There is also a sports betting venue, although due to another quirk of legal restrictions, only parlays may be purchased on football games. To round out the entertainment options, DelPark is also the home of White Clay Creek Country Club, a full-service golf facility.

Delaware Park is owned by William Rickman Jr., who inherited the property from his father. Rickman Jr. was also the owner of Ocean Downs Racetrack just over the border in Maryland, but sold the property in August 2016. Indeed, there have long been rumors about potential sales of DelPark property.

The proliferation of casinos and racetracks in Pennsylvania has choked off profit pipelines and increased competitive pressure throughout the region – both in Delaware and New Jersey. Quite simply, the market is saturated in the Northeast, especially with Pennsylvania continuing to press its advantage yielded by larger population centers, particularly Philadelphia.

Still, Delaware Park is a favorite for locals, and it will continue to exist for many years to come in some format. There is too much tradition and history to think otherwise.

State legal environment

Delaware is the second smallest state in the country and one of the least populated, as well. The expectations for it to become a hub for residents in USA gambling for real money were not that high, given the starting premises. However, Delaware managed to surprise everyone with its obvious predilection towards legalizing and even promoting the expansion of gambling, in almost any form. Besides the Delaware casinos, which are pretty much common around the country, excepting a few conservative states, DE managed to get a very early start in the online wagering business.

Best Delaware Online Casino Sites

Contents

Delaware Gambling Laws

The true unexpected move came in the area of online gambling, with Delaware becoming one of the American pioneers, being quick to react to the option of legalizing these activities.
The context for this development of the Delaware gambling laws can be understood by looking at it through two points of view:

• A long history with state-allowed gambling, ever since the first laws came to order in 1933, regulating horse racing. This would become a pivotal subject, seeing how even nowadays, the importance of these racetracks is high, in the strategy and budget planning. The tax revenues based on the activity of these casinos are the fourth source for the state’s incomes.
• Seeing how we’re not talking about one of the most touristic places, the lack of people travelling to these facilities in order to spend their money stateside had to be compensated through some other alternative scenario. Hence, the Delaware online casino idea came to life.

The state just seems to uphold the best laws on gambling, rivalling with great Nevada and New Jersey states in this area, check out this summary to know more details. The way the law-makers chose to hop on this train was by giving the institution tasked with surveying this area, full authority of decision on the matter. And the Delaware Department of Gaming Enforcement decided that every sort of gambling should be allowed. Furthermore, any new addition or any new concept had been issued in this field would quickly become a debate topic and after reviewing the pros and cons, it would be decided on how to fit in the gambling expansion strategy.

The three racetracks existent in DE, made the jump towards becoming the first items on the Delaware casinos list, in 1995, after the decision to allow in their locations VLTs, owned by the state’s lottery.

Trying to keep up with some of the surrounding states, constantly battling for the same customers, the racetracks became what is known in the market as “racinos”, after being allowed to enter in their offer table games: blackjack, roulette, craps, poker, baccarat.

In the meantime, after the implementation of PASPA federal law in 1992, Delaware was part of the four states which were still offering some form of sports betting. In 2018, after the Supreme Court took down PASPA, it was among the first states to jump right at the prospect of giving customers the possibility to enjoy sports betting, through the three state establishments.

Online Gambling

Long before the latest addition to the list of states that legalized online gambling of Pennsylvania, Delaware had already been in the business for some time, alongside Nevada and New Jersey. As a matter of fact, Delaware online gambling came to life even before the law-makers of the other two rival states managed to put it all in a final shape. The year of 2012 found DE making Delaware online slots real money available for state residents, along with all the other games usually found in any online casino.

The way this works in this state is by having a consolidated platform where all the games can be found and which can be accessed by any willing gambler, as long as he is located between state’s boundaries. However, each current casino has the right to set its own path to the platform. This is the best way the authorities have found to divide revenue, depending on the path each customer used to join the website.
There is a domain that is not yet up to speed to the latest progress, although there is work in progress there. The Delaware online sports betting stage is not yet set up. Since the last months of 2018, state lawmakers have been given the possibility to choose for themselves if the state wants to allow sports betting or not, this not being a decision in federals hands anymore. DE went on with it, but the online platform for sportsbooking, which would also be under the state’s supervision, is not yet fully functional. Players also have an opportunity to gamble at off-shore RealTime Gaming online casinos. You can find such brands on our website. Bovada Casino is our favourite choice. Bovada is legal in Delaware and offers a huge option of games.

Offline Options

Racinos

The Delaware Park is the oldest and most history field of the racetracks, going back to the birth of the gambling laws in this state. Dover Downs is the facility with the greatest number of VLTs of the three, with over 2300 machines.

Delaware Lottery Online Gambling

The interesting aspect in the supply of the racinos with video lottery terminals is that their operation is supervised by the state’s lottery, with revenues from taxes going straight into funding the state.

Another thing to ponder is the fact that there are only three available units and they possess so many facilities and services in their offer. For a state of fewer than 1 million people, the 3 casinos simply seem to be the right number. No future expansion plans regarding land-based casinos are set in motion, so far.

Sports Betting

This is the latest development in the Delaware gambling market, with states’ authorities seizing the opportunity of settling on their own terms to which they should allow the phenomenon. At this point, each of the three casinos holds a license for keeping sportsbooks and being able to collect the betting money, this last sequence being the forbidden activity, under previous federal laws.

Lottery

Besides the classical type of lottery available in DE, the state’s lottery also serves as one of the great players in this market, by controlling all the Delaware slots. The VLTs, as stated in the name, is the lottery’s property and it holds ownership on these machines. Meaning, the taxes are collected by the lottery itself and sent directly into the state’s treasury.

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Maryland online casinos
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Is gambling legal in Delaware?

Yes. There are few games or wagering activities that the market of gambling in Delaware doesn’t offer. There are possibilities to play in casinos, to bet on the happenings on horse racetracks, bingo, the state lottery and the coup de grace, online websites, legal and available for any stateside user.

Are there casinos in Delaware?

Not only are the classical casinos in Delaware a popular sight, but online casinos have also made an appearance. Actually, this state was the first in the US to legalize online casinos. The way to participate in this new market was the following: the three venues already in business, have created a simple branded path towards a mutual website. Even though the paths are different, the outcome refers to the same platform, and the clients feel no difference in provided services. The only difference is felt by the site’s operators, the revenue going to the one who owns the path users signed on from.

Is online gambling allowed in DE?

For anyone who cares to gamble online without any sort of setback from a legal point of view and doesn’t want to start using the gray market of off-shore based websites, Delaware is the state that covers all those conditions.
The state was the first to find a solution to the issue of regulated Internet gambling and ever since 2012 there has been an official website, under the patronage of the three land-based casinos, where players located between the state’s limits, can attend to online poker tournaments, online slot machines, as well as many other versions of table games. For now, the only wagering type that can’t be used in its online form refers to sports betting, but authorities are currently working on solving this issue, as well.

Is online sports betting possible in Delaware?

Perhaps the only betting possibility that hasn’t yet found a legal standpoint is that of being able to bet on sports online. This is due to the fact that an extended area of sports betting has only come into state’s regulations at the end of 2018, after the already famous decision of the Supreme Court to put the responsibility of legalizing this aspect in the hands of state legislators, instead of federal’s. Delaware’s casinos already have sportsbooks and can take on wagers, while working on expanding this option to the Internet-based market.

Delaware Park Online Gambling

What is the gambling age?

The legal gambling age in Delaware is split into two categories, the same as in many other places across the country, with a minimum of 18 in the case of bingo, the lottery and betting on horse races. The second part of the age limitation refers to entering a casino and enjoying the full offer of table games and slot machines there, and for this, any player must be over 21 years old.

Best Online Gambling Sites For Real Money

Any future developments in favor of gambling expansion?

Perhaps the number of only three establishments might seem a small one at first glance, but statistics show that it covers just right the needs of DE. For a population of under 1 million and the second smallest area from the US states, it seems to be enough and no other prospects of opening new venues soon. The residents also have the option of playing online, so that seems to be covering all bases.