North Dakota Sweepstakes Casinos

North Dakota is one of the more hospitable states for sweepstakes casinos. State law does not ban sweepstakes casinos, and no regulator has accused them of offering illegal online gambling. And, unlike some states, no lawmaker has introduced a bill to ban them.

That doesn’t necessarily mean sweepstakes casinos are legal in North Dakota; state law does not address them either way. However, numerous sweepstakes casinos have operated in North Dakota for years without any legal issues.

All prominent sweepstakes casino brands are available in North Dakota today, including:

• Casino.click
• WOW Vegas
• Stake.us
• Ace.com Casino

Sweepstakes casinos are the closest alternative to full-fledged online casinos in North Dakota. They offer casino-style games styled after online blackjack, real-money slots, video poker, and live dealer tables but use a “no purchase necessary” model to circumvent state gambling restrictions.

Most sweepstakes sites deal in two virtual currencies: Gold Coins (GCs) for entertainment only and Sweeps Coins (SCs) for playing to win redeemable prizes.

Players can buy GCs in packages to play for fun and bragging rights, while SCs are only available for free through promotional offers, daily login bonuses, and mail-in requests.

See our full guide to learn more about how sweepstakes casinos work and the fastest way to accumulate free SCs:

• Best Sweepstakes Casinos

Are Sweepstakes Casinos Legal in North Dakota?

It would be inaccurate to declare sweepstakes casinos either legal or illegal in North Dakota because state law does not explicitly address them by name.

The “no purchase necessary” line that you see plastered on sweepstakes casinos’ websites and ads is more than just marketing speak. It underpins the model’s entire legal argument: if players can participate and win real cash prizes without ever spending money, it’s not gambling.

Under NDCC § 12.1-28-01, gambling means risking money or anything of value for gain on an outcome decided wholly or partially by chance. That is, an activity only qualifies as gambling if it involves all three of the following elements:

• Consideration: Risking something of value (a bet that you place)
• Chance: The luck of the draw (a roulette ball, a slot machine’s random outcomes, etc.)
• Prize: You’re playing for a chance to win something (money, a vacation, etc.)

Operators contend that their games are legal because daily login bonuses, mail-in requests, and other types of promotions give players a genuine way to participate and win real prizes without ever risking money.

In short, sweepstakes casinos contend their games don’t fit the legal definition of online gambling in North Dakota because the free methods of participation remove the element of consideration.

Whether that contention would survive a legal challenge in North Dakota is unknown because nobody with the authority has ever brought one.

In conclusion, “available but legally untested” is a more accurate description of North Dakota sweepstakes casinos than “legal.”

What Players Should Know

The main things players should know about playing sweepstakes games online in North Dakota are that the activity is not expressly legal, and the state does not regulate operators. That means:

• The state does not license or audit sweepstakes casinos.
• There is no gaming commission to turn to if an operator fails to honor a redemption request.
• Any sweepstakes casino could exit the North Dakota market without much warning if it believes the risk of enforcement action has risen.
• If you win a bunch of SCs, you should redeem them sooner rather than later.
• Stick with established brands with proven track records and a history of honoring redemptions quickly.

North Dakota Online Gambling Laws

North Dakota law does not specifically address online gambling. Existing law predates the internet, but the state’s constitutional prohibition is broad enough to cover online gambling sites by default.

Article XI, Section 25 of the North Dakota Constitution prohibits the legislature from authorizing games of chance, with limited exceptions for multistate lottery games and charitable gaming.

North Dakota’s criminal code also prohibits gambling except where permitted by law. The law does not mention online gambling websites or casino apps by name, but it doesn’t need to. By default, the law prohibits all gambling outside of the state’s narrow exceptions.

Penalties for participating in unauthorized gambling under NDCC § 12.1-28-02 scale with the amount wagered:

• Wagers of $25 or less per individual hand, game, or event have no criminal penalty.
• Wagering more than $25 per hand on private premises is an infraction.
• Wagering more than $500 per hand is a Class A misdemeanor.

Since a player’s home counts as a private premises, a North Dakotan playing $50 blackjack hands at an offshore casino commits an infraction with every deal of the cards, at least on paper. In practice, we’ve never seen a single report of the state targeting an individual player for gambling online.

Will North Dakota Legalize Online Casinos?

There is no realistic scenario in which North Dakota legalizes online casinos in the near future.

In most states that haven’t yet legalized online gambling, there are just one or two specific challenges that make legalization difficult or unlikely. North Dakota faces multiple compounding obstacles: a constitutional ban, a legislature that meets in odd-numbered years, opposition from the state’s considerable charitable gaming industry, and tribal operators that want full control of the market.

Legalization Requires a Constitutional Amendment

The North Dakota Constitution prohibits the legislature from authorizing any form of gambling, so the only way to legalize online casinos is through a constitutional amendment.

There are two ways to amend the constitution in North Dakota. One is for the legislature to propose an amendment with a majority vote in both houses. The other is for voters to initiate an amendment with signatures from 4% of the state’s population. In either case, the proposed amendment must then receive a majority vote in a statewide election.

The legislature offers the surest route to a constitutional amendment but only meets in odd-numbered years in North Dakota. So, even if the legislature did want legal North Dakota online casinos (every indicator says “no” right now), legalization would be a multi-year process with no guarantee of success.

Lawmakers Would Not Even Send Sports Betting to the Voters

North Dakota’s 2025 sports betting attempt shows just how little appetite there is for online gambling expansion in the legislature.

HCR 3002 would have placed an amendment on the November 2026 ballot to legalize sports betting and earmark all tax revenue for K-12 public education. The proposal would not have legalized anything on its own, but the House still rejected it 70-24.

Opponents included the North Dakota University System and the North Dakota Student Association, who cited studies showing that online sports betting would be particularly harmful for college-age adults.

Other opponents expressed concerns that legalizing online sportsbooks in North Dakota would cannibalize revenue from North Dakota’s $2.5 billion charitable gaming industry.

Past legalization attempts show that the 2025 defeat was not an outlier. Similar resolutions to amend the constitution and legalize sports betting in North Dakota also failed in 2023 and 2021.

To date, no North Dakota lawmaker has ever introduced a bill to legalize online casinos, which would be a much bigger ask than any of the sports betting proposals that failed.

North Dakota Tribes Want A Say in Online Gambling

North Dakota’s five tribal nations are the only group in the state that has pushed for legal online casinos. However, their desire for a monopoly over the market also complicates the legalization picture.

During North Dakota’s state-tribal compact negotiations in 2022, the tribes asked for the exclusive right to operate online casinos in North Dakota and for all wagers to run through servers located on tribal land.

Governor Burgum declined the tribes’ request for statewide online gambling, stating that “a clear legal path does not exist for the governor to grant such a broad expansion of gaming in the compact.”

The final agreements did grant tribes the right to operate online casinos for players physically located on tribal land, but none have done so. Given the limited player pool that on-reservation-only casino apps could serve, the lack of action is no surprise.

North Dakota Charities Have $2.3 Billion Reasons to Oppose Online Gambling

North Dakota’s constitution prohibits all gambling outside of exceptions for a state lottery and charitable gaming. The latter has resulted in one of the nation’s largest charity-run gambling industries.

The legalization of electronic pull-tabs (“e-tabs”) in 2017 drove the boom. E-tabs alone generated more than $2.3 billion in gross proceeds in 2025, with operators keeping nearly $245 million of that as cash profits.

Thousands of nonprofits now rely on e-tab revenue, and studies show that charitable gaming also supports thousands of jobs in North Dakota. As a result, charities and the lawmakers who support them have strong incentives to block any online casino bill that leaves them out.

Crafting a bill that satisfies the state’s nonprofits and tribal interests while still establishing a workable online gambling market would be enormously complicated if not impossible.

Market Potential of North Dakota Online Casinos

With a population of just under 800,000, North Dakota would be one of the nation’s smallest online casino markets. Whether a North Dakota online gambling market punches above its weight class would depend entirely on how the state regulates it.

Based on loose projections from small states with single-operator markets and states with competitive open markets, North Dakota online casinos could realistically generate anywhere from $40 million to $240 million in revenue per year.

How a Single-Operator Market May Look

Delaware and Rhode Island are currently the two smallest online casino markets in the US, and their revenue figures serve as the low-end benchmark.

Lawmakers in both states chose single-operator markets run through their state lotteries, and their results are a fraction of the figures generated in competitive open markets.

Delaware online gambling revenue reached $85 million in FY 2025 from a population of roughly one million, or roughly $85 per resident. Rhode Island online casinos generated roughly $58 million in 2025 from a population of about 1.1 million, or roughly $52 per resident.

If North Dakota establishes a single-operator model and achieves similar per-resident results, its online casino market would generate somewhere in the range of $41.6 million to $68 million.

How An Open Market May Look

In states with competitive online gambling markets served by multiple operators (e.g., BetMGM Casino, Caesars Palace Online, and FanDuel Casino), per-resident revenue routinely reaches $250 to $300.

If North Dakota follows in their footsteps and reaches similar per-resident revenue figures, its market would be worth roughly $200 million to $240 million annually.

Both Paths Are Realistic

The evidence overwhelmingly favors competitive open markets if lawmakers prioritize establishing the largest possible online casino market. But maximizing revenue may not be North Dakota’s top priority.

For one, lawmakers may wish to retain tight control over the market to test the waters and rein in operators if early results point to significant increases in problem gambling, revenue cannibalization from charitable gaming, or both.

Additionally, North Dakota’s lack of established land-based casino operators and experienced gambling regulators may push lawmakers toward the “keep it simple” path by giving control and regulatory authority to the state lottery and authorizing it to partner with exactly one experienced commercial online gambling brand.

North Dakota Online Casinos FAQ