The time for online real money casino gambling in Pennsylvania has finally arrived. Online casino betting is now currently offered by three casinos – Parx Bensalem, Penn National Hollywood Casino and Sugar House.
After legalization in 2017 for online gambling in Pennsylvania was approved, those that physically reside in PA now have the ability and the right to play casino games such as blackjack, roulette, slots and poker (against the house) online. It has taken a substantial length of time to proceed through the steps of having a framework, governance and operations in place – a lengthy 2 years.
In the past week, the final steps for being operational were completed by three casinos. A “soft” launch was kicked off on Monday for three days by Parx and Penn National with Sugar House beginning their soft launch on Wednesday. The soft launch allowed real money gambling to be made available to PA residents for a limited window of time each day. The limited window of time allowed the regulator and casino operators to resolve any issues, should any have occurred.
Successfully, the soft launch is now complete, and the window limit has been removed to permit 24/7 online betting. Currently online betting is restricted to android mobile devices with iPhone and iPads yet to be approved by Apple. (Edit: Sugar House has been approved for iPhone and iPads.) Online gambling is available on desktop on either PC of Mac.
An online player must be 21 or over and physically be located within the borders of the state. (However, please note that the age requirement for playing online PA lottery is only 18).
Pennsylvania becomes only the third US state to offer online real money gambling to its residents. The other states being Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada.