Gambling at 18: Casinos That Allow 18-Year-Olds

If you’ve recently turned 18 or are celebrating a birthday soon and want to know where you can gamble safely, we have good news! There are indeed casinos that allow 18-year-olds. In fact, this is not that rare! Read on to find out where you can play legally and what types of gambling options are available to you.

You can read this article to find out exactly where to find casinos that allow 18-year-olds. Because these laws vary from state to state, we’ll also go over individual state laws and interesting facts about how the legal gambling age differs across the US. If you’ve ever wondered why there are differences in these choices and how a legal limit was set, we have that covered here too.

You can use our links below to find various topics that interest you the most. Read through to the very end to find our frequently asked questions section. If you’d rather play from the comfort of your home, check out our guide to the top online casinos. If you have any confusion about online casino rules versus land-based rules, we have that covered in the next section.

• Casinos That Allow 18-Year-Olds to Gamble
• States That Allow Gambling for 18-Year-Olds
• Available Types of Gambling for 18-Year-Olds
• Protecting Minors: Why There Is An Age Limit On Gambling

Casinos That Allow 18-Year-Olds to Gamble

If you are looking for casinos that allow 18-year-olds to gamble, either for yourself or for a friend, the good news is there are definitely many options out there across the US. If you live near a casino that you would like to visit, the easiest thing to do is to contact them directly.

Most casinos have age restrictions listed clearly on their websites: in fact, they’ll usually have a pop-up asking you to confirm you are over the legal age limit before you view the site! This is a quick way to confirm where the casino allows 18-year-old visitors.

If, however, you are planning to travel to visit a special casino, you might want to know more generally what the rules are state by state. The key thing to remember when it comes to gambling age limits is that these are largely determined on a state basis, not on a national one. The legal drinking age is the same across states, for example, but the legal gambling age is not!

Adding to the confusion, different states have different types of legal gambling, as you probably know already. Some states do not allow casinos at all, or simply do not have many choices. States sometimes choose to set different age limits for different types of games, too!

Though this sounds complex, we assure you, there is an easy way to check whether your state casinos should allow gambling at 18 or not. We’ve included a table below that shows the overall gambling ages, with the states with limits of 18+ highlighted for your convenience.

We’ll also explain some of the other exceptions you might encounter. For example, generally a state might allow gambling at 18 in the casino, but certain casinos might choose to have a higher age limit, due to the presence of alcohol on the casino floor.

Online Vs. Land-Based Age Limits

We are mainly focusing on land-based casinos in this article, but of course you may also be wondering about online casino age limits, which is fair enough! If you are looking for information regarding online casinos that allow 18-year-olds to gamble, we can help.

Across the board, states that allow online casino gambling mostly use the same age limit for both online and land-based. That means that unfortunately, there are no states as of yet that allow gambling for 18-year-olds. All of the legal states (Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) have age limits of 21 for online casinos; note that Nevada only allows online poker at this time, but the age limit is also 21.

However, Rhode Island has legalized online casino gambling as of 2023 and it will be put into effect officially in March 2024. The overall gambling age limit in RI is 18 years old. It is unclear as of yet whether that will hold for online casino gambling, but we will see. Rhode Island might just be the first state to allow online casino gambling at 18!

Lastly, you’ll notice in the table below two other curious outliers. New Hampshire and Colorado offer online sports betting. No, it’s not exactly the same as online casino gambling, that is true, but you can access these at 18 in these two states, making the online betting age lower than the overall gambling age for other verticals there. Interesting!

States That Allow Gambling for 18-Year-Olds

Despite all of the regulations and exceptions we’ve mentioned so far, there are still states that allow gambling for 18-year-olds. Check the table below for the most up-to-date and detailed information on gambling age limits by state and type of game.

As we mentioned previously, states determine their own age limits, as well as which types of games are allowed. Sometimes these decisions can be quite specific, as with Nevada which allows many types of gambling but only poker in its online form, as opposed to other casino games. In short, casino gambling age limits are not determined at the federal level but by individual state legislatures.

In states like Utah and Hawaii which have virtually no legal gambling, this decision reflects the values of the people living there and the lawmakers who govern them. There are also states in which casinos are allowed, but only up to a certain number, or one per major city, for example. In some states, casinos are also mainly regulated by Native American tribes. In other states, both commercial and tribal casinos coexist.

One helpful thing to know about this is that tribal casinos are exempt from some state laws, so they do not have to necessarily stick to the same age limit as other casinos in the same state! That is why it is always worth checking with the casino you wish to visit. In California, for example, you might find that a tribal casino allows 18-year-olds on premises while a commercial casino does not.

Some Personal Anecdotes

We asked some of our regular contributors about their experiences with casino age limits and it turns out, many have had memorable run-ins with this topic! Years ago, one contributor went with her mother to a casino in order to watch a Tom Petty concert only to find they were turned away at the door due to her being below the age of 21. Though she was not there to gamble or drink, the commercial casino had strict age limits for visitors since alcohol would be on the premises.

This is an amusing contrast to our other story, which comes from one of our experts who has fond memories of visiting Las Vegas with his parents as a child. Then – and now – minors are allowed on the casino floor as long as they are accompanied by an adult, but they must evacuate by midnight. This rule was set in order to encourage families to visit Las Vegas resorts together, where entertainment is plentiful for guests of all ages!

Available Types of Gambling for 18-Year-Olds

What if you’ve discovered that you live in a state where casinos are not present, or where there are no casinos that allow 18-year-olds thanks to state age requirements? Don’t worry, there are still some forms of gambling available to 18-year-olds beyond casino houses.

By perusing our table above, you’ll get a complete overview of what types of games are legal to 18-year-olds, or not, by state. To summarize the table, the most common eligible forms of gambling for this age group are lottery, sports betting and Daily Fantasy Sports. Lottery is available in many states, while sports betting and DFS are increasingly available and popular. That means there are still many opportunities to enjoy legal gambling if it’s your thing!

Protecting Minors: Why There Is An Age Limit On Gambling

After reading all of this information, you may be wondering why there aren’t more casinos where you can be 18! It is a fair question and we wanted to give some perspective to share how many of these laws came to be. Firstly, most states offer some form of gambling, but this was not always the case. Some states have been especially slow to legalize casinos, slots, sports betting, racing and more, due to old-fashioned and conservative views.

There is also awareness and concern about gambling being connected to crime, like money laundering, which is indeed an international problem. Furthermore, there are concerns associated with vulnerable groups getting involved with gambling and ending up with debts, or with addictive behaviors. Thus the legalization of gambling has become a social issue.

It is also known that minor’s brains are still developing. In general, young people lack the same amount of reasoning skills and impulse control that is gained in older years. There is fear that exposure to gambling as a young age will increase the likelihood of habit-forming behavior later down the line. This is why there is such a push to limit gambling exposure that children experience.

Because the legal drinking age across the USA is 21, many states also use 21 as the guideline for their gambling regulations. As in our Tom Petty story, there is a perfectly practical reason for this as well! If alcohol is present on the gambling floor, it is harder to ensure that minors do not drink if they are mixing with older people at casinos. This way, casinos protect their liquor licenses and stay in business, by not risking inadvertently serving people under the legal drinking age.