Texas Online Casinos 2023
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The Texas gambling scene has flourished in recent years, in particular for online gambling. Texas now ranks as the third highest in the US for online players – just behind California and New York who are 1st and 2nd respectively.
Did you know that online gambling in Texas, on average, contributes to over $75 million per year?
Texas Offshore Casino Statistics
Texas is the 3rd most active state that participates in offshore online gambling at casinos as of 2020 with a gross win amount of $107.5m. Texas contributes to 6.5% of all offshore casino activity in the United States for 2020.
Click here to see a breakdown of all offshore gambling activity broken down by state. The following is a breakdown of all offshore casino gambling from Texas since 2003.
| Year | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
| Gross Win | $67.00m | $82.70m | $106.00m | $132.80m | $90.90m | $90.70m | $83.00m | $84.40m | $81.90m |
| Year | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020* |
| Gross Win | $84.40m | $86.20m | $85.70m | $78.90m | $74.00m | $75.00m | $76.60m | $76.00m | $107.50m |
*Note: Data from 2020 are currently based on estimates.
Source – H2 Gambling Capital
Offshore gambling statistics for sports betting from Texas can be found here.
Top Texas Online Casinos
| CASINO | RATING | BONUS | PLAY | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 
Vegas Casino Online | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
| 400% up to $10,000 Welcome Bonus | PLAY NOW |
| 2 | 
Slots Empire | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
| 220% up to $1,000 Welcome Bonus | PLAY NOW |
| 3 | 
El Royale Casino | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
| 250% up to $12,500 Welcome Bonus | PLAY NOW |
| 4 | 
Red Dog Casino | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
| 225% up to $1,000 Welcome Bonus | PLAY NOW |
| 5 | 
Slots.lv | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
| 200% up to $1,000 Welcome Bonus | PLAY NOW |
Due to the growing popularity of online gambling, we understand it can be confusing to pick the best TX online casino to play at. Our recommended Top Texas Online Casinos is compiled meticulously through playing at hundreds of online casinos, as well as collecting feedback from our readers. In this process, we formulated a simple, yet effective way of ranking TX online casinos.
There are many attributes that casinos can be judged against, but we found that most players looked for:
- A Wide Selection of Games
- Accessible and prompt Customer Support
- Great Bonuses for New and Regulars
- Safe and Secure – Payment and Player Information
Of course, some players will place more or less emphasis on different attributes, hence the list that we have created is a guide and players should research further if they are looking for something more specific.
Wide Selection of Games
One of the worst player experiences to have is to sign up to an online casino that is void of the games that players love and lack game selection variety. Yes, not only can it become boring, but some players simply give in and then play with reckless abandon to exhaust their deposit. It becomes a matter of throwing money down the drain, just to close out the player’s betting account.
The top online casinos in TX, all have a good variety of game selection, and allows the player to experience new and engaging games. In our recommended list, all the casinos have a good selection to choose from. If searching for something more specific then a player should research further and go direct to the online casino’s website. It’s prudent for any player to ensure that they have chosen an online casino that offers the games that they want to play.
Accessible and Prompt Customer Support
Every now and then a player will need to contact the Customer Support to resolve a technical issue or to assist with a query. Even the best online casinos will need to field queries and yes, they will also receive some complaints. The nature of casinos, is that some Players will always feel begrudged when they lose. Pushing that aside, having a great casino that responds quickly, professionally and helpfully, ranks highly on our list. The top online casinos are honest and will not use tactics to delay payments or swindle money.
Great Bonuses for New and Regulars
There were many aspects to bonuses that we can discuss. To categorize our rankings further we broke down bonuses into Welcome Bonuses, Loyalty (VIP bonuses), No Deposit Bonuses and Free Spins.
Welcome Bonuses are also known as Sign Up Bonuses. In some countries, online casinos offer a tiered deposit matching for their 1st, 2nd and so on deposit. For Texas players, the Welcome Bonus is usually a percentage of only the 1st Deposit / Sign up deposit. Occasionally some online casinos will also provide a match bonus for subsequent bonuses, but this is gradually dying out.
More important to take note is that the best online casinos have clear Terms and Conditions that articulate the wagering requirements. Wager requirements stipulate the wagering turn over needed in order for a withdrawal of the bonus to be allowed. If the wagering requirement isn’t met, the bonus cannot be cashed out.
This is a particular bug bear that players experience at poor online casinos that do not clearly state the wagering requirements. This can easily be avoided by sticking to our recommended list.
The best online casinos all have quality Loyalty Bonuses. These are the equivalent of the land based complimentary beverages and discounted meals. The only difference being, that the loyalty bonuses is directly credited to the bank roll. Again, similar to the Welcome Bonus, there may be Terms and Conditions that may be applied, such as wagering requirements. These will be clearly articulated on the websites of all the top online casinos.
Not as popular due to Terms and Conditions effectively placing No Deposit Bonuses as free play. All the top casinos do offer games to try for free, but very little offer a No Deposit whereby if resulting in a win the money can be immediately withdrawn. Still the No Deposit is a great way of experiencing close to real money gambling.
The best online casinos all offer respectable Free Spin Bonuses. Slot fans should choose from the recommended list the online casinos with the best free spins.
Safe and Secure – Payment and Player Information
Play at online casinos requires the transaction of real money to the online casino’s players account. And because of this, the best online casinos all offer and support payment methods that are widely recognized, trustworthy and cost effective.
In addition, the best online casinos will declare that they use the best encryption technology, to ensure that playing on a private browser does not leave the player exposed to unwanted tracking or hacking. The gold standard for internet security is SSL – Secure Sockets Layer and is used to create a secure gateway between the Players private browser and the online casino’s server.
Our recommended list of casinos, all have the most advance encryption technology and payment gateways to ensure a safe and secure player experience.
Which Texas Online Casinos should be avoided?
All online casinos that accept players from Texas are based offshore. Usually alarm bells start ringing when a Player reads this, but rest assured this does not mean they are not safe. Far from it. There are many companies that based their entities offshore, one of the most well know is Google, who in fact charge and process their receipts for Google Ads from Ireland. Offshore but still very much a safe and trusted company.
Accordingly, the best casinos are offshore, but they are licensed and are regulated and audited by a third party. They will display on their website, their locality and the third party that has audited them.
The online casinos to avoid are therefore one’s that are unlicensed and unregulated.
An online casino that is true to its players and wants to be in the industry for the long run, will obtain a license and be regulated.
Why play online and not land based?
Let’s run through why there is more fun to be had online than on land based. For starters Texas only has one land based casino which is Kickapoo, and it is restricted to Class II gaming. Technically no other tribal casino is permitted to offer Class II or Class III gaming. Tribal Casinos are bound by a compact, in which gaming is categorised as Class I for social, cultural and charitable games, Class II bingo like games and Class III Vegas like games. Please refer to the section on Texas Gambling Laws for explanation of why Kickapoo is permitted but other Tribes are not.
In addition to the one land based tribal casino, there is one commercially owned riverboat casino that has operated since 2015.
And that’s pretty much it. One tribal casino and one riverboat for the whole of Texas. Without stating the obvious, the gaming selection and convenience by playing at online casinos far exceeds that of playing at a land based or riverboat.
Please note, however, that there are other forms of gambling which players can branch out to in Texas. These include: horse and dog racing, the Texas Lottery games and also bingo. Bingo is surprisingly become quite popular again, and can also be found online.
Sports betting remains unavailable at any land based venue, whether it be through a bookie or via a betting window or terminal at a casino.
Texas Online Gambling
Extending beyond casinos, other forms of online gambling include sports betting, bingo and poker.
Online sports betting now exceeds that of online casinos with 2019 seeing an estimated turnover of $81 million. Online bingo and poker both saw approximately $10 million in turnover, significantly behind sports and casino games, but still demonstrating that there are plenty of Texas players taking it up.
The laws that apply to these forms of online gambling remain the same as that of online casinos. And therefore these sites are all based offshore.
Texas Gambling Laws
Texas gambling laws are relatively quite restrictive, as can be seen with the limited gambling options that are land based.
In summary Texas Gambling Laws are as follows:
- Online gambling is expressly prohibited in State Law. Though this may be the case, there has been no precedence of law enforcement agencies laying any charges on Players. Online gambling operators, on the other hand, are strictly prohibited in Texas, and therefore ALL online casinos are offshore based.
- The law only permits the Kickapoo Tribe to operate a casino on its territory (restricted to Class II games), while other Tribes are prohibited to establish a casino or any form of gambling. In a complex turn of events, the Kickapoo Tribe has been able to successfully argue that they are governed by the Federal compact that applies to Native American territories, while all other tribes are to abide under stricter State laws. Thus, Kickapoo is the only tribe that can offer gambling according to the law.
- Only one other casino has been approved to operate legally, and it is a riverboat casino.
- The State Law has given the Texas State Lottery a monopoly license to exclusively offer lottery products. In its products, it is authorized to offer instant games and draw games. All net proceeds are directed to the State’s educational fund.
- All bingo parlors must be operated on a charitable basis to be legal. A 3% levy is placed on the rental costs of bingo facilities.
- All commercial land based casinos and sports betting are prohibited at law.
- Permitted under State law is pari mutuel betting on horse and dog races. Simulcast betting is also permitted.
- The legal gambling age ranges between 18 for lottery, 18 for bingo (however under age players may partake if guardian consent is given) and 21 for pari mutuel and riverboat casino.
Legal Disclaimer:
WagerDex has disclosed the above statements as information only. We do not purport that the information is complete nor correct in entirety. The above statements are not be used as specific legal advice. No attorney and clients relationship exists between WagerDex and readers of this site.
Texas Lottery Commission
The Texas Lottery Commission was founded in 1991, and has a monopoly in Texas for being the sole distributor of lottery games. The minimum age is 18 to play Texas Lottery games that include Scratch tickets, intra-state lotto pools and inter-state (multi-juridictional) lotto pools.
Net proceeds raised through Lottery games are direct to Texas Educational programs.
It is estimated that for 2019, there was a total turnover of $6.2 billion.
Conclusion
Our recommended list of TX online casinos has been prepared with assessment against several key criteria. These include: Game Selection, Safety and Security, Bonuses and Customer Service. Relative to land based gaming options, there is a lot of real money gaming to be had online and it’s also more convenient. Though the gambling laws are quite clear in its stance for interactive gaming, the fact that there is over $75 million wagered online by Texas players each year, is indicative that there is very little risk of being charged.
FAQ
Yes, anyone of legal gambling age can place bets on Bovada. The site is regulated and offers a good range of betting options and games that suit every gambler’s taste. The extra bonus specials make every game even more exciting.
Texas is one of the few states that expressly declares in its laws that interactive online gambling is prohibited. (With the exception of interactive games offered by Texas Lottery Commission). Though clear in its stance, over $75 million is wagered online by Texas players each year and is growing. This is indicative that there is very little risk of being charged.
Online Casino Operators, on the other hand, will be charged by law enforcement agencies.
Commonly the legal age to play online falls in alignment with the legal age to play at land based or onshore gambling venues. In Texas this minimum legal age is therefore 21 years old.
Generally, the best online casinos will have a wide variety of games, excellent customer service, safe and secure payment methods and rewarding bonuses. Avoid casinos which are not license or regulated. If in doubt, choose from our recommended list which we update regularly.
