Betting in Delaware

When the Supreme Court knocked down PASPA in May 2018, Delaware moved first. The state launched full-scale, legal sports betting on June 5, 2018, beating the wave of states that followed right after.

That speed wasn’t late nights and overtime - Delaware already had a Lottery-run wagering infrastructure, so expanding was mostly a matter of scaling, not reinventing the wheel. It’s why Delaware is still a “small market,” but one with outsized historical importance.

Delaware sports betting runs at an effective tax rate around 27.5%, with proceeds shared between the state and the racing industry.

That’s not New York’s 51% - but it’s also not a low-tax “promo war” state either. Higher effective tax pressure usually means operators have less room to be generous long-term, which matters more in Delaware because you can’t just switch apps when promos dry up.

Delaware takes a middle-ground approach to college betting. You can wager on most college action - out-of-state teams, major conferences, tournaments, player props - but in-state college programs are off-limits, including schools like Delaware and Delaware State.

It’s the same logic you see in states like New Jersey and Virginia: protect local programs, avoid political heat, and keep regulators from dealing with “why is everyone betting on the hometown team?” headlines.

For bettors, it’s not a dealbreaker, but it does mean you’ll be betting on college sports in Delaware, not necessarily on Delaware college sports.

Delaware doesn’t generate New Jersey–level numbers, but within the state’s ecosystem, online casino is a far more meaningful revenue engine than sports betting.

Because the market is Lottery-run and tied to just three casinos (and now the BetRivers-powered platform), iGaming becomes the steady, year-round workhorse: slots, table games, and other casino titles generate recurring, predictable revenue that doesn’t live or die on one NFL season or March Madness run. Sports betting gets more attention, but if you’re looking at which product actually underpins Delaware’s digital gambling footprint, it’s the casino side.

For players, that reality usually translates into a deeper online casino lobby and more consistent casino-driven promos than you’d expect from a state this small.

With only one regulated online sportsbook and casino, Delaware’s market is structurally limited on the “choice” front. You can’t line-shop across six books or bounce between competing apps the way bettors do in New Jersey, Colorado, or Pennsylvania.

That’s where social sportsbooks and sweepstakes casinos matter more here than in almost any competitive market.

They don’t replace a full multi-operator sportsbook ecosystem, but they soften the monopoly effect. Social and sweeps platforms are the main way regular players can add variety, experiment with different formats, and avoid feeling boxed in by a single app.

Delaware’s regulated sportsbook lane is strictly about sports and a narrow band of approved markets. BetRivers can’t offer action on elections, economic data releases, policy outcomes, or most entertainment events – that’s not a Delaware quirk, that’s standard across U.S.-regulated books.

That’s where prediction markets come in. Because they’re structured and supervised at the federal level rather than through state gambling law, they operate in a different lane entirely.

On those platforms, Delaware residents can legally speculate on political races, macroeconomic indicators, and cultural or entertainment outcomes using yes/no style contracts instead of traditional betting lines.

In a tightly controlled, single-operator sportsbook state like Delaware, prediction markets quietly fill a niche sportsbooks are never allowed to touch – giving action-focused users a way to participate in real-world event forecasting without breaking the rules.

Delaware is one of the few states that went out of its way to formally legalize and regulate DFS.

The Delaware Interactive Fantasy Contest Act, signed in 2017, put daily fantasy sports under a clear skill-game framework and handed oversight to the Division of Gaming Enforcement. That’s why salary-cap style contests from operators like DraftKings and FanDuel can run here with full regulatory backing rather than hoping nobody asks too many questions.

The interesting wrinkle is Pick ’Em. Delaware does not want classic “player-prop vs the house” products masquerading as fantasy, but it has opened the door to peer-to-peer Pick ’Em formats.

Platforms like PrizePicks and Underdog have secured approval for arena- or champions-style games that keep players competing against each other instead of against a book, which keeps them under the DFS umbrella instead of drifting into unlicensed sports betting.