Betting in North Dakota

North Dakota never passed a classic statewide “sports betting law.” Instead, sports wagering arrived through tribal–state gaming compacts that already allowed Class III gaming - including sports betting - if federal law ever changed. When PASPA fell in 2018, those compacts quietly became live permission.

That’s why you can bet in person at a handful of tribal casinos -like Dakota Magic, 4 Bears, and Sky Dancer - but there’s still no state-regulated online framework, no commercial licenses, and no centralized sports-betting statute. The tribes turned on retail books using the tools they already had. The state never built an online market to match.

In 2025, lawmakers considered HCR 3002, a resolution that would have amended the state constitution to allow sports betting, sending the question to voters in November 2026. It didn’t even come close. The House rejected it 70–24, after the Judiciary Committee warned about problem gambling and the impact on college sports.

For online bettors, that vote matters more than any talking point. North Dakota didn’t just “run out of time” - it decisively chose not to let residents decide on a statewide mobile sports betting framework, which tells you how far legalization still has to go.

Prediction markets don’t ask Bismarck for permission. Platforms like Kalshi operate as CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Markets at the federal level, offering simple yes/no contracts on real-world outcomes - sports, politics, economics, and more - and are effectively legal across all 50 states because they’re treated as event-based derivatives rather than state-licensed gambling products.

For a North Dakota resident, that means one of the cleanest ways to get real-money exposure to outcomes is through these federally supervised markets. You’re trading contracts instead of laying a moneyline, but the core idea is the same: if your read on the event is right, you profit.

North Dakota law bans locally run online gaming, including most internet raffles and casino-style play, which is why you don’t see homegrown online casinos or state-licensed sportsbook apps. But that same framework still leaves room for dual-currency promotional sites to operate from outside the state.

Social and Sweepstakes Sportsbooks and Casinos use virtual coins for gameplay and a separate sweepstakes currency that can be redeemed for real-money prizes. To players, they feel like almost exactly like an online casino or sportsbook: slots, table games, and full betting boards with actual cashouts at the end.

Legally, they sit in a middle ground - not licensed as gambling in North Dakota, but allowed to operate because they’re structured as promotional sweepstakes rather than traditional wagering.

North Dakota has never passed a high-profile, name-brand DFS statute the way some states have, and the main gaming chapter on “games of chance” doesn’t explicitly mention fantasy sports at all.

Even so, major fantasy operators - including FanDuel, PrizePicks, DK and others - actively serve North Dakota, leaning on the state’s long-standing distinction between games of skill and games of chance. The Attorney General has historically indicated that skill-dominant activities are more likely to be lawful, and DFS operators treat that as their legal hook. In practice, that means North Dakotans can play both traditional salary-cap DFS and Pick ’Em–style fantasy contests, but they’re doing so in a framework built on general skill-game principles, not a bespoke DFS law.

For bettors, the takeaway is straightforward: DFS and Pick ’Em are widely available and normalized in North Dakota.

Because North Dakota doesn’t offer legal online sportsbooks, offshore sites aggressively market themselves as if they’re normal U.S. betting apps. They’re not. These operators are based overseas, not licensed anywhere in the U.S., and don’t answer to North Dakota regulators or courts if something goes sideways.

A coalition of state attorneys general has already warned that illegal offshore gambling sites routinely ignore consumer protections, skirt age and location checks, and leave customers stranded in disputes over payouts or account closures.

For North Dakotans, that’s the core point: with legal or federally compliant alternatives on the table (social/sweeps, DFS, prediction markets), sending your bankroll offshore is usually the worst EV decision you can make.