Betting in Rhode Island

Rhode Island was early on sports betting and even earlier than most on mobile - retail launched in 2018, statewide online followed in 2019 - but the state never built an open-competition model. Everything runs through the Lottery, which contracts IGT (and William Hill/Caesars on the trading side) to power a single app, Sportsbook RI.

For bettors, that means no price shopping. One state-run platform sets the lines and holds the margin, and the revenue split is aggressive by industry standards - the original deal gave the state a 51% share of sports-betting revenue, with IGT and the casino partner carving up the rest. You’re getting legal, convenient access, but not the kind of promo wars or odds competition you see in states with half a dozen commercial books fighting for handle.

Rhode Island sits in a small group of jurisdictions where you don’t have to be 21 to bet sports. State law sets the minimum gambling age at 18 for sports betting (including the mobile app) and lottery products, while to play online casino games you need to be 21+, the same standard that applies to full casino gaming on the retail floor.

That split tells you how policymakers think about each product. Sports betting is treated as an extension of the Lottery - a gambling product the state is comfortable putting in front of younger adults - while iGaming is parked firmly in the higher-risk, 21+ bucket.

It also means college freshmen and sophomores can legally bet NFL sides and NBA totals from their phone, but can’t open up the same app’s online slots or table games.

Rhode Island joined the iGaming club in 2024 with a very specific model: one operator, one tech stack, one regulator. Lawmakers didn’t open the door to multiple online casinos. They extended the existing Bally’s–Lottery relationship and let Bally’s stand up a single statewide online casino product under Lottery oversight. Slots and table games are available on phones and desktops, but only through that one brand.

The revenue split tells you how the state sees this vertical. For online slots, roughly half of the win goes straight to the state, with the remainder shared between Bally’s and its platform partner. Online table games are taxed at a lower rate but still carry a meaningful state cut.

That structure is great for the treasury, but it doesn’t leave much room for the kind of aggressive bonuses, high-RTP games, or operator-vs-operator promo wars you see in more competitive iGaming states.

Rhode Island permits college sports wagering broadly, but with a key carve-out: you generally can’t bet on games involving in-state college teams, or on college events played inside Rhode Island – with the main exception being certain multi-team tournaments. Even then, player-prop bets on individual collegiate athletes remain off-limits.

In practical terms, that means you can’t just open the app and fire on URI or Providence regular-season games the way you would with an out-of-state school. You’ll see full boards for national college slates, but when local programs or local venues are involved, the menu shrinks fast.

For serious college hoops or football bettors, that’s a real structural limitation.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and PredictIt operate under federal oversight as CFTC-regulated event-contract venues, not as Rhode Island-licensed gambling operators. They let users trade simple yes/no contracts on everything from election outcomes to economic data - and, increasingly, on sports-adjacent events - with prices moving like any other market based on supply and demand.

Because they’re regulated at the federal level and structured as financial products, they sit outside Rhode Island’s lottery-run sports-betting and casino framework entirely.

For Rhode Islanders, that creates a parallel, legal lane to speculate on real-world outcomes with real money - one that isn’t touched by the state’s monopoly decisions and doesn’t depend on how many apps the Lottery decides to allow.

Rhode Island’s official online products are tightly controlled: one state-lottery sportsbook, one Bally’s online casino. Social and sweepstakes platforms live completely outside that structure. They don’t take straight cash bets; instead, they use virtual coins for gameplay and a separate sweepstakes currency that can be redeemed for cash or prizes, positioning themselves under federal sweepstakes and promotional law rather than Rhode Island’s gambling statutes.

For players, the experience feels familiar – slot-style games, table-style setups, and sports pick’em-style leaderboards – but the economics are softer and the regulatory relationship is different. You’re not dealing with a Rhode Island-licensed gambling product at all, which is why these sites can offer broader promos and different mechanics without bumping into the Lottery’s monopoly.

Daily Fantasy Sports got a formal blessing in Rhode Island years before most states had even figured out what DFS was. Then–Attorney General Peter Kilmartin issued an opinion finding that DFS contests are games of skill and therefore legal under existing state law, while encouraging the Legislature to eventually regulate the space more explicitly.

The General Assembly never followed up with a full fantasy statute, but major operators took the opinion for what it was: a green light.

Today, Rhode Islanders can enter traditional salary-cap contests and Pick-Em games without the gray-area discomfort you see in states where DFS is merely “tolerated.” It’s a legally grounded, albeit lightly regulated, lane for stat-driven action alongside the state sportsbook.