US Sportsbooks and Soccer Markets: State-by-State Availability

The Patchwork Map of Legal US Soccer Betting

Soccer betting in the United States looks nothing like it does in the UK or Germany. There is no single national operator, no unified licensing body, and no consistent set of rules from one zip code to the next. Instead, the country runs on a state-by-state model that produces wildly different experiences depending on where you happen to open the app.

Since the Supreme Court struck down PASPA in May 2018, more than 35 states plus Washington D.C. have authorized some form of sports wagering. Soccer rides along with that wave, sitting on the menu alongside the NFL, NBA, and MLB. But the legal soccer betting us picture is uneven. A bettor in New Jersey can place a same-game parlay on a Bundesliga match at 9 a.m. local time. A bettor in Texas, a few hundred miles south, has no legal mobile option at all.

This article walks through where the lines have been drawn, which markets are open, and what to expect when you cross a state border.

Where Legal Mobile Soccer Betting Exists

The strongest soccer betting market in the country is concentrated in the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, and a stretch of the Midwest. New Jersey was first off the mark after PASPA fell and remains a benchmark for what mature regulation looks like. Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Virginia followed within a few years, all permitting online sportsbooks with full soccer offerings.

In these states, the major operators like DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars, and Fanatics all carry soccer year-round. You can bet on the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, the Champions League, MLS, Liga MX, international friendlies, and a long tail of lower-division competitions. Player props are increasingly common on the bigger fixtures, particularly for Premier League and Champions League nights.

The list of soccer betting legal states with full mobile access keeps growing. Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia all offer online soccer markets. North Carolina launched mobile wagering in March 2024, and Vermont came online a few months earlier. Kentucky joined the mobile club in September 2023.

Retail-Only and Restricted States

Some states have legalized sports betting but limit it to physical sportsbooks inside casinos or racetracks. Mississippi is the cleanest example. You can walk into a Gulf Coast casino and place a soccer wager at the counter, but you cannot do it from your couch. Wisconsin operates a similar tribal-retail model, with sportsbook windows inside tribal casinos and no statewide app.

Washington State allows sports betting only at tribal casinos. Mobile wagering is permitted on the casino property itself but not from a home address in Seattle or Spokane. North Dakota, New Mexico, and a handful of other tribal-compact states sit in similar territory.

Then there are the partial-market states. Florida is the strangest case. Hard Rock Bet operates under a compact with the Seminole Tribe, giving it effective monopoly on mobile wagering. Soccer is available, but the competitive landscape that defines New Jersey or Pennsylvania does not exist there.

States Without Legal Sports Betting

A surprising number of populous states still have no legal sportsbook of any kind. California, the largest market in the country, rejected two competing ballot measures in November 2022 and has not produced a serious legislative push since. Texas, the second-largest, has come close in recent sessions but keeps stalling out in the state senate. Georgia, Minnesota, Alabama, South Carolina, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, and Alaska all remain offline.

Utah is the only state with a constitutional prohibition on all forms of gambling, which means soccer betting there is not a near-term prospect. The other holdouts are political rather than constitutional, and bills get introduced most years. Movement is slow.

For residents of these states, the practical options are limited. Some travel to neighboring jurisdictions to place bets. New Jersey reported in early industry filings that a meaningful share of its handle came from New York residents who crossed the river before New York launched its own market in 2022. Similar cross-border traffic now flows from Texas into Louisiana, and from Georgia into Tennessee.

How US Soccer Betting Laws Get Set

The us soccer betting laws are written almost entirely at the state level. Each legislature decides whether to allow wagering, what tax rate to apply to operator revenue, how many licenses to issue, and which sports and bet types are permitted. The federal Wire Act of 1961 still applies to interstate sports wagering, which is why operators geofence their apps and require you to be physically inside state lines to place a bet.

Tax rates vary enormously. New York taxes online sportsbook revenue at 51 percent, the highest in the country. Iowa sits at 6.75 percent. This affects pricing in subtle ways. Operators in high-tax states sometimes offer slightly worse odds on soccer markets to protect margin, though the gap has narrowed as the market matures.

Some states cap the number of operators. New York licensed nine. Others, like New Jersey and Colorado, run open competitive markets where any qualified operator can apply. The result is that a bettor in Denver might have fifteen apps to choose from, while a bettor in Albany picks from a smaller menu.

What This Means for Soccer Bettors

If you follow the sport seriously, the legal sportsbook by state landscape shapes what you can actually do with that interest. Champions League knockout rounds, World Cup qualifiers, and the back half of the European club season all hit during US prime time, which is one reason soccer handle has climbed every year since 2018.

In legal mobile states, the experience now resembles what European bettors have had for two decades. Live betting on Premier League matches with cash-out options, deep player prop menus on top fixtures, and same-game parlays that combine match result with goal totals and corners. MLS coverage has improved as the league has grown, with more granular markets on regular-season fixtures than existed even two years ago.

In retail-only states, the menu is thinner. Counter-staff at Mississippi sportsbooks will take soccer wagers, but the in-play markets and prop depth that define mobile apps are absent.

Looking at the Map

The fastest way to know what is available in your state is to check whether the major national operators have a live app there. DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and Caesars all publish state-availability pages. If the app downloads and lets you register with a local address, soccer markets will almost certainly be there too. The major operators treat soccer as a year-round category rather than a seasonal add-on.

The harder question is whether the pricing and market depth in your state match what bettors elsewhere see. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Colorado tend to lead on market variety because competition is strongest there. Newer markets like Ohio and Massachusetts caught up quickly. States with monopoly or near-monopoly structures, including New Hampshire and Florida, generally offer less aggressive pricing.

A Market Still Drawing Its Lines

The US sports betting map is not finished. California will revisit the question eventually. Texas keeps inching forward. Missouri voters approved mobile sports betting in November 2024, with launch expected in 2025. Each new state that comes online adds soccer to the menu by default. Operators no longer treat soccer as a niche; it is part of the standard offering from day one.

For now, the rule of thumb is simple. The legal status of your soccer bet depends on which side of a state line you are standing on, and that line moves more often than most people realize.