Best Texas Casinos Guide 2025

Updated on: January 6th, 2025

Texas casinos and gambling remain a popular pastime in the Lone Star state. However, gambling venues and options are fairly limited within its borders. Thus, most Texans visit Oklahoma casinos stacked along the border with Texas.

If you live in Texas, your only real chance at getting your gambling fix is to head to an online gambling site. That’s why we’ve created this Texas Casinos guide to help all players find the best gambling experience in the Lone Star state.

Texas Casinos & Gambling

• Texas Regulated Gambling by Year – Bingo (1982), Horse racing (1987), Lottery (1991), and Kickapoo Casino (1996).
• Estimated Tax Revenue from Gambling – $1.2 billion.
• Estimated Gambling Revenue – $4.6 billion.
• Texas Gambling Age – 18 for lottery and bingo games, 21 for racing, and Kickapoo Casino.
• Smoking Ban – Texas does not have a statewide smoking ban.
• Online Gambling Status – Horse racing is the only form of legal online gambling.

Types of Online Texas Gambling Allowed

While casinos and race tracks are limited, the Texas Lottery sells two types of lottery tickets through retailers. One is an instant scratch card game. The other is the lottery drawings.

Texas is included in multi-state drawings of the Powerball and Mega Millions. The TX lottery also has in-state draws for Lotto Texas: Texas Two-Step, Texas Triple Chance, All or Nothing, Pick 3, Daily 4 and Cash 5.

Here are the types of games allowed to be played:

1. Slots: Yes
2. Blackjack: Yes
3. Poker: Yes
4. Craps: Yes
5. Roulette: Yes
6. Horses: Yes
7. Lottery: Yes

Texas Gambling Laws

In Texas, online gambling is only allowed for off-track horse racing bets. Additionally, Daily Fantasy Sports operators also accept TX players. However, they are considered illegal by the Attorney General and are therefore technically illegal.

Two operators, FanDuel and DraftKings, are still accepting Texans. Still, the Attorney General never made a formal demand for DFS to leave the state, which is required by Federal Law.

Online casinos have not been mentioned in recent months, but they are also considered illegal. Whether or not gambling laws will be updated after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) is unclear. PASPA was ruled “unconstitutional” and so states are allowed to regulate gambling as they see fit.

Top Casinos in Texas

As we mentioned, the Lone Star State currently only has a single land-based casino, the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino. As it is the only casino, players can always expect it to be busy, but the owners haven’t been expanding the facilities. Visitors to the casino will find Poker, Bingo, and electronic table games to enjoy. However, the casino is quite a distance from many Texans, so online gambling remains the most convenient way to gamble.

Currently, Texas Casinos are limited to one land-based casino run by the Kickapoo tribe on their reservation. Further, there are six race tracks with live and off-track betting. At least three offer thoroughbred racing and the others offer greyhound racing.

In addition, the state lottery has hundreds of retailers where Texans can buy instant game and lottery tickets. Moreover, there are at least 100 bingo halls in the state.

Online Gambling Casinos in Texas

The Lone Star State is currently considering passing an amendment to the constitution that would allow online poker, on the condition that poker becomes legal under federal law. This proposal was initially rejected in 2013, but this law would have only affected poker and not online casinos. Despite this, there are numerous best online casinos available for Texans to play at.
Future of Texas Gambling

The future is looking fairly bright for gambling in Texas. With the expansion of the only land-based casino and the proposed online poker law, things are definitely looking up. We can only hope that if this law gets passed, the public urges the government to legalize a wider variety of games in the Lone Star State.

Texas Gambling History

While gambling might not have the biggest footprint in Texas today, it has been a part of the state’s history for many years. Galveston earned the name ‘Sin City of the Gulf’ at the beginning of the American civil war. The area became associated with all kinds of things, like drinking, prostitution, and gambling. In addition to this, these activities happened out in the open, and the citizens were quite proud that the area was so free.

This changed when General Wil Wilson shut down all of the bars and saloons in the 1950s. He even went as far as destroying all of the equipment used for gambling. For decades, there would be no legal gambling within the borders of the Lone Star State, until the Federal Government granted Native American Tribes permission to open casinos on their land.

Texas Casinos & Gambling FAQs