While Oregon may not be a national leader in online gambling, the state does offer its share of opportunities. Oregon online wagering is legal for both sports betting and pari-mutuels, but online casino gambling other than social casinos is not allowed.
Playing online casino games is not legal in Oregon. State residents who want to play online slots and table games such as blackjack, roulette and baccarat can play at a growing number of social casinos, which are available on the casino websites or through Facebook apps. The games are free and played with virtual coins for amusement or to win prizes. Gambling.com’s top-rated social casinos are listed above. They include the popular Chumba.
Online betting on professional sports is legal in Oregon and so is pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing. In addition, all of the major Daily Fantasy Sports operators accept Oregon customers, though the state does not formally regulate DFS.
Not anytime soon. Online casino gambling is not a priority for state lawmakers, and historically, expansion beyond tribal casinos has proven unpopular with Oregon residents. Referendums to build a casino at defunct Multnomah Greyhound Park in Portland failed decisively in 2010 and 2012. Therefore, seeing any brands offering online promotions similar to NJ online casino bonuses is not going to happen anytime soon.
One online wagering alternative to avoid is betting with offshore casinos and sportsbooks. Offshore online gambling sites are not licensed or regulated, withdrawals are risky, and account funds could be lost if your offshore operator abruptly shuts down.
There are nine tribal casinos spread across the state (several in remote locations), many of which offer a wide selection of Las Vegas-style games. The complete list:
Casino | City | Address | Hours of Operation |
---|---|---|---|
Chinook Winds Casino Resort | Lincoln City | 1777 NW 44th Street | 24 hours |
Indian Head Casino | Warm Springs | 3636 US Highway 26 | 24 hours |
Kla-Mo-Ya Casino | Chiloquin | 34333 Highway 97 North | 24 hours |
Mills Casino Hotel | North Bend | 3201 Tremont Avenue | 24 hours |
Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort | Canyonville | 146 Chief Miwaleta Lane | 24 hours |
Spirit Mountain Casino | Grand Ronde | 2700 Salmon River Highway | 24 hours |
Three Rivers Casino & Hotel | Florence | 5647 Highway 126 | 24 hours |
Three Rivers Casino Coos Bay | Coos Bay | 1297 NW Ocean Boulevard | 24 hours |
Wildhorse Resort & Casino | Pendleton | 72777 Highway 331 | 24 hours |
Address: 1777 NW 44th Street, Lincoln City
Website: www.chinookwindscasino.com
Amenities: More than 1,100 video slots and multi-game machines, 20 table games, poker room, bingo, golf resort. First tribal casino in Oregon to offer sports betting.
Address: 3636 US Highway 26, Warm Springs
Website: www.indianheadcasino.com
Amenities: 490 gaming machines, six table games. Located about 90 miles southeast of Portland.
Address: 34333 Highway 97 North, Chiloquin
Website: www.klamoyacasino.com
Amenities: More than 350 slots machines, blackjack. Located about 20 miles southeast of Crater Lake National Park by the Cascade Mountains.
Address: 3201 Tremont Avenue, North Bend
Website: www.themillcasino.com
Amenities: Southern Oregon casino has more than 700 slots, eight table games, sports betting.
Address: 146 Chief Miwaleta Lane, Canyonville
Website: www.sevenfeathers.com
Amenities: More than 950 slot machines, 19 table games, poker room, bingo. Located just off Interstate 5 midway between Eugene and Medford.
Address: 2700 Salmon River Highway, Grand Ronde
Website: www.spiritmountain.com
Amenities: More than 1,700 table games, 37 table games, poker room. Closest Oregon casino to Portland (about 60 miles).
Address: 5647 Highway 126, Florence
Website: www.threeriverscasino.com
Amenities: 600 gaming machines, 15 table games, bingo. Central Oregon Coast casino is owned and operated by three different Native American tribes.
Address: 1297 NW Ocean Boulevard, Coos Bay
Website: www.threeriverscasino.com
Amenities: Electronic gaming machines only. Located 49 miles south of Florence location.
Address: 72777 Highway 331, Pendleton
Website: www.wildhorseresort.com
Amenities: More than 1,200 slots, 16 table games, poker room, bingo. An $85 million expansion is scheduled for completion in late summer or fall of 2020.
In addition to tribal casinos, Oregon has more than a dozen licensed social real money poker rooms. None are allowed to accept a house rake, so most charge a small daily club membership fee. List of poker rooms by location:
Oregon also allows a limited number of VLT’s at various retail locations, bars, restaurants and racing facilities.
That depends on what an Oregon online casino bill would look like. If Native American tribal casinos were allowed the make the transition to online casino gambling, some might choose to do so and perhaps partner with established online operators to manage them. An expansion of Oregon online casino gambling beyond tribal casinos would draw interest from a large number of major national operators.
For now, Oregon bettors can play online slots and various table games at social casinos, where players are provided free virtual coins and can play to win prizes in sweepstakes-style games or simply improve their skills.
Any expansion of online casino gaming in Oregon would include casino apps, which allow bettors to place wagers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from anywhere inside Oregon, just as the state’s sports gambling app does.
In other states with legal online casino gambling, the apps are generally available for both Android and Apple devices and can be downloaded for free from the operator’s website or the App Store. A great example of this are the online casino apps in NJ.
If Oregon were to approve online casino gambling, bettors would likely find many of the same games offered at existing tribal casinos. The list includes:
Online roulette: Simple rules make roulette a popular game at physical casinos and online. The online version uses an electronic random number generator rather than a physical wheel.
Online slots: Many of the thousands of slot games offered at Oregon’s tribal casinos can be replicated online, along with updated new games that feature 3D graphics and animation.
Online poker: Oregon has more than a dozen card rooms and several tribal casinos offer spacious poker rooms, so the state already has a built-in online poker audience should online poker sites launch.
Online blackjack: The most popular table casino game offers some advantages online, including more varieties of blackjack to play and lower minimum wagers.
Live dealer: Adds a social element to online table games, with an actual person dealing the hands from a studio. The games are streamed to your computer or mobile device. The availability of live dealer games varies state-by-state, with some embracing it and others not.
Lottery: The Oregon Lottery does not sell tickets on the Internet, but states on the state lottery website: "The Lottery is aware of the enormous potential of the Internet and is monitoring state lotteries in the U.S. who do offer online ticket sales."
Online casinos in other states offer several deposit and withdrawal options:
Play+: A popular method for Oregon’s sports betting Scoreboard app. You can sign up through the app and fund your Play+ account with a credit or debit card or bank account. Can also be used for withdrawals and you can access those winnings at an ATM.
Credit/debit card: By far the most convenient and popular deposit method. Be aware that some card issuers treat deposits as a cash advance and charge high fees, and others automatically decline gambling transactions. Withdrawals often not allowed, so be prepared to use an alternative withdrawal method.
E-Wallets: Options include PayPal, Neteller and Skrill. Accounts can be set up with credit/debit card or through a bank account. Low fees, available for deposits and withdrawals.
ACH/bank transfer: Digital connection between bank account and casino account. Can be used for both deposits and withdrawals. Transactions can take several days to process.
PayNearMe: Deposit-only option using cash at an Oregon 7-Eleven, CVS Pharmacy or Family Dollar, which transfers the money to your online gambling account through a barcode.
The same casino bonuses that are routinely extended to online casino players in other states. With all bonuses, read the terms and conditions carefully before signing up. The most popular include:
No deposit welcome bonus: Bonus money is placed into your account just for signing up. You will likely be required to risk that bonus money at least one time before redeeming it.
Deposit match: After you make an initial deposit, your online operator will match that amount up to 100% of more. You will be required to risk that bonus money a specified number of times before it’s unlocked, usually in increments.
Game specific bonus: A bonus offered to players to try new slots or table games.
Free Spins: An enticement to slots players, this bonus offers free spins on select slot machines, and any winnings off those spins typically must meet a wager requirement before it can be cashed out.
Loyalty programs: Receive points or credits that can be converted into cash or prizes. The more you play and wager, the more points or credits you accumulate.
With a state lottery, horse racing industry and Native American casinos, Oregon has kept pace with many of the most significant gambling entities of the past hundred years.
Oregon’s “Sports Action” helped introduce legal sports betting to the country and jumpstarted the Beaver State’s own industry. The game itself had far more restrictions than its recent single-game sports betting market and ceased operations more than a decade ago. But it gave Oregon a head start to become one of the first states with legal sports betting.
Sports Action allowed limited parlay bets on NFL games beginning in 1989. Though it had only minimal participation and no impact on the outcome of the games themselves, America’s sports leagues pressured Oregon to outlaw the games almost as soon as they were introduced. Oregon was one of four states granted an exemption from the sweeping federal sports betting ban enacted in the early 1990s, which allowed Oregon to continue offering the games, though explicitly banning any future expansion. The sports leagues still pressured Oregon to drop the games.
State officials finally capitulated in 2007. But the existing foundation for legal sports betting helped Oregon adopt its own sports betting market more than a decade later. Because of the exemption from the federal ban, Oregon already had legal authorization to begin taking bets, meaning the legislature wasn’t required to take any further action. The state lottery, which had run Sports Action, also had a basis to conduct sports betting.
Though the lottery is so far the only online and mobile sports betting purveyor, the state’s Native American casinos were actually the first facilities to take sports bets. An existing compact between the tribes and the state government allowed the casinos to offer virtually everything overseen by the lottery. Once the lottery announced sports betting plans the Native American casinos gained authorization as well.
OREGON SPORTS BETTING, MARCH vs. FEB.
Handle | Revenue | |
---|---|---|
March | $36.208M | $3.621M |
February | $39.457M | $3.335M |
Change | Down 8.2% | Up 8.5% |
Updated April 6
LATEST NEWS: Oregon Sports Betting Numbers Declined in March
Sports betting in Oregon has taken a few twists and turns through the years, with online sports betting offered only through the Scoreboard app administered by the Oregon Lottery.
In 1987, the Oregon Lottery added Sports Action to its menu of lottery games. To win, bettors would have to correctly select a parlay of NFL games (from 4 to 14 games) with point spreads. Five years later, Congress banned sports betting, but grandfathered Oregon and three other states, allowing the NFL Sports Action parlay game to continue.
NFL Sports Action ended in 2007 when Oregon lawmakers, facing pressure from pro sports leagues and the NCAA, passed legislation outlawing the parlay cards. The NCAA reacted by awarding NCAA Tournament games to Portland in 2009, the first time the city was chosen to host games in more than 25 years.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the prohibition of sports betting in 2018, opening the door for all states to permit sports wagering, and for Oregon to allow single-game betting. The Oregon Lottery went live with its sports betting app the following year, but chose to prohibit betting on college sports. In-person sports betting venues are expected to be added later in 2020. Two Oregon tribal casinos already offer in-person sports betting.
The Oregon Lottery launched its mobile sports betting app Scoreboard in October 2019, ushering in legal sports betting. No other online sports betting operator is permitted, giving Scoreboard 100 percent of the market.
In March 2020, lottery officials announced that projected first-year profits of $6.3 million will not be met, instead forecasting a $5.3 million loss for the first nine months, unusual for a sports betting operation. Agency officials cited technical issues, significant testing costs, lower-than-expected margins, lack of NCAA sports wagering and other factors for the downward revision. There has also been criticism of the state’s contract with mobile sports betting tech provider SBTech, which at one point attempted to sue the Oregon Lottery for planning to publicly release contract documents.
Still, Oregon Lottery officials say they remain optimistic about Scoreboard’s future, citing additional wagering opportunities and the possibility of allowing some form of college sports betting in the future. In addition, the state plans to place sports betting kiosks at retail lottery locations across the state in the next phase of implementation.
Meanwhile, the Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln City opened its retail sportsbook in August 2019. Three months later, the Mills Casino in North Bend became the second tribal resort to offer in-person sports wagering. Unlike the Oregon Lottery, the two tribal casinos permit wagering on college sports.
Though Oregon does not regulate daily fantasy sports, all of the major DFS operators including Draftkings and FanDuel accept Oregon customers. That means Oregon players can participate in all pro and college DFS contests the operators offer.
State lawmakers attempted to pass a bill regulating DFS in 2017, but the legislation never came up for a vote.
Oregon approved pari-mutuel wagering in 1931, but live racing in the state has mostly disappeared.
Greyhound racing at Multnomah in Portland started in 1933 and ended in 2004. Horse track Portland Meadows opened in 1946 and was sold and shuttered in 2019. Currently, a state fair circuit races a limited number of dates per year at Grants Pass Downs in the southwestern part of the state.
Oregon has a handful of off-track betting locations and allows online pari-mutuel betting through wagering platforms such as TVG and TwinSpires.
Scoreboard, launched in 2019 by the Oregon Lottery, is the lone site authorized to allow online/mobile sports wagering in Oregon. The lottery also will open multiple retail sports betting kiosks across the state.
Any of the state’s nine tribal casinos can offer online sports betting, but none have announced plans for an online sportsbook, though two have opened retail sportsbooks inside their casinos.
All of the top pro sports leagues, including the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL, golf, tennis, motorsports, boxing, mixed martial arts, soccer and international sports. The Oregon Lottery does not allow wagering on college sports, though lottery officials have discussed the possibility of changing that rule in the future. The state’s tribal casinos that offer sports betting allow wagering on college games.
Yes, on sports betting, pari-mutuel wagering and Daily Fantasy Sports. Online casino gaming is not allowed.
The legal age in Oregon is 21 for casino and sports gambling, 18 for pari-mutuel wagering and social poker games. A few tribal casinos that don’t serve alcohol allow bettors to be 18.
Only Native American tribes who successfully negotiate a compact with the state are eligible to receive a casino gaming license. A person or business that wants to operate a social poker game in Oregon must receive a city permit and cannot charge rake or tournament fees.
Casino gaming is permitted in Native American casinos on tribal land. Sports betting is permitted online and at retail outlets. Pari-mutuel wagering is allowed both online and at off-track betting facilities. Social poker clubs are permitted. Social gaming on social casino sites is legal as well.
If Oregon adopts online casino gambling laws similar to other states, there would be no residency requirement, but all wagers must be placed inside the state.
The only legal sites would be social casinos, which offer online casino games such as slots, blackjack and roulette for free. Instead of playing for real money, players use free virtual coins, and with some sites, can compete for real cash or prizes in sweepstakes-style games. And real-money casino sites would be unregulated offshore online gambling sites and should be avoided.
At any of the state’s nine tribal casinos; at more than a dozen social poker rooms throughout the state; through the Scoreboard sports betting app online; at any of the state’s off-track betting facilities or an online pari-mutuel wagering platform; and on Daily Fantasy Sports through major operators such as DraftKings and FanDuel.
Yes. The Oregon Lottery Scoreboard sports betting app accepts wagering on professional and international sports.
The Oregon Lottery Commission. The state’s pari-mutuel industry is regulated by the Oregon Racing Commission.
It will, provided you play at a licensed site that is regulated by the Oregon Lottery Commission, which would be responsible for ensuring fairness of all games and equipment.
The IRS says all gambling winnings are taxable. Oregon also assesses a state income tax on gambling winnings, for example 8% on lottery earnings.
"Ron Fritz is a former editor for Gambling.com."
Reviewer since July 2019