Hawaii Online Sports Betting

Hawaii is an island paradise, but home to the strictest gambling laws in the United States. The Island State’s laws ban almost all forms of gambling with provisos for social poker. There is not a single casino in the state, and even cruise casino options are banned out of Hawaii.  All online betting, including Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS), is illegal, and there are no horse racing or greyhound racing tracks in Hawaii.

Although lawmakers briefly considered sports betting legislation in 2019 and 2020, there is no appetite for a change in the law to allow for something akin to NJ online sports betting sites just yet.

Social Gambling is the only form of legal wagering in Hawaii.

Without any legal gambling, Hawaii has no state rate on potential winnings.

Social Gambling is the only form of legal wagering in Hawaii and the minimum gambling age is set at 18.

In May 2018, New Jersey won its case against the Federal Government’s ban on US Federal Sports Betting Laws. With its ground-breaking ruling, the Supreme Court struck down the Federal law to end the federal prohibition on sports betting laws and handed the decision-making on legal sports betting back to each state to decide for themselves.

As a result, Hawaii’s lawmakers have taken it upon themselves to the answer to the question ‘is sports betting legal in Hawaii?’ with a resounding ‘No thank you’.

Anything that remotely resembles gambling is outlawed, as evidenced by Hawaii’s lack of legal casinos and its prohibition on daily fantasy sports (DFS) sites.

Hawaiian Sports betting along with many other types of betting is prohibited by the Island State’s Government and it is quite unlikely that will change soon.

The closest that Hawaii has come to legalizing sports betting was a bill (HB927) introduced to the State Legislature in 2017 looking to set up a commission with the aim with of analyzing the financial and social aspects of all forms of gambling, including fully-legalized-sports-betting.

The bill failed to gain any significant support, outlining the position that Hawaii simply has no taste for expanding gambling of any type at the current time. However, on the other hand, that this bill was actually drafted and introduced to the House shows the winds of change are blowing through the Aloha State, and at least one lawmaker was open to considering the issue.

In 2019, another 12 lawmakers got onboard the next sports betting legalization bill in Hawaii (HB 1107) as betting on sports in the State took further baby steps to fruition.

As the changes continue and the state moves ever closer to the sports betting finishing line, we will advise you of changes in the Hawaiian position towards sports betting while other states begin their respective legalization processes.

In Hawaii, Online Sports Betting is currently prohibited.

However, some Hawaiian lawmakers have shown interest in filling the state’s tax revenue coffers and reclaiming the tax revenue that they know is by-passing the Hawaiian State Tax System and going directly to the bottom line of offshore casinos online.

In 2013 and 2017 respectively, Hawaii’s lawmakers attempted to establish the “Hawaii Internet Lottery and Gaming Corporation” specifically designed to conduct, regulate and license online gambling within the state and thereby bring in millions of dollars of much-needed additional state tax revenue.

With the bills (SB 768 in 2013 and Senate Bill 677 in 2017) it is apparent that there are some dissenters among Hawaii’s strong anti-gambling lawmakers and change may be possible before too long.

We expect a more and more attempts at the legalization process of online sports betting and gambling online in Hawaii in general sometime soon.

Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) are not bound by any Federal gambling bans, as at the Federal level of government, DFS is not considered to be gambling; it is not a game determined by random chance, it is widely thought of as a game of skill.

However, for the time being at least, Hawaii’s state legislators do not agree and they have considered DFS competitions to be illegal in Hawaii. In 2016, the state’s lawmakers released an opinion that DFS sites violate state gambling laws and issued cease-and-desist orders to the major fantasy sites operating at that time.

In 2017, a DFS re-legalization bill (Bill SB 204) was introduced to the Hawaiian Senate in order to monitor and regulate on legal DFS competitions in the state. Yet that bill was rejected and no other measures from the legislature have come close to passage in Hawaii. Therefore, until a new law passes to regulate DFS sites in Hawaii, all the major DFS companies are unable to legally accept players from Hawaii to participate in their real money DFS competitions.

Once the matter of legal sports betting has been realized as legal by Hawaii’s state legislature, eSports betting will then assist players in the Aloha State to win in revolutionary new betting games and the State Government to create an additional new and much-needed revenue stream.

What are eSports?

With a definition of ‘video game play at its highest professional level’, eSports continues to evolve and has given rise to competitive gaming betting and gambling.

Whilst eSports has now become a full-fledged industry (an official network of professional gaming tournaments and leagues playing games like Overwatch, StarCraft and Fortnite) eSports can trace its ancestral roots back to groups of close friends hosting LAN parties and taking part in video game ‘all-niters’.

Now, with the annual eSports market about to cross the $1 billion per annum thresh-hold, the industry shows no signs of slowing down. Crowds fill large outdoor stadiums and the prizes get richer with each passing tournament.

Naturally, sports-bettors will always follow where-and-when there is big money to be made. An ever-increasing number of sportsbooks worldwide offer international betting markets across all the major global eSports tournaments.

Rather than creating an underground illegal betting market, legal betting on eSports could possibly assist Hawaiian State Legislators through the sports betting legalization process by potentially adding millions to the state’s tax revenues.

Residents of, and visitors to the state of Hawaii are not offered any legal horse racing betting options.

Hawaii’s lawmakers have in the past attempted to revive Hawaii’s long and proud history of legal horse racing (The Kapioloani Park Racetrack operated from 1883-1914, the Oahu Jockey Club in 1939 and the Kailua Race track from 1939-1949).

In 1999, SB-476 was introduced to Hawaii’s State Legislature to rally for the legalization of horse racing and was followed up in 2000 by SB 2335 looking to run a five-year-pilot-plan allowing horse racing betting on an experimental basis. However, all attempts to pass the pieces of legislation stalled in the Hawaiian House.

Tracksides

There are no Horse Racing tracks in the State of Hawaii.

Off Track Betting (OTB) in Hawaii

There are no OTB facilities in the State of Hawaii.

Online Horse Racing in Hawaii

Neither Hawaii’s visitors to the Aloha State, nor the state’s residents have access to Online Betting on Horse Racing. See section above on ‘Hawaii Online Sports Betting Laws’ for further details on the state’s position to online gambling.

Visit our Hawaiian online gambling page for more information on the online casino and gambling laws in the Aloha State