Is Bovada legal in California? What state law says (2026)

ByCrown Wagers Editorial Team Updated Bovada Help

No. Sports betting isn’t legal in California, online or in person, and the state doesn’t license Bovada or any other sportsbook. Bovada still accepts players in California, but it has no California license, and the fact that a site takes your deposit doesn’t make your bets legal.

What California law says

The main law is Penal Code section 337a. Paragraph (6) covers anyone who “lays, makes, offers or accepts” a bet on the result of a contest “of skill, speed or power of endurance of person or animal.” That wording reaches both the bookmaker and the person placing the bet.

A first offense under section 337a can mean up to a year in county jail or state prison, a fine of up to $5,000, or both, and the penalties go up for repeat offenses. Section 336.9 treats casual bets between people, made not for profit, as an infraction with a fine of up to $250, but it expressly excludes bets made online.

Casino games fall under a separate law. Penal Code section 330 makes it a misdemeanor to play or bet on roulette, twenty-one (blackjack) or other banking games for money, with a fine of $100 to $1,000, up to six months in county jail, or both.

The state’s recent moves, the fantasy sports opinion and the sweepstakes ban covered below, target operators and the businesses that support them. The penalties above are the maximums the statutes allow. This isn’t legal advice.

Bovada and California

California isn’t on Bovada’s list of restricted states, so Bovada takes sign-ups and bets from people in California. It has no California license and couldn’t get one, because the state doesn’t license online sportsbooks or online casinos. See where Bovada is available for the states it blocks.

Bovada’s website says it’s licensed by the Union of the Comoros and the “Central Reserve Authority of Western Sahara.” State regulators that have written to Bovada name its operator as Harp Media B.V., a company in Curaçao. No US state licenses it.

We found no cease-and-desist letter from California to Bovada. California’s attorney general did join the 50 attorneys general who asked the US Justice Department in August 2025 to block offshore gambling websites, seize their assets and work with banks and payment processors to stop the transactions.

Why California still has no legal sports betting

Voters rejected two sports betting measures in November 2022. Proposition 26 would have allowed in-person betting at tribal casinos and the state’s four private racetracks, and Proposition 27 would have allowed online betting. Proposition 27 got less than 20% of the vote.

No sports betting measure is on the November 2026 ballot. Tribal leaders said in January 2026 that they wouldn’t pursue one this year, and industry coverage now points to 2028 at the earliest.

The Attorney General’s 2025 fantasy sports opinion

On July 3, 2025, Attorney General Rob Bonta issued Opinion 23-1001. It concluded that daily fantasy sports games with players in California “constitute wagering on sports in violation of Penal Code section 337a,” wherever the operator is based.

Underdog sued to stop the opinion from being released, and a Sacramento judge denied its emergency request on July 2, 2025. An attorney general’s opinion is advisory and doesn’t change the law by itself. Bonta later said, “Laws are meant to be enforced,” but his office gave no timeline.

As of September 2026, we found no reported enforcement against fantasy operators. PrizePicks and Underdog switched to peer-to-peer contests, where players compete against each other rather than the house, and DraftKings and FanDuel kept running daily fantasy in the state. The opinion still stands, so the state could act on it later.

The sweepstakes casino ban (AB 831)

Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 831 on October 11, 2025, and it took effect January 1, 2026. It added Penal Code section 337o, which bans online sweepstakes games that use a dual-currency system and simulate casino gambling or sports wagering.

The law reaches past the operators to anyone who knowingly supports them, including payment processors, geolocation providers, game suppliers and media affiliates. A violation is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in county jail, a fine of up to $25,000, or both. Sweepstakes sportsbooks, Fliff among them, pulled out of California when the law took effect.

AB 831 is about sweepstakes sites. It isn’t aimed at offshore sportsbooks such as Bovada, which were already covered by section 337a.

What’s legal in California

  • Tribal casinos, run under compacts between tribes and the state, which offer slot machines and card games on tribal land.
  • The California Lottery, for players 18 and older.
  • Horse racing, at tracks, satellite sites and through advance deposit wagering (ADW) accounts with providers the California Horse Racing Board approves, such as TVG, TwinSpires and Xpressbet.
  • Licensed cardrooms, which can offer certain card games such as poker.

Fantasy apps and prediction markets

Fantasy apps still take Californians, and PrizePicks’ help center lists California as open to anyone 18 or older. The Attorney General’s opinion says these contests are illegal sports wagering, though as of September 2026 he hadn’t acted on it.

Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket offer contracts on game results to Californians 18 and older and are regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Their status is in dispute. On September 16, 2026, a federal appeals court sided with two California tribes, finding that Kalshi’s sports contracts likely amount to Class III gaming on tribal land. Kalshi then blocked its sports contracts on three California reservations.

The risks of using Bovada from California

  • Placing sports bets from California falls under section 337a, and online bets don’t get section 336.9’s reduced penalty.
  • No California agency oversees Bovada. If a withdrawal stalls or a bet is voided, your only escalation is Bovada’s own dispute process.
  • Bovada’s terms let it close accounts “for any reason, at any time in our sole discretion,” and it zeroes out balances after 18 months without activity. If Bovada ever blocks California, its instructions for players in blocked states are to contact customer service about options such as a crypto withdrawal.
  • If you travel to a state Bovada blocks, don’t try to mask your location. Its terms treat using a VPN or proxy that way as fraud, which can mean a closed account and a forfeited balance. Our VPN guide has more.
  • Gambling winnings are taxable. The IRS says you must report all of them, including winnings that don’t come with a Form W-2G, and Bovada says it doesn’t report winnings to tax authorities.

Our Bovada review covers its fees, bonuses and payout rules, and our page on where Bovada is located explains who runs it.

Our state-by-state lookup shows where sports betting is legal across the US.

Only bet what you’ve set aside to lose. If gambling has stopped being fun, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) for free, confidential help, 24/7, or chat online with the National Problem Gambling Helpline.

Sources

Similar Posts