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

ByCrown Wagers Editorial Team Updated Bovada Help

No. Sports betting is illegal in Texas, and the state doesn’t license any sportsbook, online or in person. Bovada still accepts players in Texas, but it has no Texas license, and a site letting you open an account doesn’t make your bets legal.

What Texas law says

Texas puts its gambling crimes in chapter 47 of the Penal Code. Section 47.02 makes it an offense to bet “on the partial or final result of a game or contest or on the performance of a participant in a game or contest.” The same section covers bets on elections, which Bovada also takes.

The law defines a bet as “an agreement to win or lose something of value solely or partially by chance.” Nothing in chapter 47 exempts online bets or betting sites based outside Texas.

ConductLawGrade and maximum penalty
Betting on a game, contest or electionPenal Code 47.02Class C misdemeanor: a fine of up to $500
Bookmaking and other gambling promotionPenal Code 47.03Class A misdemeanor: up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $4,000, or both
Texas Penal Code sections 47.02, 47.03, 12.21 and 12.23, as of September 2026.

The defenses in section 47.02 are narrow. The main one covers gambling in a private place where no one profits beyond personal winnings and everyone has the same odds, like a home poker game. Others cover charity bingo, raffles, the lottery and licensed racing.

A sportsbook makes money from the bets it takes, so the private-game defense doesn’t fit it. When Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a 2016 opinion on daily fantasy sports, he summed up the rule this way: “it is prohibited gambling in Texas if you bet on the performance of a participant in a sporting event and the house takes a cut.” Attorney general opinions are advisory, and courts don’t have to follow them. This isn’t legal advice.

Bovada and Texas

Texas isn’t on Bovada’s list of restricted states, so Bovada takes sign-ups and bets from people in Texas. It has no Texas license and couldn’t get one, because Texas doesn’t license sportsbooks or online casinos. Our page on where Bovada is available lists 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. Our page on where Bovada is located covers who runs it.

Bovada blocks 19 states and Washington, DC, and most of them were added after a state regulator or attorney general sent Bovada a cease-and-desist letter. We found no such letter from Texas. Texas’s attorney general also didn’t join the 50 attorneys general who asked the US Justice Department in August 2025 to block offshore gambling sites and seize their assets.

Where legalization stands

In 2023, a proposed constitutional amendment to allow sports betting passed the Texas House with 102 votes and died in the Senate. In 2025, Senator Carol Alvarado’s SJR 16 would have allowed casino resorts and sports betting. Representative Sam Harless’s HJR 134 would have let lawmakers license betting through pro sports teams, PGA Tour venues and racetracks. Both died in committee without a hearing. As constitutional amendments, they needed two-thirds of both chambers and then voter approval.

The Senate has been the sticking point. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who runs the Senate, has said he won’t move gambling bills without majority support from its Republicans. In November 2024 he said only “three or four” of the 20 Republican senators supported legalization, and in December 2025 he said he was “simply not there yet.” In March 2025, a dozen House Republicans also said they’d oppose “any attempt to expand gambling.”

The Legislature holds regular sessions only in odd-numbered years. The next one opens January 12, 2027, and bills can be filed from November 9, 2026.

Patrick’s March 2026 interim charges, the topics Senate committees study between sessions, include prediction markets. They tell the State Affairs Committee to study “the sudden inundation of prediction market gambling and the exploitation of federal law to circumvent Texas gambling prohibitions.”

What’s legal in Texas

Legal gambling in Texas is mostly in person:

  • The Texas Lottery, sold at retailers. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation took it over on September 1, 2025, under a 2025 law (SB 3070) that also made selling tickets online a crime.
  • Pari-mutuel betting on horse races at licensed Texas tracks, overseen by the Texas Racing Commission.
  • Charity bingo and raffles.
  • Three tribal casinos, run by the Kickapoo, Tigua and Alabama-Coushatta tribes, which offer bingo-based electronic games.
  • Private games that fit the defense described above, such as a home game where nobody takes a cut.

Fantasy and pick’em apps

PrizePicks, Underdog, DraftKings, FanDuel, Sleeper and other fantasy apps take Texas players, and PrizePicks’ help center lists Texas as open to anyone 18 or older. Their legal status is unsettled. Paxton’s 2016 opinion said a court would likely find paid daily fantasy to be illegal gambling. DraftKings sued over the opinion, and no court has settled the question since.

Prediction markets

Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket let Texans 18 and older buy contracts on game results. They’re regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission and say state gambling laws don’t apply to them. Texas hadn’t acted against them by September 2026, though the Senate study targets them, and federal appeals courts are split on whether states can regulate them.

Betting in another state

State-licensed sportsbooks only take bets from people physically inside a state where they’re licensed, and their apps check your location. Louisiana, next door, has mobile sportsbooks licensed by its Gaming Control Board. They accept bets placed in Louisiana from people who meet its age limit, and they’ll refuse your bets once you’re back in Texas.

The risks of using Bovada from Texas

  • Placing a sports bet in Texas is a Class C misdemeanor, a criminal offense punishable by a fine of up to $500, and chapter 47 has no exception for offshore sites.
  • No Texas 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 Texas, 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 hide your location. Its terms treat VPN or proxy use as fraud, which can mean a closed account and a forfeited balance. See our VPN guide.
  • Gambling winnings are taxable, and the IRS says you must report all of them, including winnings that don’t come with a Form W-2G. Bovada says it doesn’t report winnings to tax authorities.

Our Bovada review covers fees, bonuses and payouts.

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

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