Is online gambling legal in Alabama?

Alabama: status at a glance

The short answer, product by product

Alabama sits at the restrictive end of the map. No state agency issues licenses for online casino games, for online sports wagering or for online poker, so there is no list of Alabama license holders to read. The status table above shows the same picture, and a resident who sees an app or website advertising these products in Alabama is looking at something the state has not authorized.

Where other states created a regulator and a licensing law, Alabama's attorney general takes the position that gambling is prohibited at the constitutional level. On that reading, a new product does not fall into a legal vacuum. It falls under an existing prohibition.

What the attorney general says the constitution does

In a memo to district attorneys and law enforcement, released on May 17, 2011, Attorney General Luther Strange wrote that "The Alabama Constitution imposes a strict prohibition against gambling." The memo adds that slot machines and other gambling devices are illegal in all 67 counties, and that no local amendment authorizes them.

The memo also addresses the one carve-out in the state's gambling law: charity bingo, which several counties allow through local constitutional amendments. According to the memo, that bingo has to be traditional bingo as the Alabama Supreme Court has defined it, with features such as numbered cards, numbers drawn at random and announced, and players competing in a group game. It must be run for charity and meet each requirement of the county's own amendment. The attorney general said those requirements would be applied "literally and strictly," and withdrew an earlier advisory opinion that had loosened them. A machine that pays cash value on chance is an illegal slot machine, the memo says, whatever game it displays.

The memo is dated 2011, so it shows the office's position at that time. It names no constitutional section number, so none is given here.

Courts and "electronic bingo"

The office's later releases show how that position has fared. On September 30, 2022, the attorney general announced that the Alabama Supreme Court, in State v. Epic Tech, LLC (no. 1200798), had unanimously found three casinos to be illegal gambling enterprises and had barred them from offering what they called "electronic bingo." The release says the term is a misnomer for video slot machine gambling.

Those cases involved physical machines. In them, the attorney general's question was what a device actually does, not what its operator calls it.

A sweepstakes ruling from 2017

The closest primary source on sweepstakes-style play is older. On August 14, 2017, the Jefferson County Circuit Court, after a bench trial, found that machines at a business called Bid City operated as slot machines under Alabama law. According to the attorney general's release of August 22, 2017, the business used software that paired sweepstakes games with online auctions, and prosecutors argued these were illegal gambling dressed as sweepstakes. The court ordered the machines condemned and forfeited. The attorney general also sent a cease-and-desist letter to the company behind the software, with a deadline of September 1, 2017.

That release does not cite statutes or lay out the court's reasoning, so it should be read as a record of the outcome only. It is not a ruling on the modern sweepstakes casinos that run on websites and phones.

Sweepstakes casinos in Alabama today

Industry trackers list Alabama as a gray state for sweepstakes casinos, with litigation as the main activity. Trade press reported new lawsuits against sweepstakes operators in January 2026; those reports are secondary, and we did not find a court decision on whether such games are gambling under Alabama law. Sweepstakes casinos hold no Alabama license and appear on no state register, because the state has none to join. The general rules for these sites are covered in the guide to sweepstakes legality, and the list of banned states shows where Alabama sits against states that have passed bans.

Offshore sites and where to turn

Websites based outside the United States do not hold an Alabama license either, and no Alabama regulator oversees them. A plain description of how offshore sites differ from licensed ones is on a separate page.

For help with gambling problems, the national line is 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738). We did not read an Alabama-run helpline page and list none. More resources are on the responsible gambling page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I place a sports bet online from Alabama?

Alabama licenses no online sportsbook. Industry trackers list the state as having no sports betting, and the state's attorney general describes gambling as constitutionally prohibited. There is no Alabama register that would show a holder.

Does charity bingo count as legal gambling in Alabama?

In counties with a local constitutional amendment, charity bingo is allowed under conditions. The attorney general's 2011 memo says it must be traditional bingo, run for charity and within the county amendment. It does not extend to slot machines or similar devices.

Is a sweepstakes casino licensed in Alabama?

No. No Alabama agency licenses them. Lawsuits against operators were reported in early 2026, and we found no court decision settling the legal question.

Who enforces gambling law in Alabama?

The attorney general's office has been the visible enforcer in the releases we read, working with district attorneys and county courts, including cases that reached the Alabama Supreme Court in 2022.