Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board

An independent agency with a wide remit

The Board calls itself an independent state agency. Its home page says it regulates casino and internet gambling, sports wagering, video gaming terminal gambling and fantasy sports contests, and that it does so at no cost to taxpayers. That breadth matters to a resident, because the Board keeps separate operator lists for each category, and a brand can appear on more than one.

The statutes behind it

The Board's Legislation page lists a single act, the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act, which it says passed in 2004 and has been amended several times since. A Board press release from August 16, 2019 adds the Gaming Expansion Act of 2017 next to the 2004 law as the statutes the Board oversees, without citing a section. The statute itself is hosted on the legislature's site, which refused our normal client with a 403 response, so we did not read the text and cite only what the Board says.

What the Board publishes

Everything below sits on gamingcontrolboard.pa.gov.

• A hub page, PA Licensed Online Gaming Operators, with four categories: sports wagering, iGaming, online poker and fantasy contests. It tells visitors to confirm that a site is regulated by the Board before they bet and to look for the Board's official logo on licensed sites and materials.
• An Interactive Gaming Operators page that links 24 operator sites, by brand name, with no certificate types or totals.
• A document listing Licensed Interactive Gaming Certificateholders and Authorized Interactive Gaming websites. Our copy carries its date only in its file name, 4.30.26, and the Board's page links it as current.
• Three involuntary exclusion lists, for casinos, video gaming terminals and iGaming. Each entry shows an exclusion number, docket number, exclusion date and name, with a data sheet.
• Patron complaint and dispute forms, an Office of Hearings and Appeals calendar and filings, and a news section.

How to check an operator, step by step

1. Open the iGaming page on the Board's site and find the brand.
2. Open the certificateholder document and find the web address under that brand. The document groups sites by the casino that holds the certificate.
3. Compare the domain exactly. The Board's list shows sites by their full address, often with a state prefix such as pa. or a play. subdomain.
4. If the brand or domain is on neither, the Board's list does not show it as authorized.

The certificateholder document is reproduced as a register at legal online casinos in Pennsylvania. The general method, for any state, is in how to check an online casino license.

Complaints

The Board hosts patron dispute and complaint forms on its site, and a separate page for compulsive and problem gambling. For the iGaming exclusion list, the page gives (717) 346-8300 and pgcb@pa.gov for questions. Responsible gaming tools and self-exclusion are on the Board's responsible play site, which lists 1-800-GAMBLER and a text line, 800GAM.

Recent actions on its site

The Board's news section shows these releases among its most recent.

• October 20, 2026: revenue report for September.
• October 14, 2026: eight people were placed on the Involuntary Casino Exclusion List. Five were added for leaving minors unattended while they gambled, and the release gives no reasons for the other three. It puts the total across all of the Board's exclusion lists at 1,512 and says the next Board meeting is November 18, 2026.
• October 14, 2026: the Board renewed the license of its Pittsburgh casino under the Live brand.
• October 1, 2026: annual diversity report on the casino industry.
• September 30, 2026: the 20th edition of its annual report.

None of these touches unlicensed online operators.

When online casino games began

The Board's August 16, 2019 revenue release says online casino games were launched by three casinos the week of July 15, 2019, and reports a partial month gross of $812,306. It names SugarHouse, Parx and Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course as those three.

Unlicensed and sweepstakes operators

None of the Board pages we read mentions sweepstakes casinos, and none states a rule about unlicensed sites beyond the instruction to verify that a site is regulated. Industry trackers report that the Board has issued orders involving sweepstakes operators and that a bill on the subject was introduced in the legislature in September 2026. Those reports are not from the Board and we have not read the orders.

What we read

On November 11, 2026 the Board's robots.txt allowed the pages and files above, and we read them with our normal client.