Casino tax rates by state range from a top marginal rate of 6.75% in Nevada to 54% on slot revenue in Pennsylvania, with everything in between shaped by game type, whether play happens in person or online, and the specific deal each state has cut with its operators. Most states tax gross gaming revenue, meaning total wagers minus payouts, before the operator deducts any business expense.
Land-Based Commercial Casino Rates
Nevada uses a graduated structure rather than a single flat rate. Operators pay 3.5% on the first $50,000 in monthly gross gaming revenue, 4.5% on the next $84,000, and 6.75% on anything above $134,000. That top rate is among the lowest in the country, a deliberate choice to sustain a tourism-driven economy. Operators also pay annual license fees scaled to the number of games and slot machines on the floor.
Pennsylvania sits at the far end. Land-based slot revenue is taxed between 48% and 54% depending on the facility, and table games at 16%. The slot rate is the highest of any state. Revenue is split among the state general fund, local governments, and economic development programs.
New Jersey taxes Atlantic City casino revenue at a flat 8%, plus a 1.25% investment alternative tax reinvested through the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority. The combined 9.25% effective rate makes New Jersey one of the more operator-friendly environments outside Nevada.
New York taxes its four upstate commercial casinos at 30% on slot and electronic table game revenue and 10% on live table game and sports wagering revenue. Eighty percent of the tax goes to education and property tax relief. The three downstate licenses still under development may carry different terms.
Ohio applies a flat 33% to all gross casino revenue across its four commercial facilities. Maryland directs a large share of slot revenue to the state Education Trust Fund; in fiscal year 2025, more than $600 million of the roughly $830 million contributed by the casinos went to that fund. Maryland taxes table game revenue at a lower rate, though the combined burden still ranks among the higher ones in the country.
Online Casino (iGaming) Rates
States that have legalized online casino gaming generally tax it at rates that differ from their land-based counterparts. Digital operators skip the overhead of a physical building and thousands of on-site employees, and legislatures have used that logic to justify different rate structures.
Michigan uses a graduated system under the Lawful Internet Gaming Act. Online operators pay 20% on the first $4 million in adjusted gross receipts, 22% on the next $4 million, 24% between $8 million and $10 million, 26% between $10 million and $12 million, and 28% above $12 million.
Pennsylvania taxes online slot simulations at 52% and online table game simulations at 14%. Those numbers are slightly below the land-based equivalents, so the assumption that online and offline rates match doesn’t hold. West Virginia takes a simpler approach with a flat 15% on adjusted gross interactive wagering receipts.
New Jersey overhauled its online casino tax effective July 2025, raising the rate to 19.75% from the original 15%. Connecticut taxes online casino revenue at 18% during the first five years after a licensee begins operating, then 20%. Delaware uses a statutory distribution formula rather than a single percentage, which makes direct comparison harder.
Licensing fees add another layer. An initial iGaming license runs anywhere from roughly $100,000 to well over $1 million depending on the state, usually with annual renewals on top.
Sports Betting Rates
Sports betting rates are all over the map. The highest sit at 51% of gross gaming revenue in New York (for online sportsbooks), New Hampshire, Oregon, and Rhode Island. The lowest hover around 6.75% in Nevada and Iowa. The trend over the past two years has been upward.
Illinois moved to a progressive structure that reaches as high as 40% on sportsbook revenue and added a per-wager excise fee of $0.25 on the first 20 million bets and $0.50 per bet after that. Ohio doubled its sports betting tax from 10% to 20%. New Jersey raised its rate to roughly 19.7% from 13%. Louisiana increased its online sports betting rate to 21.5%, and Maryland moved to 20%. The District of Columbia charges 30% on its largest operator class.
Retail and online rates can diverge sharply within a single state. New York’s retail sportsbooks pay 10% while online books pay 51%. A handful of states tax total amount wagered (the handle) rather than gross gaming revenue, which produces a very different effective rate, though most states stick with the gross-revenue model.
Tribal Gaming Payments
Tribal casinos operate in a different framework. Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, states cannot impose a tax, fee, or other assessment on a tribe for engaging in Class III gaming, which includes slot machines and table games. Instead, tribes negotiate compacts that often include revenue-sharing payments in exchange for something the state provides, almost always exclusivity over certain game types in a geographic area.
Connecticut’s arrangement is one of the longest-running. The Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes each pay 25% of gross operating revenue from video facsimile games (essentially slot machines) to the state. In return, Connecticut prohibits other commercial casino gaming.
Florida’s compact with the Seminole Tribe, finalized in 2021, guarantees the state a minimum of $2.5 billion over the first five years, with no annual payment falling below $400 million. The compact runs through July 2051 and gives the tribe exclusive rights to sports betting and certain table games statewide. If the tribe loses its sports betting exclusivity for legal reasons, the minimum payments drop by 10%.
Oklahoma uses a sliding scale where tribes pay between 4% and 10% of adjusted gross revenue as exclusivity fees, with the specific percentage depending on game type and each tribe’s individual compact. Federal law treats state demands for direct taxation of a tribe during compact negotiations as evidence of bad faith. The payments are legally structured as consideration for exclusivity, not taxes, and a tribe can challenge overreaching compact terms in federal court under 25 U.S.C. § 2710.
The Federal Layer on Operators
State rates aren’t the only tax operators face. Under 26 U.S.C. § 4401, every wager placed through a state-authorized operation carries a federal excise tax of 0.25% of the amount wagered. For unauthorized gambling operations, the rate is 2%. Pari-mutuel wagering on horse and dog racing when licensed under state law, coin-operated gaming devices like slot machines, and wagers conducted by state lottery agencies or their authorized agents are exempt.
Anyone in the business of accepting wagers also owes a federal occupational tax under 26 U.S.C. § 4411: $50 annually for operators whose wagers are authorized by state law, $500 for those accepting unauthorized wagers. It’s renewed by July 1 each year through IRS Form 11-C.
Local Add-Ons
The headline state rate rarely tells the whole story. Illinois imposes a per-patron admissions tax of $2 at one facility and $3 at all others, collected every time someone enters the gaming floor regardless of whether they place a bet. Missouri has used a similar admissions model.
Host community fees are another common add-on, sending a percentage of casino revenue directly to the city or county where the facility sits. Local governments use those funds to offset the costs of hosting a large gambling operation, including police presence, road maintenance, and social services for problem gambling. The exact percentage varies based on what each host community negotiated during licensing, and these fees are collected separately from state tax.
State-level operator licensing fees for a commercial casino can run from a few hundred thousand dollars to over $1 million, with annual renewals required. These aren’t taxes in the strict sense, but they’re real costs that factor into the total regulatory burden on any casino operation.