18 or 21? Kentucky’s Gambling Reforms and Minimum Age Question

How old is old enough to bet on sports? The majority of states set the legal age for sports betting at 21+, but there are a handful of states which set a lower entry level of 18+. It is quite common to have a lowered 18+ age restriction for bingo and various lottery products, providing they are legal in the state, but for sports betting, only Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington DC, and Kentucky have an 18+ legal requirement. That is, with the current legislation in place.

Because Kentucky is considering a bill to make major reforms to the status quo, bringing fantasy and prediction markets into compliance, banning controversial in-state college player props, and changing the legal age for betting on sports from 18 to 21. This would not be without precedent, and actually it casts the spotlight onto one of America’s most divisive questions in states with legal sports betting. As sports betting is slowly spreading to all corners of the nation, it begs the question – what should be the legal age – and why is it such a point of contention that states cannot seem to agree on one legal age.

Kentucky Sports Betting Reforms

House Bill 904, which seeks to change integral parts of Kentucky’s gambling laws, passed the House of Representatives with a vote of 79-15, indicating strong momentum. It will now head to the Senate, and should it pass, the law will tweak some of the player protection measures, as well as answer some of the difficult questions around the legality of prediction markets, and how fantasy sports sites fit into the gambling bill.

Kentucky has now had legal sports betting for just over 2.5 years, having legalized betting in 2023, and it has 8 approved sportsbook operators. Sports betting is regulated by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, and one of the most intriguing aspects of Kentucky is that the mandated minimum age for betting on sports is set at just 18. The regulators are looking to change that, as well as address the rules around college betting, something that is controversial in all states.

Prediction Markets and Fantasy Sports

Fantasy sports have circumvented the laws on sports betting in numerous states, as these do not strictly speaking provide straight bets on sports. Instead of betting directly on the outcome of a game, they use alternate products that relate to the performances and in-game stats. Whether through building lineups of player projected stats – similar to parlays using player props – or by assembling brackets, social pools, and classic DFS lineup contests, your entries or lineups can be measured. They can be awarded points based on the accuracy of your predictions, and then you compete against your peers for leaderboard prizes or in direct contests.

They have been bracketed as skill based products, and not directly sports betting, as you are not staking a bet and getting paid out if it wins. But what Kentucky wants to do is bring these platforms under the licensing of the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation. Essentially, giving them a taxation structure, reinforcing player protection and responsible gambling tools, and ensuring the quality of the products is up to par. The other vertical being considered here is the prediction markets that have run riot in the US for the past year. Again, taxation, responsible gambling measures, and more clarity are what the lawmakers want with prediction markets. It they can close the gap, it reduces the grey areas and allows the state authorities to concentrate on the legal products. They can then move more aggressively onto the restricted platforms, after making the distinction between what is legal and what is not.

Legal Age Hike

The big headline grabber here is the proposed raised legal betting age. Most of the states that have legalized betting up until this point have picked the 21+ age, aligning with the landbased casino gambling laws. The logic behind this is sound, as it gives them consistency across different gambling verticals, makes it more straightforward to create responsible gambling protections, and shields the youth from gambling. But at the same time, there are activities that have a lowered 18+ age requirement across more states.

For example, you don’t need to be 21 to buy Powerball lottery tickets in the majority of states. Activities like bingo, keno, scratchcards and daily fantasy sports have 18+ age brackets in a lot of states. Perhaps the most controversial one is horse race betting and pari-mutuel betting. These are set at 18+ in many states, so you can bet on horse races, off-track betting and even greyhounds (where it is legal), at the lowered age bracket. Kentucky, where sports betting is regulated by a horse racing institution and has a massive market for horse racing, just opted to extend the 18+ legal age for all sports betting.

Have States Changed the Legal Age Before

While there are now 39 states with sports betting, and more lining up on the horizon including the surprising Hawaii betting bill, let’s face it. Legal sports betting is still a lot younger in the US than when compared with other countries. Sports betting was only legalized at a federal level in 2018, and Kentucky has just had legal sports betting for 2.5+ years. Most states with legal sports betting have had 5 years or fewer of a regulated market. In that time, very few have decided to back up and try to change the legal gambling age that they decided on at the time of the launch.

New Hampshire has a legal gambling age of 18+, and while it has been discussed and debated in the courts of law, there have not been any formal proceedings to change it. Rhode Island, which runs a state gambling monopoly, also has a 18+ legal requirement, with the sports betting copying the lottery model.

The most controversial such move was actually done in the opposite direction. Iowa was among the first states to launch legal sports betting, with Governor Kim Reynolds signing the sports betting bill into law on May 13, 2019. But they did try to change their law, but instead of raising it, lowered it to 18+. The goal was to align it with the lottery laws, but the effort ultimately failed.

Legal Age in Canada and Internationally

When you look up North, in Canada the legal gambling age is generally 19+, with some provinces like Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec setting the age for betting at 18+. The European markets, such as the UK, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, set the gambling age at 18+, aligning it with landbased European casino minimum age thresholds. But in the Netherlands, there is a bracket for legal young people, up until the age of 24, where the products and gambling marketing has stricter laws – they recently banned share a bet features because it links social media to betting – an area that has greater exposure to younger bettors.

The United States generally sets the age of maturity for these products at 21, but the thresholds can vary greatly depending on what kinds of gambling products you use. For instance, in select states the legal age for playing a game of poker for real money may be 18+, but in other states it is 21+. In some rare cases, you get a legal age of 18+ in the state, but a multi-state betting operator will only allow people who are 21+ and older to join the sportsbook. It makes sense if you think about how these accounts can be used in multiple states. Who’s to say a legal 19 year old Kentucky bettor won’t travel to New York with their betting account, and there they should, by state laws, be restricted from betting.

Here are some of the main gambling genres, and their age thresholds across the US.

• Lottery (draw games, scratch cards, keno): 18+ (21+ in some states)
• Bingo (charity & commercial): 18+ (sometimes lower with supervision in select states)
• Horse racing/pari-mutuel betting :18+ (21+ in some states)
• Sports betting (retail & online sportsbooks): 21+ (18+ in select states like Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington DC, Kentucky)
• Casino gaming (slots, table games): 21+ (18+ in some tribal casinos and select states)
• Poker (live casino poker rooms): 21+ (18+ in some venues, often tribal)
• Online casinos (iGaming): 21+ (18+ in a few jurisdictions, depending on regulation)
• Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS): 18+ (19+ or 21+ in some states/operators)
• Social / sweepstakes casinos: 18+ (21+ in some platforms due to internal policies)
• Esports betting: 21+ (18+ in some states/operators depending on classification)

As you can see, it is quite complex and divisive. Though each state retains the autonomy to regulate sports betting as they see fit, and should they decide to cut out college props, ban eSports betting, or pick between aligning with the local landbased casino age threshold or lottery/DFS is something that cannot be challenged at a federal level or by anyone else.

What Happens Next in Kentucky

Kentucky has the chance to make history here, and the Kentucky bettors will not be the only ones closely following the proceedings. In New Hampshire, for example, this is the perfect scenario to follow. Should Kentucky pull it off and succeed in making a more secure legal betting landscape – without hurting the state revenue and losing bettors to the black market – it could inspire New Hampshire to take on a similar proceeding of their own.

But on a broader scale, it really asks the question of how young is too young to bet on sports. Or, is the US really too cautious and should it look to international examples, keeping the 18+ and supporting the lawmakers in Iowa who would have changed from 21+ to 18+.