The state lottery has an age requirement of 18, but you cannot bet on sports unless you are at least 21 which is the legal sports betting age in PA. All persons engaging in PA online sports betting must be at least 21 years old.It's always good to keep on the right side of the law, so here are the main points you need to know about legal sports betting in Pennsylvania. Passed and signed in October 2017, it authorized the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to offer PA online sports betting licenses to existing casino operators for both retail and online sportsbooks. The bill at the heart of PA sports betting is H 1627. Legal sports betting in Pennsylvania has thrived ever since. This is why, following that landmark decision in favor of online sports betting in Pennsylvania and other states, it took just six months for the first PA sportsbook to open. Lawmakers saw the writing on the wall at the Supreme Court, so in preparation for SCOTUS returning the question of sports gambling to the states, they legalized it. The real movement toward the actual allowing of PA sports betting came in 2017 when the state was creating an expansion to its existing legalized casino games.
The debate went on for years and began in earnest in the early 2000s when slot machines were first legalized. Sports betting is now 100% legal in Pennsylvania, but that hasn't always been the case.