After a one-year hiatus, Sen. Timothy Lang of New Hampshire is back for another attempt at legalizing online casinos in the state. Lang pushed hard for the possibility in 2023 but sat 2024 out after that first attempt failed.
One reason Sen. Lang may be feeling more optimistic this year than last is that a key opponent is no longer in the legislature. His 2023 effort made it through the Senate successfully but died in the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired at the time by Rep. Laurie Sanborn, whose husband had a stake in the state’s charitable retail casino sector. She’s no longer in office, and Andy Sanborn’s casino license has been revoked.
That said, passing any online casino bill is always easier said than done. The absence of Rep. Sanborn in the House doesn’t mean Lang’s second attempt is guaranteed to succeed, only that it isn’t guaranteed to fail again.
If it passes, SB168 will take effect on Jan 1, 2026. However, the launch date for any New Hampshire online casinos would likely be later in the year. On its effective date, the bill would only get the ball rolling, directing the New Hampshire Lottery Commission to create an online gaming division and begin issuing licenses. In other states, the process to get from there to a roll-out of iGaming has typically taken at least six months, often longer. Thus, we’d likely be looking at New Hampshire online casinos arriving in the second half of the year.
Slots back in 2025 New Hampshire online casino bill
To secure the necessary votes in the Senate, Sen. Lang was forced to gut his 2023 bill by removing slots as an acceptable type of game. If that bill had passed, New Hampshire would have been the first US state to legalize online table games like blackjack and roulette, but not online slots. Given that slots are the most popular form of casino game and the biggest money-makers for casinos, it’s debatable whether that model would have been economically viable.
So, perhaps the most important thing to note about the 2025 bill is that slots are back in, at least for now. Since 2023, there are two new Democrats and four new Republicans in the Senate, so the vote negotiations may be different this time around. Still, it’s possible that Sen. Lang may need to make compromises again to advance the bill to the House.
One significant change, however, has been the specification of a tax rate. Sen. Lang has fixed that at 45% of gross revenue in the 2025 bill, whereas it was left up for negotiation in the 2023 legislation. The earlier bill also allocated all such proceeds to education, while the 2025 bill spreads the money around as follows:
- 25% to the education fund
- 25% to the elderly, disabled, blind, and deaf exemption reimbursement fund
- 50% to the state’s general fund
Open licensing, not bidding
The reason for fixing the tax rate is that Sen. Lang no longer anticipates a bidding process for licenses. Bidding was the approach for New Hampshire sports betting, but that resulted in only a single operator—DraftKings—serving the state.
Seeking to avoid another monopoly for online casino gaming, Sen. Lang’s new bill directs the Lottery Commission to select at least three but no more than six operators to receive licenses.
It’s not clear by what process the Lottery Commission would select licensees if more than six companies are interested. In other states with a cap on the number of brands, online casinos operate in partnership with the state’s retail casino licensees, and it is up to those land-based operators to select their partners through revenue-sharing negotiations.
That point may be academic, as New Hampshire’s population of just 1.4 million and the relatively high proposed tax rate may deter all but the biggest operators from applying. Quite likely, the minimum of three operators is meant to comprise the so-called Big Three national brands: BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel. The maximum of six leaves room for some of the mid-sized operators like Caesars and BetRivers, followed perhaps by Hollywood or Fanatics.
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