A Casino Law Takes a Simple Majority in Boston and 120 Votes in Atlanta. The Difference Is Which Document the Ban Lives In.
Massachusetts legalized casinos with an ordinary act in 2011; its constitution never mentions gambling. Georgia's names casino gambling in its Bill of Rights. The word 'ban' covers both, and it should not.
Published 2026-11-02.
Massachusetts legalized casinos in 2011 with Chapter 194 of that year's acts, "An Act Establishing Expanded Gaming in the Commonwealth." It needed a majority of each chamber and the governor's signature, because the Massachusetts constitution does not contain the word gambling, or lottery, anywhere in it. Georgia's constitution names "all forms of pari-mutuel betting and casino gambling" in its Bill of Rights and orders the ban enforced by criminal law, and when the Georgia House voted on a narrower sports-betting amendment on March 6, 2026, it needed 120 of 180 votes and got 63.
Both states are routinely described as having banned casinos until they did or did not change their minds. The word hides the thing that decides the outcome, which is where the ban is written and who is allowed to rewrite it. We went to the constitutions.
Three kinds of clause, and the states with none
Start with the states whose constitutions say nothing. We read every article of the North Carolina, Massachusetts, Illinois and Pennsylvania constitutions and found no reference to gambling, lotteries or gaming in any of them. Hawaii's constitution is silent too; its ban is a criminal statute that makes gambling a misdemeanor. Virginia's casinos came by statute in 2020, limited to named host cities. In all of these a casino is a legislative decision, which is why Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts and Virginia have them and North Carolina and Hawaii could by passing a bill. Our Utah and Hawaii piece is about exactly that contrast.
The second kind bans lotteries and stops there. Texas tells the legislature it "shall pass laws prohibiting lotteries and gift enterprises," with carve-outs for bingo, raffles and the state lottery. South Carolina says "only the State may conduct lotteries." Kentucky's Section 226 says "lotteries and gift enterprises are forbidden" outside the state and charitable lotteries it allows. Minnesota and Florida have lottery clauses, Tennessee's says the legislature has no power to authorize lotteries, and Alabama's forbids the legislature to authorize lotteries or gift enterprises. None of these contains the word casino. Whether a slot machine is a lottery then becomes a question for courts and attorneys general, and in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama the answer has been that games of chance are; our posts on Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama trace how.
The third kind leaves no room for a court. Utah: the legislature "shall not authorize any game of chance, lottery or gift enterprise under any pretense or for any purpose." Wisconsin: "the legislature may not authorize gambling in any form," followed by a list of what its state lottery may never include, with blackjack, poker, roulette, craps, slot machines and video games of chance by name. Idaho: no permitted activity "shall employ any form of casino gambling including" slot machines. Oregon: the legislature "has no power to authorize, and shall prohibit, casinos." Georgia, as above. California's Article IV tells the legislature to "prohibit casinos of the type currently operating in Nevada and New Jersey" and, one subsection later, lets the governor sign compacts for tribes to run slot machines; that is a different post, our tribal-but-not-commercial explainer.
The fourth kind lets casinos in and nails the door
A fourth group used the constitution not to ban casinos but to fix exactly where they may be. New Jersey's permits "gambling houses or casinos within the boundaries, as heretofore established, of the city of Atlantic City," and no other kind of gambling without a public vote. Ohio's authorizes "four casino facilities," one each in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Toledo and one in Franklin County, taxes them at 33% in the constitution itself and sets the $50 million license fee and $250 million minimum investment there too; our Ohio piece explains how the racetracks got around it with lottery terminals. Maryland's Article XIX caps the state at five video lottery licenses and 15,000 machines at listed sites and says that after November 15, 2008 the General Assembly "may not authorize any additional forms or expansion of commercial gaming" without a statewide referendum, which is why National Harbor needed the 2012 ballot. New York's Article I allows "casino gambling at no more than seven facilities as authorized and prescribed by the legislature," the 2013 amendment that eventually produced the downstate licenses our New York coverage follows. Michigan's requires a statewide and a local vote for any gambling law passed after January 1, 2004, with Detroit's three casinos and tribal gaming exempt. Florida's Amendment 3, passed in 2018, says voters "shall have the exclusive right to decide whether to authorize casino gambling" and requires a citizens' initiative to do it, while leaving tribal compacts alone.
These are the states where a fifth casino, or a second city, is a constitutional question even though the first ones were not.
The arithmetic of changing any of it
| State | Legislature must pass it by | Then | Citizens can petition an amendment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | Two-thirds of each house | Majority of voters | No |
| Georgia | Two-thirds of each house | Majority of voters | No |
| Alabama | Three-fifths of each house | Majority of voters | No |
| South Carolina | Two-thirds of each house | Majority of voters, then a majority of the next General Assembly | No |
| Utah | Two-thirds of each house | Majority of voters | No |
| Kentucky | Three-fifths of each house, four amendments per election at most | Majority of voters | No |
| North Carolina | Three-fifths of each house | Majority of voters | No |
| Washington | Two-thirds of each house | Majority of voters | No (statutes only) |
| Wisconsin | Majority in two successive legislatures | Majority of voters | No |
| Minnesota | Majority of each house | Majority of everyone voting at the election; a blank counts as no | No |
| Florida | Three-fifths of each house | 60% of voters | Yes |
| Ohio | Three-fifths of each house | Majority of voters | Yes |
| Nebraska | Three-fifths of the legislature | Majority, and at least 35% of all ballots cast | Yes |
| Missouri | Majority of each house | Majority of voters | Yes |
| Michigan | Two-thirds of each house | Majority of voters | Yes |
Two patterns fall out of that table. The states that have never let a casino amendment reach the ballot, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Utah and Kentucky, all require a legislative supermajority, and none lets citizens put an amendment on the ballot by petition. The states that changed their constitutions to admit casinos in the last two decades mostly did it by petition.
Washington is the odd one out and the example of how much the wording matters. Its lottery clause contains its own exit: lotteries are prohibited "except as specifically authorized upon the affirmative vote of sixty percent of the members of each house of the legislature," or by a 60% popular vote. Texas's clause has no such door. Both say lotteries. Only one of them can be opened without an amendment.
The ones that did it, and the ones that tried this year
Nebraska voters passed Initiative 429 in November 2020 with 65.04% of the vote, amending a clause that had said the legislature "shall not authorize any game of chance" to allow "all forms of games of chance" inside licensed racetrack enclosures. Arkansas voters passed Issue 4 in 2018 with 54.10%, authorizing four casinos, and in 2024 passed Issue 2 with 55.81%, which repealed the fourth license, in Pope County, and required county-level voter approval for any new one. The amendment route runs in both directions. Ohio's four-casino amendment passed in 2009; Maryland's was ratified on November 4, 2008; New York's passed in 2013.
The 2025 and 2026 sessions in the hard states went as the table predicts. Texas's HJR 137, a destination-resort amendment, was referred to the House State Affairs Committee on March 19, 2025 and has no further action recorded. Kentucky's 2026 bill index contains no title mentioning a casino or Section 226. South Carolina's sports wagering bill, H. 3625, has sat in Ways and Means since January 14, 2025. Georgia's amendment got its 63 votes. Alabama's 2024 package fell one Senate vote short and its 2026 bills never left committee. None of this is a near miss; it is the arithmetic working as written.
Where the usual advice is wrong
The usual shorthand is that a constitutional ban means never and a statutory ban means soon. Both halves fail on the record. Nebraska, Arkansas, Ohio, Maryland and New York all amended constitutions to admit casinos, and Hawaii's ban is a repealable statute that has not been repealed. Vermont's constitution is silent, a one-casino bill failed six years running before 2015, and a new one, S.318, was read once in January 2026 and sent to committee. Documents set the price of change. They do not buy it.
The other habit to drop is counting. Articles that announce how many states have constitutional bans on casinos are counting a word, not a rule, and the word does different work in different places. Washington's lotteries clause and Texas's are the same noun with opposite mechanics. Wisconsin's names slot machines; Minnesota's does not. Florida's constitution allows casinos and makes expansion harder than most bans do. We have deliberately not published a number here, and we would distrust one that did not come with the texts attached.
Three questions predict a state's future better than its politics. Does the clause name casinos or games of chance, or only lotteries. Can citizens petition an amendment onto the ballot. What fraction of the legislature does it take to put one there. A state that answers lotteries only, yes, simple majority can change in a cycle. A state that answers casinos by name, no, two-thirds is Georgia, and Georgia is not changing soon.
Which document the ban lives in also tells you where to drive in the meantime. For the hard states, that answer is in our pieces on Texas and Georgia.
Topics
- gambling-law
- legality
- state-law
- constitution
- casinos
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