A West Virginia delegate has filed separate bills that would raise the tax rates for both online sports betting and online casino gaming.
Del. Adam Burkhammer’s HB 4397 and HB 4398, which were both referred to the House Government Organization Committee on Jan. 16, would each impose a new rate of 25% of operators’ gross revenue.
HB 4397 is the iGaming measure, while HB 4398 relates to sports wagering.
West Virginia taxes comparatively modestly
West Virginia currently taxes online sports betting at 10% and interactive wagering at 15%, meaning the former would represent an increase of 150% and the latter a 66.67% rise.
The Mountain State’s current rates are some of the friendliest of any sports betting or online casino market in the U.S. Since launching sports betting in late 2018, the state’s 10% rate has reaped around $72.5 million in sports wagering tax revenue. In November 2025, the most recently reported month at the time of writing, the West Virginia Lottery took $1.2 million in tax revenue from more than $52.7 million worth of sports wagers.
Meanwhile, West Virginia’s 15% rate on online casino gaming is the lowest of any of the seven states currently allowing commercial iGaming. New Jersey charged online casino operators the same rate until the Garden State enacted legislation last year that increased it to 19.75%. Gov. Phil Murphy initially wanted to raise the New Jersey rate to 25%, the same as Burkhammer’s proposal for West Virginia, but that mooted change was strongly opposed by major operators, the Sports Betting Alliance and the Casino Association of New Jersey.
WV AG looks to lock down market
The proposal to raise online gaming taxes comes after a sustained push from West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey to force unregulated and untaxed operators to shut down in the state.
WVNews reported last July that McCuskey issued almost 50 subpoenas this year to a range of gaming operators, including numerous sweepstakes casinos and social gaming sites. Amid that crackdown, several major sweeps companies like McLuck, Legendz, Modo and VGW subsequently shut down dual-currency play in the state.
One of the chief arguments from states in enforcement action such as subpoenas or cease-and-desist letters is that unlicensed gaming operators skirt state laws and avoid contributing to state coffers by paying taxes.
The West Virginia Lottery dedicates tax revenues from legal online gambling to several initiatives such as promoting tourism, supporting education, environmental conservation and other state services. The bills do not specify particular motivations for raising the tax rates, or whether there would be any changes to how the resultant revenue is apportioned.
Tax changes across US gambling
Burkhammer’s legislation is one of the first proposals to raise online gaming taxes in 2026, after a year of several changes across the country in 2025.
As well as New Jersey, which raised both online sports betting and online casino taxes to 19.75%, Maryland, Louisiana and Illinois all increased their sports betting rates. Most notably, Illinois added a per-wager tax charge for every individual sports bet, on top of the change to a progressive revenue taxation that nearly tripled the maximum rate that online sportsbooks could pay.
