Short Summary: Idaho is a fairly restrictive state in of gaming laws. There are no commercial casinos here, and although live and broadcast horse racing are allowed, these tracks are rarely profitable. In 2021, a bill was ed forcing horse race betting operators to give a percentage of their earnings to horse breeders. The state has lottery tickets and several tribal casinos. They may have gaming machines and bingo, but no table games.
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Idaho, sometimes known by the nickname of the “Gem State,” became the 43rd state itted into the Union when it was officially recognized in 1890. Famous for its mountainous regions and vast crops of potatoes, the state has never been synonymous with either sports or gambling. In fact, it wasn’t until 1992 that significant legislation was ed regarding the latter.
While Idaho doesn’t have licensed and regulated casinos, sports betting or online gambling, there are a few types of gambling available:
The first thing to look at is pari-mutuel gambling, which is in the form of live racing of horses. Fortunately, greyhound racing is banned in the state. The problem in Idaho is that they do not have simulcast wagering year round because it is not sufficiently profitable, so the only wagering that can presently take place is on live races as they are being conducted in the state. For this reason, it should come as no surprise that the racetracks are not doing terribly well and only operate a few days out of the year.
There was a ballot initiative titled the “Save Horse Racing in Idaho Act”, also knowns as the “Historical Horse Racing” proposition, which should have allowed a limited number of Idaho racetracks to operate historical racing gaming terminals.
If it had been ed, the bettors would have been able to place wagers on a pari-mutuel basis on video devices on horse races that have already happened. However, voters failed to the initiative during the General Election held on November 6, 2018.
Charitable Gaming is regulated by the Idaho Lottery and is incredibly generous when it comes to their non-profits. Essentially, there is a first-year application fee of $100 for licensing along with a fee ranging from $100-$300 every year thereafter depending on the amount of gaming revenues the charity managed to pull in. Other than the licensing fees, there appears to be no direct tax on revenues whatsoever, which makes Idaho one of the easiest states to get along with if you are a non-profit looking to run Charitable Gaming.
One thing that is perhaps incongruous is that there are permitted to be bigger Bingo prizes than Raffle prizes, that by itself wouldn’t be so odd but for the fact that there may only be up to twelve raffle events per year. Most states do not regulate raffles such as, “Quarter Raffles,” or, “50/50 Raffles,” at all, so it is odd that Idaho should be so strict when it comes to those.
The Tribal Casinos are regulated by compact, but it seems that the State of Idaho basically just leaves them alone. In of lottery, the Idaho Lottery brings in less per resident than most others, but that probably has a lot to do with the population density of the state. Most of the residents are fairly spread out, so they may simply not make trips to lottery retailers on a consistent basis. The state does participate in multi-state lotteries such as Powerball and Mega Millions, so that is certainly not the problem.
The thing about Idaho is that they would really just prefer not to be bothered with gambling on the level of law enforcement.
18-3802. GAMBLING PROHIBITED.
(1) A person is guilty of gambling if he:
Participates in gambling; or
Knowingly permits any gambling to be played, conducted or dealt upon or in any real or personal property owned, rented, or under the control of the actor, whether in whole or in part.
(2) Gambling is a misdemeanor.
Misdemeanors may be punished with up to six months in jail or a fine of up to $1,000, or both.
In addition to the fact that no arrest for the mere act of gambling online as a player has occurred in Idaho, it actually seems as though law enforcement is not interested in enforcing the state’s anti-gambling regulations at all.
Law enforcement basically said the fact that there were complaints about the conduct of unlawful gambling gave the police no other alternative but to look into it, and under normal circumstances, it is not something that would concern them at all. They went on to say that they are fully aware that unlawful gambling takes place all over the state, but they just do not consider it to be a high-priority issue. Even the Assistant City Attorney (i.e. prosecutor) said he’d really have no interest in going after those people had it not been for the complaints giving police no other choice.
And, the police let them off with a warning the first time!
In general, it seems that Idaho is more laissez-faire when it comes to gambling than anything else. Aside from their lottery and handling charitable gambling, the state would just prefer to let people do whatever they want to do. For that reason, we think it’s pretty safe to say that online players shouldn’t have much to worry about when it comes to law enforcement.
We have not found any instance of anyone ever being arrested within the state for online gambling from his or her own home and we fully expect that this will never happen.
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The majority of land casinos in Idaho bill themselves as, “Casinos,” but are what would be considered, “Video Poker Bars,” in Nevada or, “Slot Parlors,” in states such as West Virginia. The vast majority of them are not so much casinos as they are places that are mainly sports bars that also happen to have a handful of machines.
With that, there are a few locations large enough in the State of Idaho to qualify as bona fide casinos, so we will go ahead and list those. As with the video poker bars, all of these casinos are going to be Tribally owned because they would be completely illegal under the state’s laws off of tribal land.
This casino is owned by the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and is located in Fort Hall, Idaho. It features bingo, a hotel and has a few hundred machines also including a room for high limit slots.
Fully titled the Clearwater River Casino and Lodge and located in Lewiston, Idaho, this property boasts over 600 machines, fifty guest rooms and an 11,000 square foot event center. There’s a sports bar with darts and billiards as well as amenities (including a pool and hot tub) that mostly seem to be themed in the history of the Nez Perce Tribe, so if nothing else, that would be interesting.
Located in Worley, Idaho, this establishment is owned and operated by the Coeur d’Alene People, which really sounds more French than it does Native American. In any case, this hotel is rather large coming in at over 300 rooms and there are a not unimpressive number of eateries at this property.
This is an ideal place for weddings and conferences as it features a full-service spa as well as a golf course that is attached to the overall property.
The casino consists of over 1,400 machines as well as live bingo and keno. This is also one of the few locations in the entire state in which you will find live off-track betting year round. The casino makes it a point to make it known that they have electronic blackjack and the reason for that is that one of the few restrictions the State of Idaho hands down to the Indian casinos is that they are not permitted to have live table games of any kind whatsoever.
There is also a boutique, liquor store, cigar store and gift shop. Surrounded by a beautiful outdoor environment, it really is worth looking into as an excellent escape for a wedding, especially if you’re close enough that travel costs wouldn’t be too bad.
It should come as no surprise that this casino is also owned and operated by the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and it is located in Pocatello, Idaho. This cozy casino features a hotel as well as a 15,000 square foot event center, so it might serve as a nice retreat for a corporate gathering. That is especially true if you are looking to enjoy a relaxing outdoors scene during your conference or event. This place features fewer than 100 slot machines, but we are going to go ahead and list it here because it has live bingo.
The Buffalo Horn Grill offers breakfast, lunch and dinner and there is also an RV Park.
It’s got 110 machines, a cafe’ and Bingo. It is owned and operated by the Nez Perce Tribe.
Best Western Plus Kootenai River Inn Casino and Spa
Located in Bonners Ferry, Idaho and operated by the Kootenai Tribe who seem to have become a franchisee of Best Western, this casino features 445 gaming machines as well as a bingo room. Aside from that, they apparently have a full day spa and a gaming arcade.
This is basically just a travel center with 100 machines.
Pari-mutuel betting allows customers to place their wager in pools, and winnings are then paid back to those who made successful picks. With the exception of a small percentage being taken by the host, almost all money is returned to the bettors. This form of wagering is common among dog and horse racing, although only the latter is considered legal in the state of Idaho.
The following locations offer legal gambling on horseracing within the state of Idaho. Some also offer slot machines and historic horse racing machines.
Throughout the United States, various regulations and restrictions exist when it comes to a private citizen owning slot machines. Some states allow their residents to legally own any machine they can get their hands on, while others prohibit any form of ownership.
In Idaho, ID Code 18-3810 states that legal residents can own any slot machine manufactured before 1950. This limits collectors and slots enthusiasts to the old-school “one-armed bandits” with physical reels, while casinos are free to offer any form of electronic slot without worrying about competition. It should be noted, however, that the law limits collectors to displaying their antique slots, and any operation of these games is considered illegal.
In 1988, Idaho residents approved a state lottery via a constitutional amendment vote, and the first drawing took place 200 days later. Lottery drawings are held every night of the week, and the minimum age to play is 18.
The government of Idaho is a member of the Multi-State Lottery Association, and this affiliation allows them to take part in a number of multi-state drawings for bigger payouts. Some of the more popular examples include the following: Hot Lotto, Mega Millions, Wild Card 2, Powerball, and Lucky for Life.
In addition to the above games, Idaho also offers Bingo, Pick 3, and Weekly Grand on a state level. The latter costs $2 per entry, is drawn twice a week, and offers a top prize of $1,000 tax-free per week for a year.
The income from the lottery is dispersed in the following manner:
During the 2024 legislative session, Governor Little’s plan for historic school investment and property tax relief for Idaho’s citizens was ed, ensuring an additional $1.5 billion in state funding to schools over the next decade. Although so far this represents the largest single investment in school facilities in Idaho history, some school districts are struggling to cover routine maintenance costs.
What we have found for the State of Idaho is that it is slightly below average when it comes to the average loss to the lottery on a per resident basis. Our assumption for that is that the state is not densely populated, so many residents will not be terribly convenient to a lottery retailer.
In addition to being sparsely populated, the state is home to a few Tribal Casinos, so as a result, residents do have other gambling options. A few residents might choose to gamble online, though the state does not license and regulate any online casinos at this time. That said, we don’t expect that anyone would get in any real trouble for gambling at online casinos that are based overseas.
Highlights from the Fiscal Year 2019 Lottery Report for the state:
Total prizes for drawing tickets, which include Raffle Prizes, were $34,283,682, which results in a return to player of 50.62% for all drawing type games.
Instant tickets returned prizes of $119,504,580, which reflects a return to player of 70.11% on those. Pull Tab prizes were $1,364,151, which represents a return to player of 70.15%, which is right in line with the returns from Instant Tickets proper. Finally, TouchTab Ticket prizes were good for $37,447,814, which resulted in a return-to-player of 80.18%.
For the purposes of our table below, all of these types of lottery sales will count towards Instant Tickets, as they are the closest in comparison, so we see overall prizes of $158,316,545 against total sales of $219,113,225 for a final return to player on Instant type tickets of 72.25%.
In total, $95,312,709 was lost by players to the Idaho State Lottery for Fiscal Year 2019, based on population estimates of 1.787M for the relevant year, the loss per resident to the Idaho State Lottery was about $53.34/resident.
Basically, Instant Tickets and Drawing Tickets had about an average return to player when compared to those game types in other states. Pull Tab prizes had returns similar to those of Instant Tickets, which is honestly not much of a surprise, because that usually tends to be the case when a lottery department offers both types of games. That said, Pull Tabs are usually left for Charitable Gaming operations in states that have a lottery and in which Pull Tabs are even legal to begin with—so there aren’t many other cases for comparative purposes.
TouchTab Tickets are fairly unique to Idaho and offered the best returns at a hair over 80% return to player. It appears that they were slightly more popular than Drawing Games for Fiscal Year 2019, but were not nearly as popular as Instant Games.
Of course, unsavvy players not playing the best returning games is nothing new and people who tend to play the lottery a good bit don’t tend to be the savviest gamblers. We also see this in Land Casinos where penny slot machines are, by far, the most popular choice even though there is frequently no shortage of Table Games and Video Poker games that return in excess of 98% to players.
We find that 2020 was a much worse year for the lottery than was 2019, with Scratch Tickets being the only form of lottery that showed sales gains. TouchTabs were down, Pull Tabs were down and all Drawing type games were down. Idaho did not seem to be one of the more aggressive states when it comes to Covid-19 shutdowns, so perhaps these types of lottery games are just losing popularity in the state, although, it should be mentioned that Powerball and Mega Millions did not have jackpots quite so massive as they had in previous years.
In addition to the daily lottery drawings, the state also makes scratch games and pull tabs available through hundreds of licensed vendors. Each year, 50 different scratch card games are issued to the public, with prices ranging from $1 to $20 per card. PullTabs are more often found in establishments such as bars and restaurants, and the cost of playing typically runs from $0.25 to $1.
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Idaho maintains a restrictive stance on gambling, ing limited forms of gambling such as charitable gaming, a state lottery, and pari-mutuel betting on horse racing. The absence of table games further emphasizes the state’s conservative approach.
While tribal casinos operate under their own regulations, they are largely the only venues providing a wider range of gaming options, including video machines and bingo. However, these facilities are still bound by state laws that restrict live table games. Despite lower participation rates likely due to its sparse population distribution, the state lottery continues to provide a steady revenue stream for public education.
Online gambling remains unregulated, yet Idaho law enforcement appears to adopt a hands-off approach towards individuals participating in online gaming on offshore platforms.
Overall, Idaho’s gaming landscape is characterized by a blend of traditional and limited gambling options, a commitment to charitable initiatives, and a cautious attitude toward broader gambling activities.
