Minnesota Betting

There is no legal sports betting in Minnesota, online or in person: sports bookmaking is a felony and placing a bet is a misdemeanour. Minnesota is nonetheless one of the few prohibition states with a purpose-built statute for licensed online betting on horse racing, so advance deposit wagering through a provider authorised by the Minnesota Racing Commission is lawful, with a minimum age of 18. The prohibition on sports betting is statutory and not constitutional, which means a bill alone could lift it.

The Criminal Baseline

Two sections do the work. Minn. Stat. §609.755 makes it a misdemeanour to make a bet, to permit premises under your control to be used as a gambling place, or to possess a gambling device except where a statute authorises it. Section 609.76, subd. 1 then grades operating conduct as a gross misdemeanour, punishable by up to 364 days or a fine of up to $3,000 — maintaining a gambling place, and receiving, recording or forwarding bets, are both on that list. Subdivision 2 then puts sports betting in a class of its own:

"Subd. 2. Sports bookmaking. Whoever engages in sports bookmaking is guilty of a felony." — Minn. Stat. §609.76

The threshold is defined rather than left to judgement. Section 609.75, subd. 7 provides that "Sports bookmaking is the activity of intentionally receiving, recording or forwarding within any 30-day period more than five bets, or offers to bet, that total more than $2,500 on any one or more sporting events."

The same section then lists, exhaustively, what is not a bet in Minnesota:

"Subd. 3. What are not bets. The following are not bets: (1) a contract to insure, indemnify, guarantee or otherwise compensate another for a harm or loss sustained, even though the loss depends upon chance; (2) a contract for the purchase or sale at a future date of securities or other commodities; (3) offers of purses, prizes or premiums to the actual contestants in any bona fide contest…; (4) the game of bingo when conducted in compliance with sections 349.11 to 349.23; (5) a private social bet not part of or incidental to organized, commercialized, or systematic gambling; (6) the operation of equipment or the conduct of a raffle under sections 349.11 to 349.22…; (7) pari-mutuel betting on horse racing when the betting is conducted under chapter 240; and (8) the purchase and sale of State Lottery tickets under chapter 349A." — Minn. Stat. §609.75

That list is the complete map of lawful gambling in Minnesota as the criminal code sees it: charitable gaming, private social bets, pari-mutuel horse racing and the state lottery. Sports betting is not on it. Item (2), the futures and commodities carve-out, is the hook prediction markets argue from — which becomes important further down this page.

Online Horse Race Betting

Minnesota legislated for this deliberately in 2016 and has amended it as recently as the 2025 session:

"Subdivision 1. Advance deposit wagering authorized. Advance deposit wagering is authorized pari-mutuel betting on horse racing under this chapter if conducted in compliance with this section and the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978… Subd. 2. Prohibited acts. It is unlawful for any person to accept an advance deposit wager from a Minnesota resident unless the person is an authorized advance deposit wagering provider as defined in section 240.01, subdivision 1d, and conducts advance deposit wagering under the terms of a contract that meets the requirements in subdivision 3 and other requirements of this chapter." — Minn. Stat. §240.131

An authorised provider is defined at §240.01, subd. 1d as the holder of a class C licence as a racing or gaming-related vendor that has entered into a commission-approved contract with a class A or class B licensee. The plan of operation must set out "methods to verify the identity of account holders and ensure that all account holders are natural persons who are at least 18 years of age", and the state takes a regulatory fee of two per cent of amounts wagered by Minnesota residents plus a breeders fund fee of a quarter of one per cent. The Minnesota Racing Commission is the licensing body, established by §240.02. It does not publish a provider roster that could be read for this page, so none is named here.

On-track wagering runs on class B and class D licences under §240.13, and simulcasting is conditional on live racing actually happening: the commission may not authorise it for a class B licensee "unless 125 days of live racing, consisting of not less than eight live races on each racing day, have been conducted at the class A facility within the preceding 12 months". The same chapter requires a licensee to post the state compulsive-gambling number at every point of sale, and subdivision 8 sets the age: "A licensee may not accept a bet or a pari-mutuel ticket for payment from any person under the age of 18 years." The lottery age is 18 as well, under §349A.12. Tribal class III gaming is compacted under §3.9221, which directs the Governor to "negotiate in good faith a tribal-state compact" with any tribe requesting negotiations.

What Is Pending

SF 757 of the 94th Legislature is the vehicle, and its action list is four lines long: introduced and read on 30 January 2025, referred to State and Local Government the same day, and two changes of authorship that March. No hearing, no committee report, nothing in 2026. The sticking point is in the bill text itself — the commissioner "shall only issue a mobile sports betting operator license to an Indian Tribe that lawfully conducts class III gaming in a casino located in this state", capped at eleven licences with one per tribe, and a fantasy operator "must contract with an Indian Tribe to obtain licensure". The bill would have set the wagering age at 21.

For the record, the Minnesota bill often cited as the current one is not. SF 1949 in the 2025–26 biennium is a Brooklyn Park water-storage bond measure. The sports-betting SF 1949 was a 2023–24 bill that cleared six committee referrals and reached a sixth engrossment without ever getting a floor vote, and died with that biennium.

Prediction Markets

Minnesota is the unusual case: its gambling laws are currently not being enforced against prediction markets, because a federal court has ordered that they not be. On 27 July 2026 Judge Katherine M. Menendez of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota granted preliminary injunctions in three related cases — KalshiEX LLC v. Ellison, 0:26-cv-02778; the United States and the CFTC against the State of Minnesota, 0:26-cv-02661; and QCX LLC v. Ellison, 0:26-cv-02841. The docket records an order "granting (24) Motion for Preliminary Injunction… granting (21) Motion for Preliminary Injunction… granting (19) Motion for Preliminary Injunction", signed that day, and a later filing in the same set describes the effect: the order "enjoins Minnesota from enforcing" its laws against the platforms.

Note the posture. The platforms and the federal government sued the state, naming the Governor and the Attorney General among the defendants, which implies Minnesota moved against them first — but no Minnesota cease-and-desist letter or advisory could be sourced, so that first step is not asserted here. The statute says one thing and the operative court order says another, which is exactly what the grey-market label describes.

Responsible Gambling

Minnesota has a statutory programme, which most prohibition states do not. Minn. Stat. §245.98 directs the commissioner of human services to "establish a program for the treatment of compulsive gamblers", a programme that "may include the establishment of a statewide toll-free number, resource library, public education programs". The number published by the Minnesota State Lottery is 1-800-333-HOPE (4673), with text HOPE to 53342; callers from outside the state are directed to 1-800-MY-RESET.