Utah Sports Betting: Legal UT Sportsbooks & Legislation Updates
Sports betting is not legal in Utah. In fact, Utah is also one of only five states in the US without a state lottery. Most forms of gambling allowed elsewhere are not available in Utah, which means any form of regulated sports betting is unlikely to come to Utah anytime soon.
Read below for more information on Utah sports betting.
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When will online sports betting launch in Utah?
According to the state’s criminal code, the answer may be never.
Utah is so opposed to gambling that the code actually goes out of its way to say online gambling will stay illegal even if it is legalized at the federal level.
From Chapter 10, part 11 of the state’s criminal code titled Offenses Against Public Health, Safety, Welfare, and Morals concerning gambling:
If any federal law authorizes Internet gambling in the states and that federal law provides that individual states may opt out of Internet gambling, this state shall opt out of Internet gambling in the manner provided by federal law and within the time frame provided by that law.
Legal betting options in Utah
You’d better head to any of Utah’s six border states to experience anything resembling legal gambling or online sports betting promotions. In 2020, the state banned the closest thing to gambling in the state: machines that sold gift cards that allowed the buyer to use that gift card to enter a sweepstakes. More recently, the state’s lawmakers have taken aim at prediction markets as well (see the timeline below).
That doesn’t mean gambling in Utah is impossible. There are several offshore operators that have unlicensed gambling and sports betting websites that will accept bets from anywhere in the United States. However, those platforms are dangerous because consumers are left without any protection.
That means if the operation chooses not to pay out a bet or close the operation without returning a customer’s account balance, that customer has no legal recourse to recover their money. We don’t recommend gambling on unregulated, unlicensed real-money sites.
Utah social sportsbooks
Surprisingly, Utah does not specifically outlaw daily fantasy sports or social sportsbooks. Utah’s laws specifically define gambling as:
“risking anything of value for a return or risking anything of value upon the outcome of a contest, game, gaming scheme, or gaming device when the return or outcome … is based on an element of chance.”
This definition of gambling in the state has meant that some operators in the industry, including Fliff, PrizePicks, Underdog, Betr Picks, DraftKings, and FanDuel, have continued to accept tournament and contest entries from within Utah’s borders. That said, the status of these sites may now be challenged by HB243 (discussed below), but for now, they continue to serve Utah.
In other words, while sports betting is and will likely remain off the table, there are still some choices for sports entertainment in Utah. Read below to find out more about social sportsbooks available now in Utah:
Fliff Utah
As a social sports offering a free-to-play experience, Fliff is available in Utah. Users will find the Fliff interface looks exactly like that of a traditional online sportsbook, but users are not required to deposit any money to play.
Offered exclusively on mobile devices — either iOS or Android — Fliff allows users to make picks on all major sporting events and compete with friends. Users can “follow” friends in the app, as they would on a social network, to track what they pick. The more correct predictions you make, the more “Fliff Coins” you can earn. Fliff Coins have no cash value.
The app also allows users to deposit money and compete against each other while accruing “Fliff Cash,” which they can redeem for real money.
Rebet Utah
Similar to Fliff, Rebet social sportsbook allows users to place wagers using two virtual currencies — in this case, “Rebet Coins” and “Rebet Cash.” The second of those options allows customers to redeem winnings for actual money at a rate of 1:1. The app — initially available only to iOS users — also allows customers to place peer-to-peer bets versus their friends and also to track their friends’ wagers and, if they see one they like, to “rebet” it with the click of a button.
Most popular sports to bet on in Utah
From a betting perspective, the top two Utah teams are likely in one sport: football.
The University of Utah Utes and Brigham Young University Cougars create the two most popular college football teams in the state. They would likely receive the largest handle if betting were legal and bettors could bet on in-state college teams. BYU‘s men’s basketball team also tends to make the NCAA‘s March Madness basketball tournament interesting every few years.
Utah is also home to the Utah Jazz of the NBA, which has been a staple in the league ever since John Stockton and Karl Malone were one of the best duos never to win a championship.
The Jazz aren’t the only professional team in Utah, either. Major League Soccer‘s Real Salt Lake has been a regular in the postseason for the past decade and even won the MLS Cup in 2009.
Is horse racing legal in Utah?
Utah actually does have legal horse racing. But betting on those, or any simulcast races, is prohibited. No advance-deposit wagering websites, such as FanDuel Racing or TwinSpires, operate in the state either.
Utah sports betting timeline
2026: Rep. Joseph Elison‘s HB243 banned proposition betting statewide, defining it as a wager on “an individual action, statistic, occurrence, or non-occurrence” rather than a game’s outcome, a move squarely aimed at prop-bet products and prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. The bill passed the House 63-9 and the Senate 25-0, Gov. Spencer Cox signed it in late March, and the law took effect May 6. Kalshi responded by suing Utah, arguing the CFTC has exclusive federal authority over its products, and a federal judge ruled against Kalshi on Aug. 4. Kalshi has said it will appeal.
2025: In November, A Morning Consult poll of 791 Utah adults found a generational split on sports betting. Only 2% of Baby Boomers saw it as good for society, versus about 10% of Gen Z and Millennials, though pluralities across age groups still landed on “neither good nor bad” rather than outright support. The poll underscored that Utah remains one of just two states that still ban all forms of gambling.
2024: Rep. Kera Birkeland proposed bringing a lottery to the state, with the profits going towards property taxes for seniors. Nothing came of the proposal, however.
2019: There was one attempt to legalize betting on horse races. Sen. David Haskins said betting on horse races could help Utah-based horse racing participants make money in the state rather than in its border states. But Haskins himself requested that the bill be sent back to the Rules Committee for its Senate, and it never progressed any further.
Utah sports betting FAQ
Is sports betting legal in Utah?
No, sports betting is not legal in Utah. It is unlikely to become legal in the future, either.
Where can I bet on sports in Utah?
There are no legal options for betting on sports in Utah. Anyone claiming to offer legal wagering is doing so illegally.
Can I bet on my phone in Utah?
No. Without any legislation legalizing sports betting, there can’t be mobile sports betting, either.
Offshore sportsbooks that are operating without a license will say they can accept bets from anywhere within the United States, including Utah. But without a license, local authorities are overseeing their activities, meaning bettors using those sites have no consumer protections.
Should an offshore sportsbook operation decide not to pay a winning bet or close the site and keep account balances, the bettor has no way to retrieve those funds.