Pennsylvania Bill (HB 2879) Could Heavily Curb Online Gambling

Following a landmark legislative report released this past summer, a group of Pennsylvania lawmakers is seeking to rein in online gambling. The bill is among the most robust ever filed in the U.S. to reform an existing state-sanctioned online gambling market.

Pennsylvania House Bill 2879, introduced October 21, 2026, by Rep. Tarik Khan, a Democrat, and nine co-sponsors, including one Republican, would establish sweeping public health and consumer protection requirements for licensed online sportsbooks and online casinos.

Some of the sponsors are in the informal Pennsylvania Problem Gambling Caucus, a group of policymakers pushing various proposals.

If it passes in its current form, HB 2879 would take effect 60 days after enactment, with longer implementation periods for the various provisions.

The 34-page bill proposes the following changes.

Deposit & Wagering Restrictions

• Limit deposits to two per day.
• Require an affordability check before depositing more than $5,000 in any 180 days.
• Impose a 15-minute waiting period between depositing and wagering, except for the first wager after account opening. Limit online casino wagers to $2 per play for gamblers aged 21-25 and $5 per play for those older.
• Impose mandatory gambling suspensions based on losses. For Ages 21-25, the threshold is $750 in 24 hours or $2,500 in 30 days. For ages 25 and over, it’s $1,500 in 24 hours or $5,000 over 30 days. Reaching the daily threshold would result in a 24-hour wagering suspension, and reaching the monthly threshold would result in a 30-day suspension.
• Require gamblers to set daily and monthly loss limits before their first bet, with any increase in those limits subject to a cooling-off period. Prohibit credit cards and government assistance cards of any kind from funding online gambling directly or indirectly. Allow only ACH debits, wire transfers of available funds, and physical checks.

Product Restrictions

• Ban microbetting, including live bets on individual plays or actions.
• Ban any proposition bets involving more than one outcome or occurrence in a single sporting event.
• Prohibit online casino games that resolve in under 15 seconds and auto-play features that automatically initiate a series of successive wagers.
• Set a default maximum of two hours of online gambling account usage per 24-hour period. Gamblers could select lower limits, with a 72-hour cooling-off period for any increases, and an automatic logout after 15 minutes of inactivity.

Advertising, Promotions, & VIPs

• Ban push notifications and text messages that attempt to get you to place bets or make deposits.
• Prohibit the use of AI, behavioral data, and predictive analytics to target gamblers with promotions based on actual or predicted losses, loss chasing, gambling intensity, vulnerability, or likelihood of responding to an incentive.
• Ban any VIP programs that assign personal hosts to gamblers or reward increased wagers, deposits, losses, gambling frequency, or time spent gambling.
• Limit bonus advertising to consenting registered players with a clear opt-in and opt-out mechanism, and do not describe any promotion as “free” or “risk-free”.
• Prohibit online gambling advertising between 8 am and 10 pm and during live sports casting.
• Restrict gambling advertising that features celebrities, influencers, and other imagery and messaging covered by the Bill.
• Prohibit gambling advertising directed at those under 21 or appearing in media whose primary audience is under 21.
• Restrict gambling advertising on campus and on university-controlled websites and platforms, with very limited exceptions.
• Ban affiliate marketing compensation tied to account registrations, betting volume, or wagering outcomes.

Transparency & Account Protections

• Require operators to send monthly gambling activity statements by email and first-class post. The statements would include deposits, wagers, winnings, losses, net results, time spent logged into gambling accounts, and any promotional credits.
• Require operators to maintain access to gamblers’ full lifetime wagering histories, including after self-exclusion or account closure.
• Display account balances and gambling wins and losses while the player is logged in, and show the length of the gambling session in 20-minute blocks.
• Require public health warnings before account creation, before login, and periodically during gambling. Require biometric authentication (facial recognition or fingerprints) at account creation, on every login, before placing any sports wager over $500, and at set intervals during a gambling session.
• Restrict gamblers to one active device at a time and no more than two devices per account.

Research, Treatment & Oversight

• Impose a 0.75% assessment on gross online casino and online sports betting revenue to fund gambling-related education, prevention, treatment, and research.
• Set up a restricted account within the Pennsylvania Compulsive and Problem Gambling Treatment Fund, ensure gambling operators and the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board have no control over how this new funding is spent, and authorize the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs to make the allocations.
• Establish an Online Problem Gambling Public Health Task Force to assess the harms of gambling and recommend public health policies. Require operators to use department-approved independent monitoring technology to identify gamblers at risk of addiction and to enable the delivery of prevention and treatment interventions.
• Require gambling operators to provide anonymized, transaction-level player data to approved researchers on request, at least quarterly, subject to research approval and appropriate privacy protections, and authorize enforcement through the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board enforcement offices and the State’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.

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