Credit cards stop working at Virginia’s licensed online sportsbooks on July 1, 2026. House Bill 515, signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger on April 13, 2026, strips the Virginia Lottery’s authority to approve credit cards as a deposit method for sports betting accounts. The bill is now codified as Chapter 926 of the 2026 Acts of Assembly.
- Virginia joins a wave of states banning credit-card betting deposits, with Maine signing its own ban in April and Colorado’s sitting on the governor’s desk
- Credit cards stop funding Virginia’s licensed sportsbooks on July 1 under HB 515, which Gov. Spanberger signed after near-unanimous votes in both chambers
- A Senate amendment forces operators to block credit-card workarounds, not just reject direct card charges, putting the compliance burden on the books
- The sponsor argued credit hides a loss until the statement arrives, while debit, ACH, e-wallets and prepaid cards all stay allowed
Virginia bettors who currently fund their FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars, Hard Rock Bet, Fanatics, or BetRivers accounts with a Visa or Mastercard need to switch payment methods before the deadline. Debit cards, bank transfers, ACH, e-wallets, and prepaid card products will remain permitted under the new law. Withdrawals to credit cards, which most sportsbooks had already discontinued voluntarily, are also explicitly barred.
The bill moved through the Virginia General Assembly with almost no opposition. Del. Marty Martinez, a Democrat from Loudoun County, filed HB 515 on Jan. 14, 2026. The legislative track over the next three months:
- Jan. 20: House Gaming subcommittee, 9-0 in favor
- Jan. 22: House General Laws committee, 21-0 in favor
- Jan. 28: Full House passage, 94-3
- March 4: Senate passage with one amendment, 40-0
- March 6: House concurrence with the Senate amendment, 93-4
- April 13: Spanberger signs into law
The Senate amendment, added by the Senate General Laws and Technology Committee, requires licensed sportsbooks to take “reasonable measures” to prevent credit cards from funding accounts rather than simply rejecting direct card transactions. The phrase puts the compliance burden on operators to identify and block workarounds, including the use of bank cards that may process as credit transactions through third-party wallets or prepaid intermediaries.
Martinez told the House Gaming subcommittee in late January that credit cards strip away a natural financial safeguard, since the loss does not register against the bettor’s bank balance until the statement closes. He argued that cash and debit transactions produce immediate financial consequences while credit transactions postpone them, often by weeks. The bill text itself contains no preamble explaining the legislature’s rationale; the policy argument has been made entirely through floor speeches, committee testimony, and the public record around its passage.
Virginia’s state lottery already prohibits credit card use for lottery ticket purchases. HB 515 extends the same principle to the online sports betting market the state authorized in 2020 under Senate Bill 384. The Virginia Lottery Board, which oversees licensed sportsbook operators, will need to issue implementing regulations or guidance for the July 1 effective date. The agency has not yet publicly issued draft rules.
Most of Virginia’s licensed sportsbook operators have already removed credit cards from their payment options at the national level. FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars, bet365, and Fanatics moved away from credit card deposits between 2023 and 2025 in response to similar state-level restrictions in Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Vermont, plus partial restrictions in Connecticut. The Virginia change will primarily affect smaller operators and the handful of larger ones that had retained limited credit card processing in select states.
For Virginia bettors who currently rely on credit cards, the practical alternatives starting July 1:
- Debit cards (Visa and Mastercard debit run on the same rails but are not banned)
- Bank ACH transfers (slower, no fees at most sportsbooks)
- PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App (available at most state-licensed apps)
- Prepaid Visa or Mastercard products (function like debit at the cashier)
- Cash deposits at retail sportsbook locations (Hard Rock Bristol and other partner properties)
The federal context for the Virginia move is the SAFE Bet Act, the Tonko-Blumenthal proposal in the 119th Congress that would impose national affordability and deposit-limit standards on sports betting. That bill has not advanced out of subcommittee. State-by-state credit card bans have moved faster than the federal framework, with Maine becoming the most recent state before Virginia to enact a ban (LD 2007, signed in April 2026, also covering sweepstakes casinos). Colorado is the next state on the calendar; SB 131 sits on Gov. Jared Polis’s desk awaiting signature or veto, with a credit card ban as one of its provisions.
The Virginia online sportsbook market is now in its sixth year of operation. The state authorized mobile sports betting under Senate Bill 384 in April 2020 and launched in January 2021. Through February 2026, Virginians wagered $574.6 million in a single month, with the state collecting just over $8 million in tax revenue. The HB 515 fiscal note projected the credit card ban would have no material impact on state tax revenue, since most card deposits were already being processed as debit transactions or through alternative methods.
Several Virginia sportsbook operators have begun internal communications to customers about the July 1 change. The Virginia Lottery’s Office of Charitable and Regulatory Programs is expected to publish official guidance for licensees in mid-June. Bettors who hold accounts at multiple Virginia sportsbooks should expect cashier-level changes to roll out at slightly different times depending on each operator’s compliance schedule, but the legal deadline applies across the market on the same day.
For bettors looking for sportsbooks that still accept credit cards after July 1, the offshore alternatives reviewed at Credit Card Sportsbooks remain available regardless of state-level restrictions on the licensed Virginia operators, since offshore books are not bound by Virginia law.