A visitor standing under the Old Post Office tower is within a few minutes of the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court. What they will not find within the District's borders is a casino. Gambling in Washington has followed its own, rather unusual path.
A city without a casino
The District of Columbia has never licensed a commercial casino. Congress, which has final authority over the city's laws, has historically been wary of anything that might make the capital look like a resort town, and local politics have never produced a strong push for a casino. In the nineteenth century there were illegal gambling rooms along Pennsylvania Avenue, but nothing licensed has replaced them.
The DC Lottery
District voters approved a lottery in a 1980 ballot initiative, and the DC Lottery began selling tickets in 1982. It sells draw games, scratch tickets and multistate games such as Powerball and Mega Millions, with proceeds going to the District's general fund. Washington has a long history with lotteries, going back to the scheme of 1793 that built the city's first post office building, told in the lotteries that built Washington.
Sports betting since 2020
After the Supreme Court struck down the federal sports betting ban in 2018, the DC Council passed the Sports Wagering Lottery Amendment Act of 2018. Legal betting began in 2020.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2018 | Council passes the Sports Wagering Lottery Amendment Act |
| 2020 | The lottery's own app, GambetDC, launches in May; a William Hill sportsbook, later Caesars, opens at Capital One Arena |
| 2021–2022 | More retail sportsbooks open at sports venues, including BetMGM at Nationals Park and FanDuel at Audi Field, each allowed to take mobile bets nearby |
| 2024 | FanDuel replaces GambetDC as the citywide lottery-run app; budget changes let venue operators expand mobile betting across most of the District |
The result is one of the more complicated sports betting maps in the country, with rules that have changed several times. The District's Office of Lottery and Gaming publishes the current list of licensed operators.
MGM National Harbor
The nearest casino to the Old Post Office is across the Potomac and the Maryland line. MGM National Harbor opened in December 2016 at National Harbor in Prince George's County, roughly ten miles south of downtown, and quickly became one of the highest-grossing casinos in the region. It offers slots, table games, a poker room, a sportsbook, a hotel and a concert venue.
Other options in the region
- Maryland: six casinos, including Live! Casino & Hotel at Arundel Mills near BWI airport and Horseshoe Casino Baltimore. Maryland has allowed sports betting since late 2021 and mobile betting since late 2022.
- Virginia: legalised casinos in 2020 for a handful of cities, none of them in Northern Virginia, and has had mobile sports betting since 2021.
- West Virginia: Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, about seventy miles from downtown Washington.
Why it matters to the Old Post Office story
The building's two hotel operators never had the option of a casino floor. Their Atlantic City counterparts did, which is part of why the Old Post Office was such a different kind of project from Trump's Boardwalk casinos. If you want both experiences in one trip, follow our history-and-casino weekend.