Tennessee Gambling: Top Sites, Legal Status and Nearest Casinos

Tennessee is not a gambling-friendly state. You can see the evidence of that in the gambling stats box below. Usually, you’ll see all sorts of interesting information about a state’s gaming industry in this box. That’s not the case with Tennessee, since most forms of gambling are either illegal or so regulated as to be not very popular. Still, before we dig into Tennessee gambling laws with more specificity, and talk about the statutes that outline the legal betting business in the state, we wanted to share this information to give you some context about what you’re reading.

So what forms of gambling are legal in Tennessee? Below, you’ll find all the data you need to assess the legal gambling business in the state, and to make an intelligent decision about gambling within Tennessee’s borders. Take note, we don’t want this to misunderstood as some form of legal advice or representation. We aren’t lawyers. We’re gamblers who’re obsessed with gaming law offering an opinion based on our reading of the statutes. If you have a legitimate concern about gaming in the state of Tennessee, consult a lawyer familiar with this market.

The biggest thing going in Tennessee gambling is the state lottery. Tennessee voters approved the state-wide lottery in 2002 – games opened for play in 2004. You can play six different lottery draw games and buy hundreds of different scratch card tickets at thousands of retail shops and kiosks across the state. The lottery hasn’t taken off as much as some politicians expected – average payouts for the state’s top game hover around $1 million. Participation rates in state lottery games are among the lowest in the nation.

The Tennessee Liquor Control board licenses a number of venues that provide horse race betting. The state recently allowed interstate simulcast wagering, and OTB wagers are also legal. Total revenue from all horse race bets in the state has never broken the $10 million mark, and attendance at the tracks has been down since the early 1990s.

About that limited list of available charity gaming options – charity raffles and raffle-style games are considered legal by exception. Groups recognized by the state of Tennessee (non-profits supporting a political, religious, or civil cause) can run certain types of raffle games as long as their proceeds go 100% to a fundraising effort for that group. This law is strict in American terms, not allowing charitable groups to run bingo games, casino night events, poker tournaments, or any other form of game besides a raffle. Charitable groups can’t even run whatever raffle they want, since Tennessee law bans “50/50” raffles, citing the fact that these events don’t directly benefit the charity groups 100%.

In Tennessee Code 4-36-101, the state defines the word “gambling” as

This is a tidy little definition that bans a number of games and allows the state to regulate others. Unlike other American states, Tennessee doesn’t need 400 words to define a simple term, and we respect them for that.

We found a few other interesting tidbits about Tennessee gaming law that we think are relevant:

According to the Tennessee criminal code, gambling is illegal whether or not skill is involved in the outcome. This is different from most American states, where exceptions are made for skill-based games. To quote Section 39-17:

Online poker players often argue that they’re playing a skill game and are therefore not bound by existing anti-gambling laws – that argument wouldn’t work in the Volunteer State.

A first offense of illegal gambling will lead to the lowest-level misdemeanor available under state law. This is similar to a ticket for jaywalking. The fine is “no more than $50.” A second offense is an identical charge. It’s only at the third and any consecutive charges that the fine escalates, but as far as we can tell, no felonies are associated with illegal gambling charges at all. If you read the fine print here, you’ll find a weird clause indicating that you’re not guilty of illegal gambling if you weren’t “knowingly gambling illegally.” That seems to imply that you may not be charged with a crime if it can be proved that you didn’t know you were breaking the law.

Tennessee has strict laws about possessing gambling devices

Look at he definition of the phrase “gambling device” in Section 39-17:

We haven’t seen a more strict definition in any other state law. Ostensibly, this law could turn the table where you play poker into a gambling device. A card shuffling machine may be treated the same as a slot machine.

We’ve scoured the state law books of every part of America, and this is the first time we’ve seen a state impose a penalty for the operation of “chain letters and pyramid letters.” This practice is out of fashion in the days of email and texting, but at one time these letters were fairly common. We assume that Tennessee banned the practice because lots of people were sending these letters out, but we couldn’t find any evidence to back up that theory.

Because Tennessee law makes no exception for social gambling, we have to assume that office Super Bowl pools, private poker games, and any other form of wagering that takes place in a social setting is illegal. As for the state’s ability to police these games – we have doubts. The only gambling-related arrests we could find in the state’s history had to do with the illegal operation of gambling rings and large-scale online poker and casino game scams. It doesn’t look like the state of Tennessee is all that interested in arresting individual gamblers.

Online gambling is not explicitly illegal in Tennessee. We don’t think that means that it is legal. In fact, based on a strict reading of Tennessee law, we think it’s possible that online gamblers are breaking the law every time they place an online wager.

But remember – we aren’t lawyers. Are you looking for actual legal advice on the subject of gambling legislation in Tennessee? Please talk to a TN-based lawyer familiar with gaming regulations. Still, we’ve read a ton of state law on the subject, and we think the interpretation below is at least in the spirit of the state code.

Since gambling in the state is defined as “wagering anything of value for a profit,” unless that wager is on a form of gambling recognized by the state, the argument could be made that online gambling is illegal gambling. If it were not illegal, the state would have made a specific exception for it, as the state has done with charity raffles and the lottery.

But we found a unique piece of legislation in Tennessee law that could help a person escape a charge of illegal gambling. Near the end of the main section on gambling, lawmakers included an example of how a Tennessee citizen could argue against his conviction:

Obviously, you’d have to proof this was true with evidence, and you’d most likely have to do it in court, but it seems like it would work. A judge would have a hard time arguing with a defense you found in the state’s criminal code.

Tunica, Mississippi is the nearest casino town to most residents of Tennessee. Less than an hour from Memphis by car, and only about three hours from Nashville, Tunica is home to a number of gambling venues, from small OTB racinos to full-scale casino resort properties with table games and live shows. Here are three of Tunica’s best places to gamble:

Until Tennessee lawmakers move to rule on the specifics of Web-based betting, we don’t think people living in Tennessee have anything to fear when placing a Web-based bet. While a convoluted case could be made that existing gaming statutes cover online gambling, no Tennessee court has ever used the existing law to prosecute an online gambler, and we think it’s unlikely that they’ll suddenly start. Make sure you’re only doing business with an offshore operation, because any site operating from US soil is liable to be discovered and shut down, and you don’t want.

Recognized charity groups can hold one event per year – either a raffle, a reverse raffle, a cakewalk, or a cakewheel. These events have to be conducted in strict accordance with the procedures set forth by the Tennessee Charitable Gaming Implementation Law in 2010. The state still monitors these events carefully, in part because they’re a relative new addition to state law, and in part because of a general suspicion about betting on the part of the state authorities.

It’s no wonder we get lots of questions about the legality of carnival games in this state – almost every popular form of betting is illegal. People are paranoid, and they have every right to be. There is a specific carve-out in Tennessee law for these sorts of games, and to keep things simple, they haven’t many any consideration for skill or luck. Instead, the law says:

Go ahead and play carnival games all you want – so long as you’re actually at a carnival or other fair event, you’re not breaking the law, and neither is the game’s operator.

No – so long as you didn’t buy the ticket for the purpose of re-sale, and so long as you don’t re-sell the ticket, you can buy, possess, and play lottery games from any legal lottery state in the country while inside Tennessee’s borders. Just take note, no one under the age of 18 can play a lottery game in the state, regardless of the age requirement in the state of origin.