Arkansas Has a Long – or Is It Short? - Gambling History
On the one hand, Arkansas was a pioneer in U.S. gambling, with the state's first racetracks opening in the late 19th century.
But local cultural sentiment that viewed gambling as immoral led to the closing of all Arkansas racetracks in 1907, followed by decades of back-and-forth laws supporting or opposing horse racing.
Racing returned to the state for good in 1934, with the first Arkansas Derby - still one of the key thoroughbred racing tuneups for the Triple Crown-opening Kentucky Derby in May - taking place two years later at the Oaklawn Racetrack in Hot Springs.
But as much as a love for horse racing has been a core passion for many Arkansas residents for more than a century, other forms of gambling were a different story.
Sports wagers didn't start until 2019
Arkansas didn’t even have a lottery until 2008 – more than three decades later than many U.S. states – and it wasn't until 2005 that racetracks were permitted to install a handful of devices similar to slot machines. Even then, there were no full-scale casinos with table games in the state.
The landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2018 opened the door for any state to offer legal sports betting as previously had only been fully permitted in Nevada.
What made Arkansas unique was that the ruling led state legislators to authorize a referendum that November not only on sports betting, but also on approval of full-fledged casinos in the state. A majority of residents approved the ballot question, and Oaklawn took the state's first sports wager in 2019.
Three years later, the state's three casinos each launched their own mobile sports betting apps.
A new sports betting era looms in Arkansas in 2026
The unusual arrangement that the state had was that no national sportsbook operators were welcome – significantly limiting the amount of tax revenue that the state subsequently could collect.
That changed on Feb. 26, 2026, when the Arkansas Racing Commission unanimously approved mobile sportsbook licenses for two industry giants that will equally share revenue with their casino partners - Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort and Southland Casino Hotel in West Memphis.
The annual betting handle - the total amount of money wagered - in Arkansas has paled in comparison to most states. While a state-record $639.5 million was risked in 2025, there are four states that averaged over $1 billion wagered per each month in that same calendar year.
The smaller-sized sportsbook operators also have not aggressively promoted lucrative multi-leg parlay wagers. As a result, the "hold percentage" - the amount retained by sportsbooks after paying out winning bets - has yet to exceed 10% in any given year in Arkansas.
The commission approved the entrance of the two major national sportsbook operators in spite of opposition from BetSaracen, the mobile betting app of Saracen Casino. That app, from each year 2022-2025, captured more than half of the state's total sportsbook revenue.
Southland remains the Arkansas casino leader
The West Memphis facility known as Southland Casino took in a state-high $58.4 million in tax revenue in 2025. The site attracts so much revenue in significant part because the neighboring state of Tennessee - which includes a greater Memphis region of almost 1 million residents - has no legal casinos.
Second-best was Saracen Casino in Pine Bluff, which collected a double-digit rise in revenue to $30.4 million in 2025. Trailing both was the Oaklawn site in Hot Springs, which gained slightly over 2024 to $27.2 million.
The 2018 referendum also approved a casino for Pope County, but in all four cases this authorization was subject to subsequent county-wide approval. A series of legal issues ensued, however, and in November 2024 voters statewide rescinded that authorization for Pope County.
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