Why Nevada’s Newest Compliance Necessities for Online Gaming Matter Far Past State Lines | Alerts and Articles | Insights

The Nevada Gaming Control Board (the NGCB) has issued Notice #2026-04, offering new steerage with enhanced reporting and due diligence necessities for Nevada gaming licensees and candidates concerned in on-line gaming actions outdoors Nevada. Broadly, the improved necessities are a part of the mandatory analysis of the appropriateness and suitability of Online Gaming actions outdoors Nevada, significantly in gentle of the dramatic development and progressive fashions for web playing in recent times, together with because the NGCB explicitly calls out within the Notice: “wagering activities found in real money online casinos among other forms of online gaming (Online Gaming).”

While the NGCB steerage particularly applies to Nevada licensees and candidates, together with their subsidiaries and associates, state gaming regulators throughout the nation proceed to think about the implications of gray market Online Gaming actions and their licensees’ pursuits in any such gray market operations. As such, all Online Gaming corporations–in or outdoors of Nevada–ought to pay attention to the reporting and due diligence necessities in Notice #2026-04 and think about incorporating them into their ongoing compliance applications.

Key Takeaways From the NGCB’s Notice #2026-04

• What Online Gaming actions are coated: The enhanced reporting and due diligence necessities apply to all commercialization fashions an Online Gaming enterprise might pursue in a given jurisdiction–together with B2C operations of Online Gaming, B2B provide of Online Gaming merchandise, and distribution of Online Gaming merchandise by content material aggregators. In addition, the jurisdictions that have to be reported and subjected to due diligence embody jurisdictions the place the Online Gaming enterprise is obtainable, no matter whether or not it’s supplied from inside or from outdoors the given jurisdiction. Finally, licensees and candidates ought to perceive that the NGCB’s definition of “Online Gaming” is worded broadly and vaguely in order that it clearly applies to extra than simply on-line on line casino gaming and should embody another type of Online Gaming actions later deemed related by the NGCB.
• Immediate and recurring reporting required: All licensees that presently conduct any Online Gaming (B2C or B2B, together with by a content material aggregator) in any jurisdiction outdoors Nevada should present the NGCB with a present and full record of all such jurisdictions identified to a licensee by March 17, 2026. An extension could also be accessible from the Chair upon written request. After this preliminary report, licensees should embody this info of their quarterly Foreign Gaming stories to the NGCB.
• Initial and recurring due diligence required: Licensees should conduct impartial, jurisdiction-specific due diligence the place they conduct any Online Gaming, and the absence of enforcement exercise in a selected jurisdiction isn’t ample to point that Online Gaming could also be legally carried out in that jurisdiction. Such due diligence is required previous to providing Online Gaming in a given jurisdiction (from inside or outdoors the jurisdiction) and at the very least each two years thereafter. Licensees should additionally preserve a report of all such assessments and findings relating to the legality of providing Online Gaming merchandise in every relevant jurisdiction.
• Reliance on contractual companions: Licensees supplying Online Gaming merchandise on a B2B foundation or by a content material aggregator might rely partly on a companion’s due diligence provided that particular contractual protections are in place with the B2B recipient or aggregator (Contractual Partners), together with written assurances of compliance, termination rights, and coordination to forestall choices in prohibited jurisdictions. Licensees stay accountable for due diligence in presumptively prohibited jurisdictions.
• Reporting prohibited jurisdictions: The NGCB expects Licensees to work with their Contractual Partners to make sure the Licensee’s Online Gaming merchandise are usually not supplied in prohibited jurisdictions, together with updating one another at the very least yearly on jurisdictions recognized as prohibited. Licensees should additionally report back to the NGCB any jurisdiction through which the Licensee or its Contractual Partners have recognized as prohibited.
• Presumptively prohibited jurisdictions: The Notice establishes that sure jurisdictions are “presumptively prohibited” if the jurisdiction expressly prohibits Online Gaming and/or has taken intra-jurisdictional or extra-jurisdictional enforcement actions in opposition to gamers or operators. Non-exhaustive examples of such presumptively prohibited jurisdictions are included within the Notice. Overcoming the presumption requires “comprehensive” due diligence that have to be totally documented and submitted to the NGCB previous to the graduation (or continuation) of any Online Gaming enterprise within the jurisdiction.
• Ongoing obligations: Licensees are anticipated to reassess jurisdictions periodically, preserve written information of legality determinations, monitor entry to their merchandise, promptly take away merchandise from prohibited jurisdictions, and adjust to reporting obligations, together with preliminary and quarterly disclosures to the NGCB relating to jurisdictions the place Online Gaming merchandise are supplied.

Continuing a Broader Trend

The NGCB’s enhanced necessities are simply the most recent instance of a U.S. state gaming regulator rising its regulatory give attention to the trade’s broader Online Gaming enterprise throughout all jurisdictions the place the enterprise is obtainable. Other current examples of elevated regulatory give attention to extra-jurisdictional Online Gaming actions embody:

• New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement: An annual recertification from all web gaming and on-line sports activities wagering platform suppliers that “none [of their affiliate marketing providers] are engaged in promoting any unregulated or illegal operators that accept United States customers without appropriate licensure,” and
• Michigan Gaming Control Board: An Illegal Gaming Attestation required from Internet Game Content Providers that requires disclosure of the applicant’s present or earlier distribution of any web gaming content material (together with video games of talent or likelihood) to anybody providing Online Gaming to people inside or outdoors the U.S. with out a license within the jurisdictions the place supplied.

Bottom Line

The NGCB’s steerage reinforces the necessity for proactive, well-documented diligence of the legality in all jurisdictions through which Online Gaming is obtainable, whether or not straight or not directly, and whether or not from inside or from outdoors the jurisdiction. Licensees ought to reassess present Online Gaming actions, consider jurisdictional publicity, and overview inside compliance frameworks to make sure alignment with the NGCB’s expectations. Experienced gaming counsel can play a key function in conducting jurisdictional assessments, structuring compliant commercialization fashions, and interesting with regulators as these necessities proceed to evolve.

Ballard Spahr’s Gaming Group advises shoppers throughout the complete spectrum of federal, state, tribal, and native gaming legal guidelines and represents gaming operators and firms doing enterprise with casinos in navigating the trade’s advanced regulatory panorama.