NFL Draft Betting Rules: The States Where You Can and Can’t Bet It, Plus Michigan’s Weird Quirk

The NFL Draft has long been a marquee offseason event, and it’s turning into betting event as well. The prop markets are robust, and change daily with news. It’s everything that’s fun about mock drafts, with a betting spin.

However, even in some legal betting states, you can’t wager on the NFL Draft because of state gaming regulations. Even stranger, in West Virginia and Michigan, there’s a cutoff to bet the NFL Draft, which happens to be the night before.

Here’s where you can and can’t bet the NFL Draft in already-legal online betting states.

NFL Draft Betting States

Why Can’t I Bet on the Draft in Some States?

For example, why can’t you bet on the NFL Draft in Pennsylvania? It centers around how the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board defines a sporting event — and it doesn’t consider the NFL Draft one:

“The business of accepting wagers on sporting events or on the individual performance statistics of athletes in a sporting event or combination of sporting events by any system or method of wagering, including over the Internet through websites and mobile applications.”

What’s With the Cutoffs?

Michigan, a state with otherwise strong betting regulations, has a bizarre quirk for the NFL Draft. Wagering for the first round will be cut off at midnight on Wednesday, so you can’t try to slip any last-minute, news-based bets in. Wagering for the second and third rounds will end Thursday night, and betting for the final day will end Friday night, according to a DraftKings spokesman.

West Virginia will also cut off wagering at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

More Draft Betting Content

• How No. 3 Pick Odds Evolved
• Draft Needs for All 32 Teams
• Freedman’s Rookie Profiles
• Freedman’s Top 100
• Under the Radar RBs
• Why Sportsbooks Are Still Taking Bets on Lawrence to Go No. 1