A Miniguide to Alaska Casinos and Gambling

One of the things I’ve noticed about state-specific pages about casinos and gambling in the United States is that they tend to be lengthy. The trend with webmasters in every industry has been to start producing more comprehensive pages on a subject.

The goal of this miniguide to Alaska casinos and gambling is to do something less ambitious but just as useful.

It’s a short, concise guide to the state of Alaska and under what circumstances you can gamble there.

Does Alaska Have Gambling Available?

First, every state has gambling, including Alaska. In some states, it’s done privately instead of being involved in the industry.

When it comes to Alaska, you have no commercial casinos at all. You will find a couple of Class II gaming facilities that are tribally owned, so they could be considered tribal casinos.

They don’t offer what you would consider traditional casino games, though. Instead, they offer pull-tab games and bingo games.

A pull-tab game is similar to a scratch-off lottery ticket. To play a pull-tab game, you buy a ticket, which is usually a physical ticket. The symbols on this ticket are found behind paper tabs, which you can pull off. That’s where the name “pull-tab” game comes from.

You can think of pull-tab games as similar to slot machines, but on paper, and without spinning reels. Electronic pull-tab tickets work just like paper tickets, but without the paper. These games are connected to a master, centralized computer which spits out the results.

Alaska is one of about 20 states with pull-tab games.

Bingo is a classic game that almost everyone has played at church or at school. I won’t go into detail about how to play these games, but I will mention that Alaska has multiple places where you can play bingo.

Is Gambling Legal in Alaska?

Lots of people wonder about the legality of gambling in various states. The answer to that question is always more complicated than you might think. Few states have truly legalized, unregulated gambling available.

And in most states where gambling is almost completely illegal, people still gamble underground without much fear of arrest or prosecution. In fact, the last time you visited a neighborhood bar during a football game, you were probably sitting there with at least a dozen people who had money on the game with a neighborhood bookie.

Bingo games are legal and regulated in the state. You can find several bingo halls in Alaska, but those are the only legal gambling businesses in the state for the most part.

Casino games are illegal in Alaska, although you can take casino cruises. Once you get into international waters, Alaska state laws about casinos no longer apply. This also applies to real money online casinos.

The lottery isn’t played in Alaska, which makes it unusual in the extreme. Almost every state has a lottery now. The closest thing to a lottery in Alaska are pull-tab machines, which are actually really similar to scratch and win tickets.

Poker games are legal, but only if they’re run in private. You won’t find any live or internet poker cardrooms at which to play. But you can find home games easily enough without having to worry about arrest or prosecution.

Sports betting in Alaska goes on to a limited extent in the state, although there are no legal, regulated sportsbooks in operation.

Where Can You Play Pull-Tabs in Alaska?

There are two facilities offering pull-tabs in Alaska, both of which are bingo halls:

1. Klawock Bingo
2. Metlakatla Bingo (or MIC Gaming Hall)

When I visit the official site for Klawock Bingo, the website shows that games are available on Tuesday and Thursday at 6 PM to 9 PM and on Saturday at 3 PM to 6 PM.

Metlakatla Bingo seems to have changed its name to MIC Gaming Hall. Their Facebook page looks to be the closest thing to an official website that they have in operation. I understand they offer about 90 different pull-tab games.

Where Can You Play Bingo in Alaska?

Of course, you can play bingo at the two bingo halls already listed here, but there are other bingo halls in Alaska which don’t offer pull-tabs. They are community bingo games in the following communities:

1. Organized Village of Kake Bingo
2. Sun’aq Tribal Bingo
3. Sitka Tribal Bingo
4. Tlingit and Haida Community Bingo

What About the Home Poker Game Scene in Alaska?

I visited the Alaska page of the largest site listing home poker games when I researched this post. In 2016, that site removed any listings that were over three years old.

There were no poker games at all listed in the state of Alaska, which leads me to believe that there’s not a thriving poker scene in Alaska. A search of the two biggest search engines (Bing and Google) for the phrase “Alaska home poker games” also brought up no results.

I know that home poker games are legal in Alaska as long as they’re not charging a rake, but you’ll probably need to find such games through word-of-mouth. Or you can start your own home game with your buddies. If you do, post about it on the web so that the world can see that Alaskans also love to play poker.

But Why Doesn’t Alaska at Least Have a Lottery?

Alaska has been notoriously anti-gambling for decades. That’s the short answer to why they don’t have a lottery. They just don’t like gambling there. But here are some more details and a little bit of analysis.

You can get an insight into the mindset of Alaska legislators when you look at what they said when they made charity casino nights illegal 25 years ago.

At that time, they explained that they didn’t want big casinos profiting from Alaskans all year long, and the law said that if any kind of gambling was legal in the state at all, Indian casinos had to be allowed to offer it.

The answer, at least in the eyes of Alaskan legislature, was to just get rid of gambling almost completely.

A 2015 study from the Alaska Revenue Department concluded that the state could generate an extra $8 million in revenue by allowing lottery tickets. This wasn’t enough money to make the folks in power think they should change their gambling laws. They’re also afraid of the negative effect a lottery would have on existing, legal, charitable gambling (pull-tabs and bingo).

And that’s the biggest reason you can’t play the lottery in Alaska. They don’t want to cannibalize existing revenue from pull-tabs and bingo to put in the state coffers.

Conclusion

It doesn’t take a lot of space to answer the most basic questions about Alaskan gambling and casinos that the average person has.

I hope this concise guide to Alaska gambling was useful for you.

If I didn’t answer all your questions, please let me know in the comments section. Good luck!