US sweepstakes casino bans: twelve states by statute, and six that criminalise the affiliate who promotes them
Twelve US states have now banned dual-currency sweepstakes casinos by statute, three more prohibit them under pre-existing law, and nine are enforcing without one. The detail that matters most, and that almost nobody covering this story reports, is that six of the statutes do not stop at the operator. They name the promoter and the media affiliate, and they attach criminal penalties.
That is why this site carries no sweepstakes links, and why it will not carry them.
Statutes read at source on 9 September 2026. This is not legal advice; state law here is changing faster than any page can promise to track.
Banned by statute
| State | Statute | Effective | Reaches affiliates? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montana | SB 555 (amends MCA 23-5-112) | 1 Oct 2025 | No |
| Connecticut | SB 1235 / PA 25-112 | 1 Oct 2025 | Yes — promoting |
| Nevada | SB 256 (Ch. 337) | 1 Oct 2025 | No — see note below |
| New Jersey | A 5447 (P.L. 2025, c.128) | 15 Aug 2025 signed | Unverified |
| California | AB 831 (Penal Code 337o) | 1 Jan 2026 | Yes — “media affiliate” |
| New York | S 5935A (Ch. 605) | 5 Dec 2025 | Yes — promotes, media affiliate |
| Indiana | HB 1052 | 1 Jul 2026 | No — deliberately excluded |
| Iowa | SF 2289 | 1 Jul 2026 | Enforcement expansion |
| Maine | LD 2007 | 29 Jul 2026 | Yes — promotes or supports |
| Louisiana | HB 883 (Act 182) + HB 53 | 1 Aug 2026 | Yes — harshest in the country |
| Tennessee | SB 2136 / HB 1885 | May 2026 | Probable, primary text not read |
| Oklahoma | SB 1589 (veto overridden) | 1 Nov 2026 | Yes — felony |
Prohibited under pre-existing law: Washington, Idaho, Michigan.
Three corrections to the trade press, all of which we checked against the enrolled text:
- Maine’s ban took effect on 29 July 2026, not the 14th or 15th widely reported. There was no emergency clause, so the date falls 90 days after adjournment.
- Montana’s SB 555 never uses the word “sweepstakes.” It widens the definition of internet gambling in MCA 23-5-112, which catches the model without naming it, and it does not reach affiliates.
- Nevada’s SB 256 is not a sweepstakes ban either. It raises unlicensed gaming to a felony and extends jurisdiction to out-of-state operators. Nevada’s market closed because operators left, not because a statute named them. Counting it as a “sweeps ban” is where several trackers get their higher totals.
A fourth point is a caution rather than a correction: syndicated articles dated July 2026 describe a 2026 New Jersey vote signed by Governor Murphy. That cannot be right — Murphy left office in January 2026, and the chapter law is P.L. 2025, c.128. Treat 2026-dated New Jersey sourcing as unreliable.
Published trackers give ban counts anywhere from six to fourteen depending on whether they count Nevada, Iowa and the pre-existing-law states. Use the statute list, not the headline number. At least one affiliate-run tracker updated in July 2026 still listed Nevada and Michigan as open.
The provisions that reach affiliates
Louisiana is the most severe regime in the country. Act 182 reaches a “gaming content supplier, promoter, endorser, media affiliate, or any other person” who knowingly supports or facilitates the operation or promotion of computer gambling. Up to $20,000 and five years, doubled where someone under 21 is involved. Two features make it categorically different from the rest: each individual promotion is a separate violation, and the Attorney General maintains a blocklist where accepting an advert for a listed URL is prima facie evidence of support. HB 53 makes the conduct a state racketeering predicate.
Oklahoma is the only felony aimed squarely at the promoter. SB 1589 covers a “geolocation provider, gaming supplier, platform provider, promoter, or media affiliate” that provides support to such a game. It is live on 1 November 2026.
California Penal Code 337o(b) reaches a media affiliate that knowingly and willfully supports, directly or indirectly, the operation, conduct or promotion of an online sweepstakes game. Misdemeanour, $1,000 to $25,000, up to a year.
New York S 5935A bars any person or entity that operates, conducts or promotes an online sweepstakes game, with the same list of supporting entities. $10,000 to $100,000 per violation.
Maine covers a person who operates or promotes such a game, or supports its operation or promotion.
Connecticut is the one that opens a second front. Public Act 25-112 provides that no person shall conduct or promote a sweepstakes or promotional drawing outside the bona fide sale of goods or services, and it deems a breach an unfair or deceptive trade practice under CUTPA. That matters because CUTPA carries a private right of action: the risk is not only an Attorney General, it is any plaintiff.
Indiana went the other way and expressly excluded marketing affiliates — the exception that shows the others were drafted deliberately.
Has an affiliate actually been pursued?
Not a pure affiliate, as far as the public record shows. Every cease-and-desist campaign we traced — well over a hundred letters across ten states — went to operators.
But the closest case is close enough to matter. In August 2025 the Los Angeles City Attorney sued Stake.us and more than twenty other defendants, including the streaming platform Kick, a promotional partner rather than an operator, under California’s Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law. That was brought before AB 831 existed. A California prosecutor reached the media layer without needing a media-affiliate clause, and now there is one.
Enforcement without a statute
Nine more states are hostile without having passed anything:
- Florida — the Attorney General sued Stake and VGW on 19 August 2026, naming payment processors Worldpay, Trustly, Praxis and Breeze Labs alongside them, and seeking $15,000 per willful violation.
- Illinois — the Gaming Board and Attorney General sent cease-and-desist letters to 65 operators in January 2026. Only two had geo-blocked the state.
- Kentucky — sued VGW on 17 June 2026 under the Loss Recovery Act; more than thirty operators left voluntarily.
- Pennsylvania sent 18 cease-and-desist letters in April 2025 and all recipients complied — but the Gaming Control Board has told legislators it lacks the statutory authority to go further, and has asked for it.
- Arizona relies on its existing promotion-of-gambling offence, A.R.S. §13-3303, which is a latent hook aimed at operators so far.
- West Virginia, Delaware, Mississippi, Maryland and Minnesota have issued subpoenas, orders or letters. Baltimore City sued six operators in March 2026.
Two states that trackers often list as banned are not: Illinois and Ohio both have bills that stalled. Florida’s SB 1580 passed both chambers and then died when the House and Senate ran out of time to reconcile before adjournment on 13 March 2026 — it failed on the clock, not on opposition, which is why Florida is the strongest candidate to ban in 2027.
Legally open and commercially closed are different things, and for a player these states are effectively the latter.
Why the model was ever lawful
Gambling, at common law, needs three elements: prize, chance and consideration. Remove one and it is a lawful sweepstakes. The doctrinal source is FCC v. American Broadcasting Co., 347 U.S. 284 (1954).
The dual-currency build tries to remove consideration. Gold Coins are sold but cannot be redeemed. Sweeps Coins can be redeemed but are never sold, only bundled free or obtained through an alternative method of entry. If that alternative is genuinely of equal ease and equal odds, the argument runs, nobody paid to enter.
Regulators reject it on substance over form. The New York Attorney General’s letter is the template the others copy: liability attaches regardless of whether any particular coin was obtained for free.
The controlling appellate authority is still Kater v. Churchill Downs, 886 F.3d 784 (9th Cir. 2018), which held virtual chips extending the privilege of play to be a thing of value; it settled for $155 million. No 2025 or 2026 appellate ruling has tested the consideration theory on the merits. That is the largest open question in the sector, and the first merits ruling from the Florida or Kentucky suits would be the most consequential development in it.
What players should do
If you are in a banned state, the operators are geo-blocking you and the accounts are being closed. Withdraw any redeemable balance rather than leaving it. If you are in an enforcement-only state, treat the position as unstable.
If you are in one of the seven states with licensed real-money online casino — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island — you have a regulated alternative where the state regulator will actually hear a dispute. That is a materially better product than a sweepstakes coin, and our legality by country and state overview sets out what the difference buys you.
Our own position
We do not link to sweepstakes casinos and we do not intend to. The reason is on this page: in California, New York, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Maine and Connecticut, the statute names the media affiliate. We already apply the same test everywhere else — a country goes into our no-promotion list when advertising an unlicensed operator is an offence for the publisher, not merely when playing is an offence for the player.
There is a second reason, and it is worth stating because it applies to every gambling affiliate whether they admit it or not. Google’s advertising policy bars affiliates and aggregators from promoting social casino content, and requires a gambling affiliate’s footer to confirm that outbound links go only to operators licensed in the reader’s own location. A site linking to unlicensed sweepstakes operators cannot make that statement truthfully.
Applying that test honestly means it sometimes rules out the traffic we would most like to earn from. This is one of those times.
18+ only. Gambling involves real financial risk. Play only where it is legal in your jurisdiction.