The ongoing battle over the legality of sweepstakes casinos in the US market has taken another sharp turn. A legal opinion that was written in April came to light this week. That legal opinion states that sweepstakes casinos are legal to operate in 32 US states.
Sweepstakes casino operator Spins America requested this legal opinion from an unnamed law firm. The states that the opinion claims can legally operate sweepstakes casinos are: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, as well as Washington, DC.
It's important to remember that this is merely a stated legal opinion. It is not enforceable by law.
Interestingly, among that group, Arizona, California, and Louisiana are currently in the process of banning sweepstakes casinos.
California Assembly Bill 831 is currently being debated by state lawmakers. If passed into law, it would prohibit the operation of sweepstakes casinos in California.
In late June, the Arizona Department of Gaming sent cease-and-desist letters to several operators in the state. That list included sweepstakes casinos Stake.us and High 5 Casino.
Meanwhile, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill wrote her own legal opinion. She stated that sweepstakes casinos are illegal gambling sites, since they offer real money payouts. Louisiana lawmakers have sent cease-and-desist notifications to 42 different sweepstakes casino operators.
Several states that weren't among the 32 listed in the legal opinion obtained by Spins America are also moving, or have already moved, to eliminate sweepstakes casinos from their states.
Connecticut, Montana, New Jersey, and New York all passed laws this year instituting a ban on the operation of sweepstakes casinos. Maryland and Mississippi are heading in that direction. Those states have issued cease-and-desist letters to sweepstakes casino operators.
Ohio is joining California in ramping up action against sweepstakes casino sites. State lawmakers are considering House Bill 298, which would eliminate sweepstakes casinos in the state.
However, another element of the bill is that it would legalize real-money online casino gambling in the Buckeye State. That's causing its progress to stall. Several major figures in the Ohio government, including Governor Mike DeWine, are strongly opposed to the legalization of real-money online casino gambling in the state.
The American Gaming Association (AGA) was recently conducting a survey of players who play sweepstakes casino games, seeking to dispel what the organization referred to as the myths of sweepstakes casinos.
Appearing on the "New Normal" podcast was Tres York, Vice President of Government Relations for the AGA. He discussed the results of the survey. York admitted that the reasoning behind the survey was to assist state lawmakers in their bids to curtail sweepstakes casinos.
“The research was conducted for two main reasons," York explained. "We wanted to have evidence to push back on a lot of the nonsensical arguments that sweepstakes providers make. More importantly, we work a lot with some very important constituencies. When you go into a state, you could be walking into a room where a decision-maker knows everything about sweepstakes gambling, or you could go into a situation where the official has no idea how it works.
"This is key data for stakeholders to see who the players are, what the games are, how they work, why players are playing, how they perceive it, and how much advertising is ongoing."
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