It would be $1bn less than 2025, where the likes of Chumba Casino, WOW Vegas and others ranked on the Sweeps Gods website have made an estimated $4.6bn.

This comes after what’s been an incredibly difficult year for sweepstakes casinos, where Montana, Connecticut, New Jersey, and California have all recently outlawed them.

A Tough Road Ahead for Sweepstakes Casinos

With sweepstakes casinos set to generate $3.6bn in 2026, a $1bn drop-off from the year before, operators must navigate what is fast becoming a volatile industry.

Between 2020 and 2024, the sweepstakes casino market was booming. Many call it the gold rush for sites like Chumba, where legal scrutiny had yet to hit these operators and players were flooding through the doors like there was no tomorrow.

But the past couple of years have seen state lawmakers finally take notice of this new type of casino, leading to a huge crackdown.

It all started when the American Gaming Association put out a scathing statement against sweepstakes casinos, labelling them dangerous and a threat to player wellbeing.

This was swiftly followed up by a number of states beginning to pass anti-sweepstakes bills.

And as it stands, Washington, Montana, Michigan, Connecticut, Nevada, New Jersey, and California officially no longer allow sweepstakes casinos to operate within their state borders, and more states look set to do the same.

Previously, sweepstakes casinos were legal in almost all US states but now they’re only legal in 43 of them, with that number likely to drop below 40 over the next twelve months.

Of course, when states outlaw any type of gaming site, it leads to a drop-off in players, meaning less revenue and overall engagement.

This, after all, is why sweepstakes casinos banded together through the Social Gaming Leadership Alliance and begged California Governor Gavin Newsom not to sign the state’s anti-sweepstakes bill into law, although their plea ultimately fell on deaf ears.

New York Set to Follow California By Banning Sweepstakes Operators

Earlier this year, New York clamped down hard on sweepstakes casinos by issuing cease-and-desist letters to a total of 26 sites operating within the state.

It has since passed Senate Bill S5935A, a bill that prohibits online sweepstakes games using a dual-currency system and cash equivalents.

If that bill is soon passed into law, it would mean New York becomes the latest state to join the ever-growing list of ones that have outlawed sweepstakes casinos since the start of the new decade.

And with both California and New York having previously been two of the biggest revenue generators for sweepstakes casinos due to their extremely high player counts, it would be yet another blow for an industry that’s currently in trouble.

Pragmatic Play Exits Sweepstakes Market, Leaving Players Frustrated

The situation has just got worse for sweepstakes casinos following the exit of Pragmatic Play from the market.

For those out of the loop, Pragmatic Play is one of the biggest providers of online slots and live dealer games in the whole of iGaming, but they’ve decided to cut all supply to sweepstakes casinos.

The decision came after Pragmatic Play was named in a California civil lawsuit against Stake.us, where the provider has been accused of helping Stake.us to operate an “illegal” gambling system.

And with Pragmatic Play out the door, the consensus is that more game providers could also quit the sweepstakes market, causing further upset among players.

At this moment in time, it’s certainly risky to supply sweepstakes casinos with games from a legal perspective, so it’s understandable why Pragmatic (and others) have made this move.

Play’n GO, perhaps the biggest casino game supplier of them all, has point-blank refused to supply sweepstakes casinos from the very beginning, with CEO Johan Törnqvist stating:

“Our commitment to regulated markets is absolute. We will never supply our games to sweepstakes casinos.”

The potential for yet more providers to ditch the sweepstakes casino market will no doubt be causing some serious headaches for operators as they figure out a way to prevent them from copying Pragmatic Play’s stance.

What’s Next for Sweepstakes Casinos?

Sweepstakes casinos have been on a five-year hot streak, having first exploded back during the pandemic of 2020.

These sites offer a fresh spin on traditional online casinos, where players must bet virtual coins instead of actual money.

All of the games are free-to-play, tournaments and giveaways are extremely common, and there’s the opportunity to win prizes if you collect enough ‘Sweeps Coins’.

On the surface, it’s all perfectly fine and legal, but controversy stems from the fact that players can directly purchase Sweeps Coins to compete for prizes, making it effectively a softer form of gambling.

Considering that these sites have been able to use a legal loophole for years, it was only a matter of time before individual states came crashing down on them.

These extremely popular casinos, including Stake.us, which has a sponsorship deal with Canadian superstar Drake, are now under serious legal pressure after years on top.

It’s good news for traditional online casinos, too, who for years have been losing out on players to sweepstakes casinos (this is why several online casinos lobbied through the American Gaming Association to push for restrictions on sweepstakes operators).

What’s interesting about all of this, though, is that millions of players are still hooked on sweepstakes casinos, especially now they’ve become a trend on popular streaming platforms Kick and Twitch.

And despite Chumba Casino and others being outlawed in a growing number of states, the sweepstakes casino trend won’t be disappearing anytime soon, which is why these sites are still projected to pull $3.6bn in revenue throughout 2026, a figure that most other industries would kill for.