ClubWPT Gold Unveils Work-Around For Laws That Would Ban Sweepstakes Poker Sites

With a ban of sweepstakes gaming sites in California having made its way to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, and with insiders unanimously presuming AB 831 will indeed become law with his signature or through his inaction, operators have been searching for a work-around.

The folks behind ClubWPT Gold, the World Poker Tour’s social/sweepstakes online poker site that has been operating in one form or another since 2008, seem to believe they’ve found one.

The sweeps-ban bill in California — the most populous state in the nation and, in turn, the most important for online gaming businesses operating without individual state licensing — prohibits a dual-currency sweepstakes model whereby customers purchase Gold Coins and in turn receive Sweeps Coins. Gold Coins can only be used in free-to-play social gaming and have no cash value, whereas Sweeps Coins can be converted to cash or prizes.

What the ClubWPT Gold site revealed Wednesday is an alternative to the dual-currency model. Gold Coins and free-to-play games are gone. Instead, players can use money to purchase training tools and receive poker chips — essentially, Sweeps Coins — with every purchase.

So, customers are still able to spend real money to buy something and receive on-site currency with which they can play poker, but that something is no longer itself a form of gambling currency.

Jumping through loops

The dual-currency sweepstakes gaming system is generally perceived as a legal loophole to allow theoretically permissible, gray-area gambling. With states such as California trying to close that loophole, ClubWPT Gold is effectively finding a loophole adjacent to the former loophole.

Poker pro and longtime ClubWPT Gold ambassador Doug Polk hosted a two-hour livestream Wednesday and said of the new work-around, “It makes sense, I think, when we look at the legal landscape of U.S. poker, for Gold to want to transition to something that is a little more sound, a little more defensible.”

So what do the training tools available for purchase entail? The site explains that you can “play real hands and then analyze your game with ClubWPT Gold’s proprietary AI-powered Hand Analysis tool.”

For a cost of 50 cents per hand, players purchase analysis of a hand they played on the site. For every dollar spent — in other words, for every two hands analyzed — customers receive one dollar in poker chips they can use in ClubWPT Gold tournaments or ring games.

The obvious question for sweepstakes casino and sweepstakes sports betting sites, if ClubWPT Gold proves able to continue operating in California under this model after AB 831 passes, is whether this approach can be replicated in other verticals.

Can a sweepstakes sportsbook make post-wager analysis available for purchase? Can a sweeps casino provide information as to whether a blackjack play was the correct by-the-book decision?

The answers to those questions could be yes. In pure luck games such as slots or roulette, it gets much murkier.

But for now, ClubWPT Gold has certainly come up with an innovation for the whole sweepstakes industry to keep a close eye on.