There Are No Easy Answers When It Comes To Sweeps

There will be controversy, debate, and legislation for the foreseeable future with online sweepstakes casinos.

One thing the subject will likely never have, however, is consensus.

The five panelists assembled for “Pivoting To Sweeps” at Wednesday’s SBC Summit 2025 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, covered a wide range of subjects and processes on the gaming vertical without truly settling on a path where it could potentially co-exist as a regulated and taxed entity at the state level.

Who is truly the target audience?

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in this debate came at the outset with a question difficult to answer: Who are social casinos and sweepstakes catering to?

Jamison Selby, the CEO of Rubystone, estimated that two-thirds of people who play such games “play completely for free and never engage with any type of spending” while noting there is a small percentage of players who “play all the time” as a means of trying to win prizes via the purchase of virtual currency.

Selby said social casinos are not in competition with one another, but rather their goal is “to make a piece of entertainment that gives someone a reason to hang out with us for 15 minutes instead of going back to TikTok.”

Jason Rosenberg, the CEO and Founder of American iGaming Solutions, added that “the feeling of wanting to win something” is what has helped create the large consumer demand for sweepstakes casinos, most of which takes place where there isn’t an option for regulated iGaming with only seven states legalized.

The diametrically opposite position on the panel was represented by Shawn Fluharty. He is most known for helping craft West Virginia’s internet casino gaming laws as a state delegate in addition to his current titles as President of the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS) and Head of Government Affairs at Play’n Go.

Fluharty sounded part quixotic and part binary while defending licensed and regulated internet casino operators. The latter description was more apt when he discussed sweepstakes casinos, pointing out that “12 states have jumped in wanting to ban sweepstakes in the last six months.”

This argument has already taken place

Fluharty said there are long-term risks for sweepstakes casinos operating in states where legislation is being proposed to ban them. He pointed out that should an operator “want to come into a licensed, regulated space, good luck. Regulators have a long memory and they’re going to remember.”

Selby countered that “this played out all before” with daily fantasy sports operators in the spot sweepstakes casinos now occupy.

“They were on the other side of the table, with the exact same states having the exact same arguments,” he said. “The AGs (attorneys general) published in the exact same letters arguing DFS was the worst thing ever.

“And now, oddly enough, most of those major DFS companies are now the regulated incumbents. So the long game seemed to play out quite well.”

Selby added that social and sweepstakes casinos are willing to fight and have this argument because “we want to play the long game. We intend to be here five and 10 years when we’re sitting on the other side of the table and some new thing is exploding.” He cited predictive markets as a potential new thing.

Fluharty retorted that sweepstakes casinos are often not legally challenging the cease-and-desist letters that state regulatory agencies are sending out as their version of playing “the long game.”

“I can tell you if you believe that you have been harmed and you have standing, you take it to court,” Fluharty said. “Many of these companies are not doing that. They’re answering with their feet and they’re getting the hell out of town.”

It’s the mechanics that’s the issue

Rosenberg offered a key point at the crux of the legal arguments with regard to sweepstakes casinos: the mechanics of actual play, beyond the basic offering of a free-to-play method of entry.

“You cannot buy the coins that you are going to use to wager and play and make and potentially get real money,” he explained. “So you can’t buy them.”

Brett Calapp, a creator of social casino gaming and the founder of Shadow Fox, followed up Rosenberg’s explanation by likening it to McDonald’s wildly popular Monopoly game in which “you get the Big Mac and you get a Monopoly piece” and cannot buy the game piece on its own.

That wound up Fluharty, who took the McDonald’s analogy one step further. He likened sweeps to hamburgers and called the operators “Hamburglars” because “they’re stealing profits from states with an illegal market.”

“The casino itself is the product,” he insisted. The (game piece) at McDonald’s is not the product you’re there for. You’re there for the Big Mac. And individuals who are participating in sweeps are there for the casino product. They’re not there for any burgers on the side.”

Where do we go from here?

About the only aspects the panelists did agree on is that something needs to happen and something drastic could happen. Rosenberg said many sweeps operators want to go through the licensing and regulating process but noted that some tribal operators are utilizing a workaround in which they can exchange virtual currency for goods at their brick-and-mortar casinos.

Calapp said a doomsday scenario similar to “Black Friday” when online poker sites were banned could occur for sweeps. Selby saw a middle ground of sorts where some states will ban sweeps and others “introduce some type of registration schema, which is a de facto ban.”

But it may have been Rosenberg who offered the best summation of why there are so many loggerheads in this gaming space.

“You have the political lobbying side saying one thing and their members are doing something completely different. And I think that’s where there’s some real confusion on the industry side,” he explained. “To answer the question of where do we see this going, I don’t know, but right now there just seems to be a hypocrisy between what one hand is saying and then what the other hand is doing.

“And there needs to be a unified (front), whichever way it goes. It has to be unified; otherwise, we’re going to have the same conversation next year.”