“Sweepstakes casinos” are websites that claim to offer legal online versions of games like blackjack, slot machines, bingo, and more. They claim they are “social casinos” that do not offer real money gambling, but offer just for fun games coupled with “sweepstakes” that offer “cash prizes”. However, in the eyes of the law, they are illegal gambling operations. They are unregulated and there are no guarantees that the odds the games provide are legitimate.
The most popular and profitable of these sites are Chumba Casino, Luckyland Slots and Global Poker. They are extremely profitable and are companies worth billions of dollars – all built upon an illegal gambling business.
In fact, they are operating illegal gambling sites. They replicate a business model referred to as “sweepstakes cafés” that were located in physical locations across the United States in the early to mid 2010s. Consumers would go into a physical location and purchase phone cards or internet time and receive “sweepstakes entries” or “sweepstakes credits” that could be used on slot machine style games located in the store.
Soon these businesses were shut down and the owners were convicted of serious gambling crimes! Furthermore, the state congresses and legislatures passed specific laws to ensure these style of businesses never reappeared. In states such as New York it is even a felony to offer any “sweepstakes” with an “entertaining display”!
Sites like Chumba replicated this business model online with the “Gold Coins” and “Sweeps Coins” and claim to be legal sweepstakes, like the sweepstakes McDonalds and Coke used to offer.
However, this is a lie. They are not legal they are illegal gambling operations.
Simply put, they are lying. Chumba’s parent company, Virtual Gaming Worlds (VGW), spent tens of millions of dollars on attorney fees in 2023. They also purchased insurance against lawsuits.
The laws are not confusing. They know they are illegal and that is why they are spending tens of millions of dollars to attempt to protect themselves.
We know it sounds crazy! But it is true! In many states there are laws which are referred to as “gambling loss recovery laws”. They allow consumers who have lost money to illegal gambling casinos to sue to recover their losses. The laws exist to help stop the spread of illegal gambling and punish illegal gambling operations. The government does this to protect consumers and to promote legal gambling operations – which are very different from illegal gambling operations like Chumba, Luckyland, and Global Poker.
Some states, like Utah and Oregon for example, go as far as to even say that the consumer can recover 2x their losses in order to punish the illegal gambling operations!
In many other states there are laws that protect consumers from
“deceptive and unfair” practices by businesses. The fact that these sites lie about their legality and continue to knowingly operate illegally also allows consumers to recover their losses.
Our network of attorneys is nationwide and are currently actively suing these websites in many states. The easiest way to know if we are operating in your state is to contact us. But states that have favorable laws protecting the consumer and/or having “gambling loss recovery laws” include but are not limited to:
– California
– New York
– Florida
– Illinois
– Ohio
– Georgia
– Massachusetts
– Utah
– Connecticut
– Mississippi
– Oregon
– And many more!
Many states have laws specifically stating that debts accumulated for illegal gambling are void. So if it can be proved that the credit card companies knew that the money was used for gambling then, depending on the state, there is a chance the debt may be wiped clean. Contact us to see if it would be possible to help diminish your credit card debt accumulated by gambling on Chumba Casino, Luckyland Slots, and /or Global Poker?
It is very unlikely that you would get in any trouble. For many reasons. First, in many states there are laws protecting you from getting in trouble for suing to recover your losses. Second, these websites are lying to consumers claiming their legality. Third, even though it is a small crime to gamble outside of legal gambling establishments, it is highly unlikely that any prosecutor would press charges on a consumer for playing on these sites. Finally, there have been many lawsuits against these sites already and no one – other than the sites themselves – has had any legal trouble. Therefore, suing to recover your losses is an extremely low risk thing to do from the perspective of getting in any legal trouble.
It is helpful to have the records of purchases/deposits and redemptions from the sites themselves – which they provide if asked for. But that is helpful and not 100% necessary. Bank records are helpful as well. However, if none of those records are unavailable that is not a problem! You can still recover your losses if you do not have these records.
It really depends. Unfortunately the legal system can move slow some times. If the sites choose to settle your case and make a deal with you then it could be very fast. If they choose to fight it could take a year or more.
Yes! In many different lawsuits in many different states!
It is hard to know the answer to this. But we believe it is mostly because consumers do not know their legal rights and our goal is to educate them and help connect them with lawyers who are standing by to work for them. We have already helped many consumers understand their rights and file suits against these illegal casinos!
Regardless of whether you have opted out of arbitration or not you can still use litigation as a way to recover your losses! But, the existence of an arbitration agreement does make the process a little more difficult and have more friction.
Including an arbitration agreement is one of the ways that these sites attempt to protect themselves. You should ALWAYS opt out of arbitration every time the sites change their Terms and Conditions just to give yourself more optionality to be able to sue easier.
The Terms and Conditions, and thus the arbitration agreement as well, constitute an illegal gambling contract and are therefore unenforceable. However, the arbitration agreement is powerful because it is possible that it would require you to go to arbitration in order for the arbitrator to rule that the Terms and Conditions are unenforceable. This could slow down the process quite a lot.
Each website has their own rules for how to opt out of arbitration. It is best to go to each sites’ Terms and Conditions and search for “arbitration” and find the part where it describes how to opt out. Generally you need to send them an email to their specified email address saying your name, email, address and a message like the following:
“I wish to opt out of the arbitration agreement, the class waiver, the forum selection clause and anything that the Terms and Conditions permit me to opt out of.”
Depending on the state that you are in you yourself may be able to sue to recover the losses on behalf of your family member! States such as Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and others allow family members to sue to recover their loved ones’ losses.
Alternatively you can help them by directing them to our website and to enter into contact with us and we can help!
As a part of their attempt to appear legal (which they are not), many of these sites offer “free entries” by allowing customers to receive free “Sweeps Coins” through sending in of letters requesting the entries.
But, unfortunately, there is a well established track record of the websites shutting down these accounts when consumers send in these letters. The motivation is obvious – they’re a casino, they want to make money and not give it away for free.
This can be considered a “deceptive” or “unfair” trade practice and depending on your situation you can certainly sue them for doing this! Contact us to find out more!
There are no costs to you unless we win! The initial consultation is 100% free. After that our attorneys cover all necessary costs with filing the lawsuit and litigating against the “sweepstakes casinos”. They are only paid if you win! They operate on a contingency basis meaning a part of the recovery goes to them. In many states the law requires the casinos themselves to cover all of those costs too!
Contact us today! Either through our contact form or by emailing us at [email protected]. After contacting us please make sure to check your spam folder and put our email address on your list of known email addresses!
Unfortunately there is no guarantee to get your money back. But what we can guarantee is that our attorneys will fight tooth and nail to get your money back and bring some justice to these illegal gambling businesses!