Indiana recently became the first state in 2026 to outlaw sweepstakes casinos.

This comes following the wave of states that successfully passed anti-sweepstakes casino bills last year, including New York, California, Montana, and New Jersey.

Now that Indiana has joined the ever-growing list, players will no longer be able to access sweepstakes casinos from within the state, leading to yet more potential player drop-offs for the likes of Chumba Casino and Stake.us.

Indiana’s sweepstakes casino bans starts this july 

Governor Mike Braun has signed HB 1052 into law, meaning sweepstakes casinos will no longer be allowed to operate in Indiana as of July 1st, 2026, but sites like KingPrize.com will still be available in other states.

Enforced by the Indiana Gaming Commission, fines of up to $100,000 can be issued to operators of online sweepstakes games.

As of right now, Chumba Casino, High 5 Casino, and others are still accepting players from Indiana.

Sean Ostrow of the Social Gaming Leadership Alliance (SGLA), an industry trade group lobbying for these casinos, claims that over 200,000 Indiana adults currently play online sweepstakes casino games.  

It ultimately means the market is once again going to lose a significant chunk of players, having already lost over a million of them since California and New York ditched the sweepstakes casino space.

Although it’s expected that some players in Indiana will continue to access sweepstakes operators using VPNs, the majority will likely stop playing altogether.

Eilers & Krejcik Gaming had already predicted before the start of the year that sweepstakes casino market revenue would drop to $3.6 billion in 2026, and it may now drop below that with Indiana pulling the plug.

Up to $20 million annually could now be lost for Indiana, according to SGLA

Before Indiana officially outlawed sweepstakes casinos, the SGLA had proposed a regulatory framework instead.

The representative group for sweepstakes casinos claims that it would have generated upwards of $20 million per year for Indiana through player purchase taxes and operator registration fees, but the state ultimately decided to ignore the proposal.

In the sweepstakes casino world, operators all have their own virtual stores where players can purchase packages consisting of Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins, which have proven to be a big revenue driver for sites like Stake.us and other major brands.

Why Indiana and other keep banning sweepstakes casinos 

Indiana’s movement against sweepstakes casinos follows the same line of reasoning as most other states.

All sweepstakes casinos in the US follow a dual-currency model, allowing players to bet either Gold Coins or Sweeps Coins across hundreds of different casino-style games, usually including slots and live dealer lobbies.

Indiana courts believe these games are “gambling devices” under Indiana law due to the fact that you can win prizes by redeeming Sweeps Coins, mimicking real-life gambling.

Natalie Huffman from the Indiana Gaming Commission claims that the multi-currency model is intentionally designed in a way that “allows it to operate outside of our current regulatory scheme.”

Essentially, the model used by sweepstakes casinos, where players use virtual coins as a substitute for real money, allowed them to operate in close to every state in the US for over a decade.

However, since exploding across social media and streaming platforms like Kick and Twitch during the 2020s, state lawmakers have taken a closer look at how sweepstakes casinos worked and deemed them to be a form of unregulated gambling, despite operators claiming the opposite.

Maryland and Tennessee could be next to ban sweepstakes casinos 

Following Indiana’s successful crackdown on sweepstakes casinos, Maryland and Tennessee look set to be the next states that issue bans.

Maryland lawmakers are currently moving forward with two separate bills, HB 1226 and HB 295, aimed at banning sweepstakes casinos.

Both measures will now be assessed at Senate committee hearings.

Similarly, Tennessee is also looking to pass SB 2136, which would ban dual-currency sweepstakes casinos “operating, conducting, or commercially promoting online sweepstakes games.”

In response to this, A1 Development, the company behind Funrize, NoLimitCoins, and other sweepstakes casinos, has already pulled out of Tennessee, as have several more big operators.

With all of this going on, Virginia, Iowa, and Minnesota are also making legal moves to ban sweepstakes casinos, although none have yet to officially pass their proposed bills into law.

It could potentially lead to a repeat of 2025, where a wave of different states all managed to ban sweepstakes casinos in quick succession.

Are sweepstakes casinos actually safe? 

Now that Indiana has kick-started what looks set to be another rough year of state bans for sweepstakes casinos, the question remains as to whether these relatively new online casinos are safe.

A growing number of state lawmakers believe that the dual-currency model used by these sites, designed to mimic real-world gambling, is exploitative and used as a means to bypass traditional gambling laws.

However, sweepstakes operators and the SGLA argue that these casinos all offer a free-to-play outlet and that there’s no requirement for players to directly purchase coin packages.

Popular sweepstakes casinos like Stake.us and Chumba Casino are all officially licensed as well, meaning players are safe from a consumer protection perspective.

Based on current trends, the fast-growing belief in the US is that sweepstakes casinos are almost identical to regular online casinos and should therefore be treated the same, which is why a significant number of states continue to push for bans.