Sweepstakes Casino Lawsuits: Class Actions, State Enforcement and Settlements

3 sweepstakes casino lawsuits are on record as of 14 November 2026, 2 of them filed in 2025 and 6 in 2026, in 16 states and the District of Columbia. They are player class actions, government suits and a few operator-started arbitrations against dual-currency sites such as Chumba Casino, Stake.us, Pulsz and Modo.

Which of these suits has produced money for a player? The Kentucky settlements of 2023 and 2024 closed to claims, one six-state Pulsz settlement is open until 30 November 2026, and New York's attorney general won a redemption right for New Yorkers that runs to 31 August 2027.

No court has ruled on the merits of the dual-currency model; arbitration clauses, not gambling law, have decided most outcomes so far.

Settlements you can still claim: Pulsz six-state election to 30 November 2026, New York VGW redemption to 31 August 2027

One sweepstakes casino settlement accepts claims as of 14 November 2026: the Pulsz six-state settlement (Robinson v. Yellow Social Interactive, Circuit Court of Franklin County, Alabama, 33-CV-2025-900072.00).

It covers Pulsz and Pulsz Bingo purchasers in Alabama, Ohio, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Kentucky, and its cash election, exclusion and objection deadline is 30 November 2026 at ysisettlement.com, read from the preliminary approval order of 31 August 2026 and the long-form notice.

Judge Brian P. Hamilton granted preliminary approval on 31 August 2026 and appointed EisnerAmper as administrator; the fairness hearing is set for 31 December 2026 at 10:00 in Russellville, Alabama. Our overview of all gambling lawsuits by category shows where this category sits among the others.

The Pulsz payout estimate is a percentage of each member's own net purchase amount, not a flat sum. The agreement's estimated total benefit of about USD 14 million is 25 percent of members' net purchases, mostly in Gold Coins, and it is not a cash fund.

By default a member receives 27 percent of net purchases in Gold Coins, delivered over up to 12 months (at least 20 percent within 30 days) with no form needed.

A member who elects cash by 30 November 2026 receives an estimated 23 percent, so USD 1,000 of net spend is an estimated USD 230 before deductions for administration costs and the fee award (the agreement computes benefits net of fees, caps the request at 30 percent, and has the defendant pay the award), and the court has not decided the award.

Cash elections are capped in aggregate at 25 percent of the estimated total benefit, about USD 3.5 million, and any shortfall is paid in Gold Coins.

The New York right is narrow. Under the assurance (Executive Law 63(15)), VGW Holdings Pty.

Ltd., VGW Luckyland Inc., VGW Malta Limited and VGW GP Limited agreed without admitting or denying to pay USD 8 million to New York State and, for one year, to redeem in cash the Sweeps Coins that New Yorkers held on 2 June 2025 if they missed the 2025 phase-out notice.

These three settlements are closed to claims, and no further claim window is open on any of them.

5 gambling settlements accept claims site-wide, among them the High 5 social casino settlement (claims to 4 January 2027), and the open gambling class action settlements by deadline tracker moves each row the day a court acts.

The numbers in brief

The 3 cases split into class actions (2), individual suits (0), government actions (1), operator-started arbitration cases (0), appellate matters (0) and mass arbitration intakes (0).

By status, 0 are filed with no ruling, 0 are stayed for arbitration, 0 are at the motion-to-dismiss stage, 0 are dismissed, 0 withdrawn, 0 on appeal, 0 decided by judgment, 1 closed to claims and 5 open.

Related records sit in other categories, and each category page owns its own cases.

Lawsuits by company

Operators, app platforms, a lender, payment and identity vendors and celebrity promoters are all defendants in this category, and the entity match that produces each operator count is stated under the table.

VGW (Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, Global Poker): 2 cases

VGW (VGW Holdings, VGW Malta, VGW Luckyland, VGW GP, VGW US and the Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots and Global Poker brands) is a defendant in 2 of the 3 cases.

They include the USD 11.75 million Armstead settlement in Kentucky (claims closed 6 March 2023), the attorney-general suits of Kentucky (17 June 2026), Florida (19 August 2026) and Arkansas (4 November 2026), the New York assurance of 31 August 2026 and the Baltimore suit.

The rest are 0 player class actions, most stayed for arbitration. One of them, the spouses' case Brown v. VGW (N.D. Cal. 4:25-cv-07071), was kept in court on 18 September 2026 and is now before the Ninth Circuit (No. 26-6577).

Stake.us (Sweepsteaks), Drake, Adin Ross and Kick

Stake.us (Sweepsteaks Limited) is a defendant in 0 cases. They include the Los Angeles City Attorney's suit of 28 August 2025, Florida's suit of 19 August 2026, the class actions that name Drake and Adin Ross as promoters (Missouri, Virginia and New Mexico), the Minnesota ruling of 1 July 2026 that refused to enforce Stake's arbitration clause and the Massachusetts arbitral ruling of 30 July 2026 that upheld it, confirmed by Judge Stearns on 16 October 2026.

Drake, Adin Ross and Kick are named as defendants; the claims against them are allegations, and Kick Streaming was dismissed from the Virginia case on 12 June 2026.

Modo (ARB Gaming), McLuck (B2Services) and Crown Coins (Sunflower)

Modo (ARB Gaming) is a defendant in 0 cases, McLuck (B2Services, B-Two Operations) in 0 and Crown Coins (Sunflower) in 0, and none of them has a settlement, a certified class or a fund.

Modo won its arbitration motions in Illinois, Ohio, Oregon and Utah but lost one in Massachusetts (Miranda, 14 September 2026, First Circuit No. 26-2094).

Joyce v. ARB Gaming (E.D. Cal. 2:25-cv-01868) is an individual duty-of-care suit that also names McLuck and the lender Affirm, with no ruling located. In the Crown Coins cases, plaintiffs have mostly accepted or lost arbitration, and one Ohio plaintiff is still contesting it.

Pulsz, High 5 Casino, Blazesoft, Funzpoints and the smaller operators

Pulsz (Yellow Social Interactive) is a defendant in 1 cases and the only operator with two settlements, USD 1.32 million in Kentucky (closed 29 January 2024) and the six-state settlement now open. Wisconsin is not in that settlement, and a Pulsz case there was removed to federal court on 23 October 2026.

High 5 Casino (1 cases), Blazesoft (0), Woopla (0) and A1 Development (0) follow. Single cases name WOW Vegas, RealPrize, The Money Factory, Fliff and several smaller sites. High 5 runs two products, and its social casino verdict and settlement are kept with the social casino cases.

Apple, Google, Affirm and the payment processors

Apple and Google are defendants in 0 sweepstakes cases for processing coin purchases. The first Bargo suit was withdrawn on 14 March 2025, the refiled case was kept out of the social casino multidistrict litigation by the Judicial Panel on 6 August 2025 and moved to the Northern District of California on 29 June 2026, and a New York RICO suit against VGW, Apple and Google has been pending since 3 December 2024.

Florida's complaint against VGW names Yodlee, Trustly and Worldpay, and the spouses' class action names Jumio, Yodlee and Trustly. A Florida class action named Fidelity National Information Services, and Affirm is a defendant in Joyce.

State and city enforcement: Kentucky, Florida, Arkansas, New York, Baltimore and Los Angeles

Three state attorneys general have sued a sweepstakes casino operator in court: Kentucky on 17 June 2026 (Franklin Circuit Court), Florida on 19 August 2026 (two suits, Hillsborough County) and Arkansas on 4 November 2026 (White County).

New York settled by assurance on 31 August 2026 without a court filing, and two cities, Los Angeles (28 August 2025) and Baltimore (4 March 2026), sued before any state did.

A complaint states one side's allegations, and only the court's orders decide anything. The government complaints say the dual-currency sites are illegal gambling, allege underage play and tax shortfalls, and seek penalties and restitution, but no court has ruled on those allegations in this record.

Several regulators wrote letters that never reached a court. Per trade press, Illinois sent 65 cease-and-desist letters on 5 February 2026, Louisiana sent 42 on 17 June 2025, Arizona issued seven orders in April 2025 and Mississippi sent ten in June 2025; these are enforcement facts, not cases.

Sweepstakes casino bans by state: law and date in force

The table lists the states that have banned dual-currency sweepstakes casinos by statute, with the date each law took effect; a ban is a legislative act, not a court case, and the suits in the record were filed under the gambling and consumer laws that existed before it.

Dates and citations come from the benchmark and trade press and must be verified against the chaptered laws.

The sweepstakes casino bans by state tracker checks each row against the chaptered law.

What changed in the last 60 days

0 sweepstakes casino cases were filed and 0 changed status in the record between 15 September and 14 November 2026. The dated events, newest first:

• 12 November 2026: a Minnesota player sued Sunflower (Crown Coins) in the District of Minnesota, 0:26-cv-04804.
• 4 November 2026: Arkansas Attorney General v. VGW filed in White County Circuit Court.
• 3 November 2026: Judge Land remanded Georgia Gambling Recovery v. Blazesoft to the Muscogee County State Court, holding the New York Convention does not reach a non-signatory's statutory claims (M.D. Ga. 4:26-cv-00914).
• 28 October 2026: the same judge denied remand in Georgia Gambling Recovery v. VGW (4:26-cv-00883), keeping it in federal court.
• 23 October 2026: Pulsz's operators removed a Wisconsin suit to federal court (E.D. Wis. 2:26-cv-01968).
• 20 October 2026: a new Modo suit was filed in the Southern District of Ohio (2:26-cv-01514), and the plaintiff in the Northern District of Ohio Modo class action dismissed it after arbitration was compelled.
• 16 October 2026: Judge Stearns confirmed the arbitral ruling for Stake.us in Moreira (D. Mass. 1:25-cv-11481).
• 6 October 2026: the Ninth Circuit opened No. 26-6577 in the VGW spouses' case.
• 30 September 2026: the First Circuit opened No. 26-2094 in Miranda v. ARB Gaming.
• 29 September 2026: a federal court in Ohio compelled arbitration of a Fortune Coins class action (S.D. Ohio 2:26-cv-00201).
• 28 September 2026: Knapp v. VGW went on appeal (Third Circuit No. 26-1844 and Eleventh Circuit No. 26-11225).
• 22 September 2026: a Florida player sued the Crown Coins casino in the Middle District of Florida (8:26-cv-02716).
• 18 September 2026: Judge Martinez-Olguin denied VGW's motion to compel arbitration in Brown (N.D. Cal. 4:25-cv-07071).

The next dates are 30 November 2026 (Pulsz election), 31 December 2026 (Pulsz fairness hearing), 4 January 2027 (High 5 social casino claims) and 31 August 2027 (New York redemption). Each move is logged on what changed in gambling litigation in the last 60 days.

The legal theory in two paragraphs

Every sweepstakes casino lawsuit turns on whether a "free" Sweeps Coin or Stake Cash bundled with a Gold Coin purchase is consideration for a chance to win cash, which would make the dual-currency site an unlicensed casino under state gambling law, or a lawful sweepstakes promotion with a free entry route, which is what every operator pleads.

Stake.us, for example, is alleged to bundle 20.05 Stake Cash with a USD 20 purchase. No court has ruled on that question in this record. The theory is explained in the sweepstakes casino model and why courts are testing it.

Private plaintiffs mostly rely on loss-recovery statutes that let a loser, or in some states a third person, sue for gambling losses: KRS 372.020 and 372.040 in Kentucky, Ala. Code 8-1-150, Tenn.

Code Ann. 29-19-105, O.C.G.A. 13-8-3 in Georgia, N.Y. General Obligations Law 5-419 and 720 ILCS 5/28-8 in Illinois, with Utah Code 76-9-1412 (formerly 76-10-1113) allowing double damages. Governments add consumer-protection law and, in Baltimore, the city code. The statutes are collected in gambling loss recovery statutes by US state.

Arbitration: sent to arbitration or kept in court

Arbitration clauses, not gambling law, have decided most sweepstakes casino cases so far: the record holds 5 rulings sending players to individual arbitration and 0 rulings keeping them in court. The 2026 rulings that kept players in court are Wolters v.

Sweepsteaks (D. Minn., 1 July 2026: the terms may be void under Minnesota gambling law and Stake's screenshots did not show assent), Miranda v. ARB Gaming (D. Mass., 14 September 2026: Modo's terms were illusory) and Brown v.

VGW (N.D. Cal., 18 September 2026: non-signatory spouses are not bound), each now on appeal. The pattern is tracked on gambling cases and arbitration clauses.

The mass-arbitration route runs alongside the courts: about 1,000 Zula and Sportzino players filed arbitration demands, and the operators' suit against their law firms was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction on 7 March 2025. How that route works is in mass arbitration against gambling operators.

Who may sue: the non-player suits and the standing rulings

Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia let a third person sue for a gambler's losses, and the federal courts have held since 2025 that such a non-player has no Article III injury. The Sixth Circuit remanded the Tennessee suits on 17 March 2025 (Burt v.

Playtika with Duckworth v. Yellow Social Interactive and Ewing v. VGW, 25-5038, 25-5039, 25-5040 and 25-5042), and the Western District of Kentucky dismissed five suits on 26 March 2026 (Cayce v. VGW, 4:24-cv-00086, Judge Beaton; Sixth Circuit appeals pending).

A purpose-built company, Georgia Gambling Recovery LLC, now sues VGW and Blazesoft in Georgia. The VGW case stayed in federal court when remand was denied on 28 October 2026, and the Blazesoft case went back to state court on 3 November 2026.

Settlements, judgments and orders to date

The money record of sweepstakes casino litigation consists of the Kentucky settlements of USD 11.75 million (Chumba and LuckyLand, 2023), USD 1.32 million (Pulsz, 2024) and USD 835,000 (Funzpoints, 2024, per a secondary source), the six-state Pulsz settlement with an estimated total benefit of about USD 14 million (open), and USD 8 million paid by VGW to New York State with a redemption right for New Yorkers.

No court has yet entered a judgment on the merits for or against a player.

What each claimant received: the formulas behind every payout estimate

No sweepstakes casino settlement pays a fixed amount per person. The Armstead fund was divided pro rata on each claimant's documented losses after fees, costs and awards, the administrators of the Kentucky settlements published no per-claimant figures, and the Pulsz six-state settlement pays a percentage of each member's net purchase amount.

A payout estimate therefore needs the member's own spend, the fee award and, for cash, the aggregate cap. To test your own numbers against these formulas, use the gambling settlement payout per person calculator.

Every case we track

The table lists all 3 sweepstakes casino cases in the record as of 14 November 2026, with court and docket, filing date, status and its date, fund where one exists, and the primary source we read.

The same rows are available as a spreadsheet from open data.

Questions people ask

Is there a Chumba Casino class action settlement or payout?

No Chumba class settlement is open: the one Chumba and LuckyLand settlement (Armstead v. VGW Malta, Kentucky, USD 11.75 million) closed to claims on 6 March 2023, the New York assurance lets New Yorkers redeem Sweeps Coins held on 2 June 2025 until 31 August 2027, and every other VGW class action is pending, stayed for arbitration or on appeal. Every VGW case is on VGW (Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, Global Poker) lawsuits.

How do I get a refund from a sweepstakes casino?

Outside the Pulsz election and the New York redemption right, no refund process exists in this record; a court-approved claim form is the only route a settlement ever opens, and the official sites are listed above with the order that appointed each administrator. The steps for a real claim are in how to file a claim in a gambling settlement.

Filing a claim is free, and a site that asks for a fee is not the court's administrator. Whether any court has ordered losses repaid is covered in can you get gambling losses back: what courts have ordered.

Can I file a lawsuit against an online sweepstakes casino if I agreed to arbitration?

Usually the claim goes to an individual arbitration before the AAA or JAMS, which is where 5 of the cases in this record now sit; the exceptions so far are Minnesota (Wolters), Massachusetts against Modo (Miranda), non-signatory spouses (Brown) and the California public-injunction suits (Dinslage, Portugal). The grounds that have worked are in can you sue a casino or sportsbook: grounds that have worked.

Each ruling is on sent to arbitration or kept in court, with its appeal status.

What is the average payout per person in these settlements?

There is no average: the Kentucky settlements paid pro rata on each claimant's own purchases and the administrators published no per-claimant figures, and the Pulsz payout estimate is a percentage of the member's net spend after deductions, not a flat sum. Actual amounts from past settlements are compared in class action payout per person: what gambling settlements actually paid.

What this page does not cover

Several nearby topics are covered elsewhere. Social casino apps whose chips cannot be redeemed for cash are a separate category of 0 cases on social casino lawsuits, built on the same loss-recovery statutes.

Federal criminal and payment statutes are explained in what the Wire Act, UIGEA and PASPA actually decided.

An operator that refuses to pay a winning balance is a different dispute, covered in can you sue a casino or sportsbook that refuses to pay.

Whether a state has banned the sweepstakes model is tracked on sweepstakes casino bans by state; this page records court cases, not licensing.

Sources and method

Of the 3 cases on this page, 2 carry a status read directly from an order, opinion or filed complaint; the rest rest on dockets as indexed, administrator sites, government releases and press, each flagged in the table.

Settlement Insight, Top Class Actions and classaction.org are leads, never the sole source of a status. See the methodology and corrections.

Filing a claim is free. GamblingLawsuits.org is a non-profit public record, not a law firm and not a claims administrator, and it carries no advertising and no operator links.