Sweepstakes casinos: a founder’s checklist

The first three briefs set out the test, the states that have answered it, and what the new statutes leave open. This one turns them into the questions a founder answers before launch, in the order the answers depend on each other. Each comes with the text that makes it matter and one operator’s written answer. It is the list a state-by-state opinion works through, not a substitute for one.

1. Which states, and on which theory?

Every later answer depends on the map. For each state, record the theory that governs there: a lottery ban (Tennessee), an internet-gambling statute (Illinois), a dual-currency statute (California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York), or none stated yet. Then decide, and record why. A list is only as good as the check behind it. Chumba’s terms say how it enforces its own:

2. Who is on the cap table and in the vendor stack?

Brief 2 set out the supplier provisions: California’s § 337o(b) reaches payment processors, geolocation providers, content suppliers, platforms and media affiliates that act “knowingly and willfully”, and New York’s § 912(2)(b) names the same list with no knowledge element. The paragraph before it in New York reaches the people who own and govern the company:

Ask each investor, director and vendor whether it holds or plans to seek a New York gaming license, and give each the state map and the location controls from question 1.

3. Is the free route the same game as the paid one?

New Jersey’s statute holds the most detailed legislative list of what a lawful sweepstakes looks like. Its safe harbor is written for promotions tied to merchandise and excludes coins and online credits from that merchandise (Brief 3), so a dual-currency product does not qualify through it. Its conditions are still the clearest statutory benchmark for how a free route works:

Operators state parity in their own rules. High 5’s open with it:

Parity is a product fact before it is a sentence in the rules. Test it: a free Sweeps Coin and a bonus Sweeps Coin play the same games, at the same win rates, and redeem on the same terms. Disclose the rules and odds where the player enters.

4. Who can play, and who can win?

New Jersey’s paragraph (6) addresses minors who win more than $1,000. The operators set a higher floor at entry:

High 5’s rules also set twenty-one at the time of entry. Run the age check in the same flow as the location check, before the first Sweeps Coin, not first at redemption.

5. When does a coin become a prize, and what is checked first?

Set the redemption floor, the verification steps and the order they run in, and publish all three. Chumba sets a US$100 minimum and holds every redemption until its checks are done, with more documents above a set amount:

High 5’s rules use the same $2,000 figure, counted across a calendar year, and ask for a social security number at that level. Both count cumulative redemptions, so a player cannot split one prize into small requests to stay under the line.

6. Does any state need its own terms?

Three operators cap Florida redemptions at $5,000. Chumba’s rules:

High 5 caps Florida at $5,000 per entry period and defers the rest; Stake.us caps it at $5,000 a day. Florida’s game-promotion statute uses the same figure as its threshold for filing and bonding:

7. Can you prove which rules applied, and when?

Florida fixes filed rules once a promotion begins. Operators revise theirs often: Stake.us’s change log records ten versions adding states between February 2025 and July 2026 (Brief 2). Which version governed an entry is a question of fact in any dispute. High 5 answers it for mail-in requests by postmark:

Chumba asks players to re-confirm acceptance when an amendment limits their rights (Terms cl. 25.3). Keep every version with its dates, and each player’s acceptance, keyed to the account.

8. How do you leave a state?

Plan the exit before the entry. High 5’s Maine notice sets out an orderly wind-down in its own words:

What a builder does with this

• Answer the questions in order. The state map decides the vendor list and the location controls; the rules come last because they record the answers.
• Write each answer down with its source and date. The operators’ own documents already carry version numbers, dates, state lists and thresholds.
• Re-read the map before each release. Chumba’s list of excluded states went from three to sixteen in under three years (Brief 1).
• Keep the exit plan current for every state served: the dates, the order of steps and the redemption window.

Each question is a design decision with an answer a founder can write into the rules, where players, partners and regulators can all read it.