Sweepstakes Casinos & Gambling Sites

At best, online sweepstakes casinos offer a way to play slots and table games for cash prizes in states without legal online gambling industries. At the very least, sweepstakes gaming sites offer an alternative to traditional sites in regulated markets.

Sweepstakes-based casinos and poker rooms use a dual virtual-currency system in order to adhere to sweepstakes laws, making the sites legal in 49 US states, with the exception of Washington, for players who are at least 18 years of age.

While you’re likely to run across familiar titles from third-party game developers on some sweepstakes sites, others have developed exclusive game libraries in house, giving you something new to try.

Top bonuses at sweepstakes casinos

It won’t take long to get used to the system, and once you do, you’ll find that popular sweepstakes sites such as Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots and Funzpoints are essentially no different from traditional online casinos.

New players will benefit from various welcome bonuses, while regular promotions will keep things fresh for established customers. Keep reading for more details on the sweepstakes systems, including virtual currencies, cash prizes and casino games you’re likely to find.

What is a sweepstakes casino?

While you can end up with cash prizes for playing sweepstakes casino games, just like at real money online casinos, the similarity between the two ends there.

As mentioned above, sweepstakes sites use two virtual currencies. Chumba and its sister sites use Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins. Funzpoints Casino calls its two virtual currencies Standard Funzpoints and Premium Funzpoints. Whatever they’re called, they work the same way. Standard Funzpoints are equivalent to Gold Coins, and Premium Funzpoints are like Sweeps Coins.

All games are generally playable using both virtual currencies. Sweeps Coins are legal sweepstakes entries that you can receive for free. You can’t purchase them at free sweeps cash casinos.

When you use Sweeps Coins to play casino games, or “games of chance” as written in sweepstakes laws, you can redeem your winnings for cash prizes that you can deposit into your bank account.

The free Sweeps Coins that you receive aren’t worth anything, and you can’t exchange them for cash prizes. Only Sweeps Coins that you win playing games are redeemable. You can use Gold Coins to play games for fun. Gold Coins by themselves, as well as Gold Coin winnings, have no worth, and you can’t redeem them for cash prizes.

In order to stick to sweepstakes laws, you can get free Sweeps Coins in a couple of ways, which we cover below. Small quantities of Gold Coins are often available for free, too, but the simplest way to get more Gold Coins is to purchase them from the casino.

This is the key to how the sweepstakes system is able to work: When you purchase Gold Coins, the sweepstakes site will include a set number of free Sweeps Coins with your purchase.

For example, if you purchase $5 worth of Gold Coins, you might get five free Sweeps Coins. If you purchase $10 worth of Gold Coins, you might get 10 free Sweeps Coins. Amounts will vary, but that’s the general idea.

Are sweepstakes casinos legal?

Yes. If you are at least 18 years old, you can play online sweepstakes casino games for legal cash prizes everywhere in the US and Canada, except Washington and Quebec, which do not allow for-profit sweepstakes enterprises.

Sweepstakes casinos are subject to sweepstakes law as regulated by individual states and provinces. Virtual Gaming Worlds’ sweepstakes sites (Chumba and its relatives) are also licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority and use a random number generator that has been tested and certified as fair by an independent laboratory.

To stay on the right side of sweepstakes law, gaming sites have to be careful how they refer to their virtual currencies. Here’s a simple terminology guide:

Traditional Casino	Sweepstakes Casino
One US Dollar	One SC (won playing games)
Deposit	Purchase (GC packages with free SC)
Withdraw	Redeem (SC won playing games)
Real Money	Cash prizes

Best online sweepstakes casinos

While there are numerous social casinos online, relatively few of them offer legal cash prizes on the basis of sweepstakes laws. Several sweepstakes casinos are available, however, with at least a few more in development.

The best-known sweepstakes casinos are owned and operated by Australian-based Virtual Gaming Worlds, including Chumba Casino and LuckyLand Slots. While Chumba offers both in-house and third-party casino slots and table games, LuckyLand strictly offers in-house developed slots.

VGW also operates Global Poker, a sweepstakes poker room launched in 2016, as well as FendOff Sports, a sweepstakes sports prediction site launched in 2019. FendOff Sports works in tandem with virtual sports software developer Inspired Entertainment. See the sweepstakes poker section below for more on Global Poker.

While VGW’s sweepstakes-based business model is fully patented, sweepstakes laws apply to everyone, and, in 2018, Canadian-based Woopla Inc. launched Funzpoints, a dual-currency sweepstakes casino that incorporates lottery-style jackpot drawings along with plenty of in-house developed slots and keno games.

Keep reading for more details on these online sweepstakes casinos, including their welcome bonuses and game collections.

Chumba Casino

Chumba, VGW’s first sweepstakes site, originally launched in 2012, although the site didn’t really take off until its 2017 Facebook debut. Since then, more than 1 million players have signed up, and multiple players have won more than 1 million Sweeps Coins, including one lucky player who won more than 1.8 million Sweeps Coins after hitting the FireShot Jackpot in the casino’s exclusive progressive slots series.

At launch, Chumba Casino only offered sweepstakes casino slots and table games strictly developed in house, but now you will find close to 100 games, including select, licensed games from third-party developers. Chumba offers a good selection of table games, including two versions of blackjack, video poker and roulette.

The browser-based site is accessible via a web browser for desktop PC and Mac computers, as well as mobile browser for Android and iOS devices and tablets.

New players will qualify for a welcome bonus of 2 million Gold Coins and two free Sweeps Coins just for signing up. You’ll also qualify for a $30 value Gold Coin package for just $10 on first purchase, which includes 3 million Gold Coins and 30 free Sweeps Coins.

LuckyLand Slots

After acquiring a San Francisco game studio in 2019, VGW added a second sweepstakes casino, LuckyLand Slots, to its Facebook lineup. Although it doesn’t offer table or card games, LuckyLand has about 40 exclusive slots games that aren’t available on any other site, including Chumba.

The site is entirely web browser-based and accessible from updated web browsers for desktop Mac and PC computers, and mobile browsers for Android and Apple devices and tablets.

The LuckyLand site is rich with intricate graphics, as are the games. A number of LuckyLand’s slots feature high quality animations, including several in 3D. That said, the site and the games may take some time to load. While you should definitely give the site a try, if you have a data cap or an older graphics card and experience problems, you may want to stick with Chumba.

LuckyLand offers a whole slew of promotions, including a loyalty program and a selection of daily tournaments to choose from. Each tournament has a seeded prize pool, and the pot will keep growing as more and more players compete. The top 40 or so finishers will earn a share of the prize.

Just for signing up, LuckyLand Slots will give you 7,777 Gold Coins plus 10 free Sweeps Coins to try games out for free. Next, you’ll qualify for a $10 value Gold Coin package for just $4.99, with 50,000 Gold Coins plus 10 free Sweeps Coins on first purchase.

Funzpoints Casino

Canadian software company Woopla Inc. launched Funzpoints on Facebook in 2018. All games are developed in house, so they’re exclusive to the site. No table games are available, but you’ll find more than 20 casino slots and keno titles, and Funzpoints adds new games frequently.

As mentioned previously, Funzpoints calls its virtual currencies Standard Funzpoints (equivalent to Gold Coins) and Premium Funzpoints (the legal sweepstakes entry, which is equivalent to Sweeps Coins).

There are a number of other differences between Funzpoints and the two VGW sites. For one thing, there are two ways to win cash prizes on Funzpoints. First, just like the other sweepstakes casinos, when you play games using Premium Funzpoints, you can redeem any winnings for cash prizes.

Second, Funzpoints holds a $350 daily jackpot drawing that is split among 40 randomly chosen entries. It isn’t possible to purchase tickets to enter the drawing; you have to earn or win tickets. You earn one entry ticket for every 500 Funzpoints that you win during Standard and Premium gameplay.

So, even though only Premium Funzpoints winnings are redeemable for USD, you still have a chance to claim cash prizes when you play games using Standard Funzpoints via the daily drawing. This also sets the site apart.

Funzpoints’ games are rated low volatility, which means that, on average, you can expect to see lots of low- to medium-sized wins on a frequent basis. Factored in to that rating is the fact that as you spin, on top of in-game prizes and bonus rounds, you also earn points that will trigger a wide array of mini games with guaranteed prizes, called Boosters, along with visits to the Funzone, another special mini game. Side games are separate from the game, and will open in a new window.

Because the games feature a lot of low-value wins on a frequent basis, on average, mini games trigger often and daily drawing entry tickets add up quickly. The availability of games is different from the other sites. In summary:

• All but three games are locked to new users playing games with free Standard Funzpoints.
• As you earn points through gameplay, you will “level up” to higher levels.
• Additional games are unlocked as you level up.
• When you play games with Premium Funzpoints, all games are unlocked, among other perks.
• When you play games with Standard Funzpoints that you have purchased from the site, all games are unlocked, among other perks, for 30 days.

Note that other than the welcome bonus and free Premium Funzpoints from USPS mail request, the only way to get additional Premium Funzpoints is by purchasing Standard Funzpoints, which come with free Premium Funzpoints.

Just for signing up for a new account, Funzpoints will give you Premium Funzpoints equivalent to $2.50. Since all games are unlocked in Premium Funzpoints mode, this way you can try all of the games out for free.

Then, on your first purchase, you’ll get twice as many Standard Funzpoints and Premium Funzpoints up to the $20 package. Note that $2.50 is equivalent to 250 Premium Funzpoints.

Signing up at sweepstakes casinos

As long as you’re not a resident of Washington state and are at least 18 years old, signing up for a sweepstakes casino is easy and painless. Some sweepstakes casinos will even let you log in with your Facebook account to really streamline the process.

To get started, use one of our links to visit the site in order to get the maximum benefit of your welcome bonus. To register directly with the site, you’ll need to enter your legal details, choose a password and username, and agree to the site’s terms and conditions.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to go through a standard verification process to confirm your full, legal name and residential address before you’ll be able to redeem any of your winnings.

How to get Sweeps Coins for free

Other than bundled with purchases of Gold Coins, there are three ways to get free Sweeps Coins from Chumba Casino and LuckyLand Slots: promotions and bonus offers, giveaway contests on social media, and requests in the mail.

Both Chumba and LuckyLand offer a small amount of free Sweeps Coins just for logging in to your account once a day, and both host Sweeps Coin giveaways on their respective Facebook pages. Social media giveaways involve answering a game-related trivia question or sharing a post. A number of correct entries are randomly chosen to receive five Sweeps Coins, or occasionally more.

The only way to get free Premium Funzpoints, other than along with purchases of Standard Funzpoints, is to write Woopla Inc., and make the request via mail.

Chumba and LuckyLand have a very precise procedure for requests for Sweeps Coins by mail, so be sure to check the relevant site’s terms and conditions for details on how to format your request and where to mail it.

Types of sweepstakes games at online casinos

Chumba is the king of sweepstakes casinos as far as game collections go. At launch, Chumba only offered casino slots and table games developed in house, but now you will find close to 100 games that include licensed games from third-party developers such as Big Time Gaming and Reel Play, among others.

Chumba is the only sweepstakes casino discussed here that offers table games. On tap are two versions of blackjack, along with an exclusive Jacks or Better video poker game, and roulette from Golden Rock Studios.

Look for Chumba’s progressive FireShot Jackpot series that regularly features six-figure payouts.

LuckyLand has three progressive jackpot slots on hand, as well: Power of Ra, Neon Valley and Dr. Amazing. Also on offer are a few instant win games, including two scratch and win games, and Lucky Numbers, an instant win game similar to keno.

Funzpoints games have an average return-to-player ratio of 96.5%, so you can expect to see numerous low to medium payouts along with a chance for the bigger pots, too.

Sweepstakes poker sites

You might find 10,000 players seated at tables on VGW’s online sweepstakes poker room, Global Poker. As far as dual currencies, the site works just like sister sites Chumba and LuckyLand Slots.

Although some players take advantage of Gold Coin games, the majority of players instead play No Limit Texas Hold’em for Sweeps Coin stakes ranging from 0.11 up to 218.