By Martin Green.
With the biggest live dealer providers leaving certain states, can any sweepstakes casino still deliver a true blackjack table experience – or is the format finished in the U.S.?
The world’s leading live dealer providers are starting to abandon the U.S. sweepstakes market following a regulatory crackdown.
Evolution Gaming and Playtech have pulled their games from sweeps casinos in California, while Pragmatic Play has exited the entire U.S. sweepstakes market. It begs the question: can live dealer blackjack survive the sweepstakes clampdown?
Recent headlines may suggest impending doom, but if you scratch beneath the surface, there are more than 170 casinos, according to Sweepsy.com, an industry and trade publication. These sites are likely to continue offering live blackjack games in the future, but smaller studios will drive the market forward.
The Evolution of Live Dealer Games at Sweeps Casinos
Sweepstakes casinos have evolved at a rapid pace over the past few years. The first wave of sites only hosted a modest range of slots. Occasionally, you’d find a sweeps casino that offered one or two virtual blackjack games, but they weren’t particularly sophisticated. You know the drill: hit the “Play” button and a Random Number Generator determines which cards are dealt. There were no live dealer games, so blackjack players weren’t exactly flocking to these sites.
The launch of Stake.us in August 2022 raised the bar for the nascent industry. Within months, the site had rolled out a range of live dealer games from Iconic21 (formerly known as Beter Live).
Dozens of new sites launched, and the fight for market share intensified. Many new sites added live dealer games in a bid to stand out, but established sites like McLuck and WOW Vegas quickly followed suit. By 2024, the sweeps market stood a valuation of $4.2 billion, according to EK Gaming LLC.
Iconic21 – a studio based in Romania – initially cornered the market, but larger studios then muscled their way in. McLuck launched live dealer games from Playtech, and live dealer games from Evolution Gaming started to creep in.
The Sweepstakes Crackdown
Now the trend is in reverse. In September, three leading providers – Evolution Gaming, Pragmatic Play, and Hacksaw Gaming – pulled their games from Stake.us in California. The move followed mounting regulatory pressure.
The state of California filed a lawsuit against Sweepsteaks Ltd., which owns Stake.us, plus Evolution, Hacksaw, and Pragmatic Play. The lawsuit accused them of operating an illegal gambling business in the Golden State. Supplier liability, not operator legality, emerged as a choke point. Evolution responded by beating a hasty retreat from the market.
Playtech then told Sweepsy.com that it was pulling its games from all sweepstakes casinos in California. Pragmatic Play has now stopped supplying all sweeps casinos in the entire country. For the first time, many sweeps casinos’ libraries are shrinking, rather than growing.
In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Bill AB 831 into law, banning sweepstakes casinos in California. The ban comes into effect on Jan. 1.
Connecticut, Montana, and New Jersey have also banned sweepstakes casinos this year, and New York is poised to join that list. Meanwhile, many sites have ended operations in Maryland, Arizona, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Mississippi, after regulators in those states sent cease-and-desist letters.
This suggests that sweeps casinos are on the ropes, but the situation is actually far more nuanced. Most sweepstakes casinos are still operating in 35-40 states, plus the District of Columbia.
The sweeps market is now entering a new phase. While Evolution, Playtech, and Pragmatic Play are retreating under mounting legal pressure, smaller European and boutique studios will eventually fill the void and as 2026 approaches, the market will look a bit different but its unlikely to disappear altogether.
IMAGE CREDIT: Microsoft AI Copilot