Sweepstakes casino revenue nearly doubled between 2023 and 2024, climbing from roughly $1.9 billion to $3.4 billion in net gaming revenue, according to industry analysts Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. Those numbers would make headlines on their own, but the real story is who’s getting involved. Drake, Paris Hilton and Ryan Seacrest have all signed on as brand ambassadors for sweepstakes casinos platforms, bringing millions of social media followers along for the ride.
Sweepstakes casinos sit in a legal grey area that lets players in dozens of US states access casino-style games for real prizes, all without technically gambling. It’s entertainment, promotion and potential payout rolled into one, pulling in exactly the kind of mainstream attention that traditional online gambling has struggled to attract.
How a Legal Grey Area Built a Billion-Dollar Playground
Sweepstakes casinos use a dual-currency system that keeps them on the legal side of a very thin line. As of 2026, these platforms operate legally in 33 US states, according to VegasInsider’s 50-state guide, compared to just eight states where real-money online casinos hold licences.
Here’s how it works in practice:
- Players receive Gold Coins (GC) for free or through purchases; these are purely for entertainment
- Sweeps Coins (SC) come as free bonuses alongside Gold Coin purchases, through daily logins, referrals or mail-in requests
- Sweeps Coins can be redeemed for real cash prizes after meeting playthrough requirements
- Sweeps Coins can’t be bought directly; this ‘no purchase necessary’ pathway is what keeps the model classified as a promotional contest rather than gambling
Only about 12% of players ever make a purchase, according to Optimove data cited by iGaming Business. But those who do spent a collective $8.5 billion on Gold Coin packages in 2024. That’s an enormous amount of money flowing through a system that, legally speaking, isn’t gambling.
When the American Gaming Association surveyed 2,250 players in June 2025, 90% of sweepstakes casino users said they considered the activity to be gambling. Sixty-eight percent said their primary reason for playing was to win real money. The gap between legal definition and lived experience is where all the tension sits.
When Paris Hilton Meets the Poker Table
Celebrity endorsements in licensed gambling are tightly regulated. Sweepstakes casinos, by existing outside that framework, give stars a way to partner with casino-style brands without the compliance burden that comes with traditional operators. The result looks more like a fashion collaboration than a gambling sponsorship.
Drake’s deal with Stake.us is reportedly worth $100 million a year, according to Gaming Today. He appears regularly in platform promotions and livestream giveaways, bringing his audience into a gaming environment that feels familiar to anyone who’s watched him celebrate a roulette win on social media. Paris Hilton took a different approach with WOW Vegas, working through her company 11:11 Media as brand ambassador. She promotes coin purchases, leads the platform’s VIP programmes and runs ‘Paris Prize Drops’ to her 26 million Instagram followers. Ryan Seacrest, meanwhile, has been the face of Chumba Casino since 2023, lending Wheel of Fortune-level credibility to one of the oldest sweepstakes platforms on the market.
Amouranth, a Twitch streamer with over six million followers, joined PlayFame as brand ambassador too, showing the trend reaching well beyond traditional A-listers and into the creator economy.
Regulators have taken notice. The Louisiana Senate held a hearing on illegal gambling in early 2025 that featured a slide presentation zeroing in on celebrity sweepstakes endorsements, as reported by SweepsKings. Legislators argued that familiar faces like Hilton and Seacrest create a perception of legitimacy for platforms operating without standard gambling oversight. That criticism hasn’t slowed the trend; if anything, it’s underlined how firmly sweepstakes casinos have planted themselves in the mainstream.
Can Popularity Outrun Regulation?
For all the celebrity buzz, the regulatory picture is tightening fast. Six US states enacted explicit bans on sweepstakes casinos during 2025, according to a legal analysis by WilmerHale. Montana moved first in May, followed by California in October (with AB 831 taking effect in January 2026), New York in December, then Connecticut, New Jersey and Nevada through the same period.
California’s exit alone was significant. The state accounted for roughly 17 to 20% of US sweepstakes casino market revenue, per VegasInsider, and its ban extended criminal liability to operators, payment processors, technology providers and media affiliates alike. Google also pulled sweepstakes casinos from its advertising certification programme in October 2025, cutting off a major marketing channel.
Eilers & Krejcik revised their 2025 revenue forecast downward from $4.7 billion to $4 billion, as reported by SCCG Management. Demand itself remains strong (player numbers are still twice as high in states without bans, per the AGA), but the addressable market is shrinking.
Thirty-three states remain open. Texas, Florida, Ohio and Illinois all provide full access, and operators launched over 25 new brands in 2025 alone, pushing the total above 150 active platforms. The audience for sweepstakes gaming shows no sign of losing interest.
So if platforms offering free-to-play access and real-cash redemptions keep getting banned in major markets, will fans wait for traditional online gambling to expand, or will demand push regulators toward creating an entirely new category?
The Bet Worth Watching
Sweepstakes casinos have landed at a rare intersection of celebrity culture, gaming and legal creativity. The endorsements from Drake, Paris Hilton and Ryan Seacrest signal that this form of entertainment has jumped from niche forums to mainstream feeds. The numbers confirm it, from billions in player spending to 150-plus active platforms competing for attention.
The next 12 months will be decisive. States will continue debating bans, operators will push for clear regulatory frameworks and the celebrity partnerships that brought attention to the model will keep expanding. As HollywoodLife reported, gaming endorsements have become some of the most lucrative deals in entertainment, with paydays that dwarf traditional film and music contracts.
For anyone who discovered sweepstakes casinos through a favourite celebrity’s feed, the appeal is obvious: real games, real prizes and a model that sits just outside the rules. Whether regulators can keep pace with an entertainment trend that’s already outgrown the framework built to contain it; that’s the part worth watching.
