Blask data shows the sweepstakes segment fragmenting at its demand peak with no brand dominating in any state.
On 1 July, Indiana becomes the seventh US state where an explicit legislative sweepstakes casino ban comes into force. According to Blask, Indiana was one of eight states where sweepstakes brands accounted for more than half of measured iGaming demand in May 2026.
Across all 50 states combined, the sweepstakes share was 23.5%, with the market pioneer Chumba Casino leading in 27 states but not dominating in any of them.
Blask metrics
Blask Index: real-time measure of market demand volume for iGaming brands in a given country, based on normalised search data.
BAP (Brand’s Accumulated Power): a share of a given brand in a country’s total Blask Index.
What sweepstakes casinos are, and where they’re banned
Sweepstakes casinos offer the same games as real-money online casinos but run on two virtual currencies: Gold Coins, which are for play and carry no cash value, and Sweeps Coins, which can be redeemed for real money. Crucially, Sweeps Coins can be obtained for free. Because no purchase is required to win cash, operators argue the product is a promotion rather than gambling.
That argument did not hold everywhere. Washington, Idaho, Michigan and Nevada had already closed the model off, or made it high-risk, under older gambling laws and enforcement. The newer laws are more direct: they target online sweepstakes games explicitly. New Jersey’s ban was the first to take effect (on 15 August 2025), followed by Montana and Connecticut (both 1 October 2025), New York (5 December 2025), California (1 January 2026) and Tennessee (22 May 2026).
Indiana’s ban takes effect on 1 July 2026. The same day, Iowa goes a different way, giving its regulator new power to act against unlicensed gambling and illegal sweepstakes. Maine’s ban follows later in July, and Oklahoma’s on 1 November.
Oklahoma, Iowa and Indiana are among the several states where sweepstakes casinos are extremely popular, according to Blask data.
Peak demand, a loosening grip
The demand for online sweepstakes in the USA is currently near its peak levels. It rose 128x since early 2020, after the boom started during Covid restrictions. As of May 2026, the Blask Index of the sweepstakes casino segment was higher than demand for traditional iGaming brands or prediction markets. Only unbranded demand, which is 85.2% Lottery, accounted for higher levels than interest in sweepstakes.
In eight states (Alabama, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Utah and Wyoming) sweepstakes generated more demand than traditional and prediction markets brands combined with general interest for iGaming. The lowest sweepstakes share was shown in Michigan — only 1.4%. In four more states (New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maryland) sweepstakes share was lower than 5%, while aggregated value in the USA was 23.5%.
The segment leader is Chumba Casino, the market pioneer that launched an online sweepstakes casino back in 2012. As of May 2026, Chumba Casino accounted for 19.2% of the segment’s total Blask Index in the USA, down by 3.1 percentage points compared to May 2025. The combined share of top 10 sweepstakes brands in segment’s Blask Index dropped from 71.8% to 59.2%.
No brand holds a majority in any state
Chumba Casino was a leading sweepstakes brand in 27 states in May 2026. In the remaining jurisdictions, leaders were Crown Coins (10 states), Lucky Rush (7), Funzpoints (2), Stake, Yay Casino, LuckyLand Slots, and Skills and Slots. Chumba Casino was outside the top 10 in Connecticut, Mississippi, New Jersey, and West Virginia.
As of May 2026, there was not a single state where one brand accounted for over 50% of sweepstakes’ Blask Index. A year earlier there were two such states as Stake dominated the sweepstakes market both in Nevada and Washington. Since then the operator has dropped to second and fourth place, respectively.
Washington is the state with the highest top 10 brands concentration among all — over 89%. The lowest top 10 share in the state’s Blask Index was accounted for in New Mexico, but it is 55.8%, which means the segment is extremely competitive at the top in every state.
Bottom line
Sweepstakes’ share of US iGaming demand has stalled as the state bans spread, but user attention shifts to prediction markets rather than to traditional iGaming. Unlike the prediction markets segment, sweepstakes have no dominant brand and the competition is severe in most states. How much of that demand survives as the bans widen is the real test now.
Blask is an AI-powered platform for iGaming and gambling market analytics. The company turns fragmented open-source signals into real-time insight on brand visibility, player demand, and baseline revenue metrics, helping teams move first, spend smarter, and reduce risk across global markets.