The online casino industry has changed a lot since 2020. For a long time, traditional online casinos were the “go-to” sites. However, a new type of online casino — the sweepstakes casino – emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. This led to a tidal wave of fresh players entering the industry, with many of them captivated by this new type of experience. But what exactly are sweepstakes casinos and what has their impact been so far? Let’s take a look.

🎰 What Are Sweepstakes Casinos?

Sweepstakes casinos are a type of online casino where players enjoy casino-style games under a ‘sweepstakes format’. All of the games are free-to-play, you can win prizes, and there’s no in-state licensing required. Ultimately, this is because sweepstakes casinos are not classed as gambling sites.

When you enter an online sweepstakes casino, you’ll generally find hundreds of casino games to pick from (e.g. WOW Vegas has 1,000+ games). To play these games, you can either use gold coins or sweeps coins. With gold coins, you can play any of the available games for free. It’s a little different with sweeps coins, though, as they allow you to win prizes if you win enough of them back. Think of it like this: gold coins are just for fun and sweeps coins are for the prize-focused players.

🎉 Why Sweepstakes Casinos Have Become So Popular

The sweepstakes casino industry is now valued at over $6.2 billion US dollars. Yep, it’s hard to believe for such a new industry — but it’s true. And when it comes to why sweepstakes casinos have become so popular, there’s a big list of reasons:

✅ The casino games are free-to-play

✅ Most sweepstakes casinos have a mix of classic and modern slots

✅ You can win prizes like cash transfers, cryptocurrencies, and more

✅ There are lots of opportunities to interact with other players and make new friends

✅ It’s common to receive free sweeps coins and other random giveaways

When compared to traditional online casinos, you can see why there’s been a huge switch in players over to sweepstakes casinos. They offer pretty much everything that online casinos do but with some extra added benefits, too, so joining them is a no-brainer from the player’s perspective. This has led to the likes of Chumba Casino, Stake.us, and countless other sweeps casinos gaining player counts of 1 million+ players, with the trend expected to keep growing moving into the future.

💸 Sweepstakes Casinos and the Evolving iGaming Industry

Sweepstakes casinos have proven to be a real game-changer. They exploded at a time when the industry needed something exciting and fresh, as many players had started to become bored with the traditional casino format. With sweeps casinos, you have something that’s perfect for casual players (as you don’t have to bet real money) but still appeals to competitive players at the same time (with most sites offering a wide-range of prizes to win).

Because sweeps casinos have become so popular over recent years, the industry has naturally evolved. Other operators have caught onto the fact that they’re a major hit in the casino world, which has led to countless new sweeps casinos hitting the market. As of right now, this number sits at 45 in the US and is expected to be pushing 100 by the time the decade comes to a close.

Interestingly, there are a huge number of benefits to launching a sweepstakes casino. Aside from being able to attract thousands of players, operators also get to bypass gambling laws and regulations due to the fact that the sweepstakes format isn’t classed as genuine gambling. By escaping these laws, sweeps casinos can operate pretty much anywhere they like, including 48 out of the 50 US states. Now that’s a major advantage.

However, the freedom afforded to sweepstakes casinos could be about to end soon. Recently, the AGA issued a statement calling for sweepstakes casinos to face the same laws and regulations that regular gambling sites do. If this was to happen, it would mean that sweeps casinos lose their advantage as well as a huge number of players — which would be a huge shock for the iGaming industry.

🏆 The Most Popular Sweepstakes Casinos

For now, sweepstakes casinos remain 100% legal and are attracting thousands of new players every single day. In terms of popularity, some of the best sites, which you can find listed on sweepstakes casino expert site sweepstake-casinos.com, include:

⭐️ Chumba Casino

⭐️ Stake.us

⭐️ WOW Vegas

⭐️ Pulsz

⭐️ Fortune Coins

All of these sites offer hundreds of casino games and come with their own unique benefits. For example, Stake.us has weekly and monthly bonuses that you can win based on the games you play, while WOW Vegas has a rewards program for VIP members. Naturally, because each site has something different to offer, this typically leads to players joining multiple sweeps casinos rather than sticking with just one, which is something that you also have the freedom to do.

What Types of Games Do Sweepstakes Casinos Have?

As mentioned a little earlier, sweepstakes casinos normally have hundreds (sometimes thousands) of casino games in their libraries. In most cases, the libraries will include table games, slots, and live dealer games, so there’s something for all types of players. Unsurprisingly, though, slots are the most popular, which is why sweeps operators prioritize them above all other types of games. For example, Sweeptastic has over 1,000 slots, which is a crazy number. And what’s great about this is that most slot libraries are incredibly diverse, too, providing players with a collection of both classic and new slots to choose from.

Summary

Back in 2020, sweepstakes casinos were a fast-growing gaming industry trend but still relatively unknown. Fast-forward all these years later, though, and they’re putting traditional online casinos out of business. Yep, sweeps casinos are no longer just a trend: they’re a genuine industry game-changer. Moving forward, they could even become the default type of casino site that new players join, which will see the gambling industry switch away from real-money bets to a more sweepstakes-based model instead. It’s going to be an interesting ride — that’s for sure.