At least 15 lawsuits against sweepstakes have been filed with Utah courts over the past week, according to Daniel Wallach, a gaming analyst and attorney, who specifically examined 12 of these.

Sweepstakes Increasingly Under Pressure, especially in Utah

Nationwide, there have been more than 100 lawsuits filed against sweepstakes casinos, alleging that they constituted a form of unregulated gambling in most cases and were just clever ways of skirting gambling regulation otherwise.

Google recently classified sweepstakes casinos as “not social,” suggesting that they are not merely recreational activities. In the case of Utah, Wallach said that there have been 10-odd companies implicated in non-compliance with gambling regulation, as per the complaints.

Among those are Stake.us, ARB Gaming, VGW, Blazesoft, Money Factor, Yellow Social Interactive, A1 Development, FSG Digital, Sunflower, KHK Games, and B2Services. Utah is particularly strict about its gambling laws, and not even generally innocuous activities such as bingo are allowed locally.

Charitable lotteries and raffles are effectively treated as a form of gambling and, therefore, illegal in the state, which further compounds things for any social casino trying to operate locally, and especially if it uses the sweepstakes model.

Google’s Change, Bans Across States Suggest Turn in Sweepstakes’ Fortunes

With so many complaints filed locally, Utah is the next state to see an exodus of operators that have not yet pulled the plug. In the meantime, Google’s decision is a clear sign that the platform concurs with the objection to the sweepstakes casinos’ claimed “social” status.

Some US states are already banning sweepstakes casinos, alleging that they are effectively a form of unregulated gambling and have no place in their jurisdictions operating the way they are.

Notably, California said that it would now officially restrict social and sweepstakes casinos come 2026, one of the latest states to join the vanguard against the sector.