What is a sweepstake casino?
As online casinos are becoming more of a trend in the US, we’ve seen the emergence of sweepstake casinos. If you’re confused about what these are, then don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Even in 2024, the best sweepstakes casinos in the US are still misunderstood by many. The ‘sweepstakes’ of the title can be a little misleading, so just ignore any previous connotations you already have with that word.
Sweepstakes casinos are nothing to do with raffles, lotteries, or any kind of draw.
Instead, sweepstakes casinos are free-to-play casinos where you can redeem certain in-game currencies for real-world prizes (a more fitting name might’ve been Redemption Casinos or Arcade Casinos, but that’s besides the point). The most popular sweepstakes casinos online will have a library filled with different games, whether they're slots, table games or even casual game-show-style titles.
If you’ve ever been to an arcade, then you’ve already experienced something similar. You know how you put money into an arcade machine, but rather than giving you a prize, it’ll instead print out tickets that you can redeem at the desk? The process is very similar to how sweepstakes casinos work.
At a sweepstakes casino, you can use sweepstake coins to play a slot game, the slot game can pay out any winnings in redeemed sweepstakes coins, and then you can use these to redeem prizes in the shop.
We’ll explain this more later. For now, all you need to know is that a sweepstakes casino is a free-to-play online casino where you can redeem prizes with real-world value to them. These can be merchandise, gift cards or cash vouchers.
What is a social casino?
A social casino is similar to a sweepstakes casino, but there are some key differences. The biggest difference between a social casino and a sweepstakes is that you can only redeem real-world prizes at a sweepstakes casino. Social casinos are entirely free-to-play, but there are no options to get any kind of prizes, tokens or vouchers from them. The experience is entirely self-contained in the free-to-play casino-style games.
While you might be able to buy more coin packs to play with, there’s no way to withdraw anything back from the site.
What is a real-money casino?
A real-money casino is what’s considered your traditional casino. You can deposit money into the platform, and withdraw money whenever you see fit. While these are very popular across South America, Europe and the rest of the world, they’re still yet to find much success in the US.
This is due to legislation problems, as only a few states have legalized online casinos.
How are sweepstake casinos legal?
Sweepstake casinos are legal because in the US, gambling is defined as “staking or risking something of value upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game subject to chance, with the chance to win a prize”.
However, the sweepstakes casinos exist outside of this, as the coins used to play at the casino are not classed as being “something of value”. The free coins can be claimed by logging in, completing tasks or can be bought in the store, but they have no real-world value. These free coins cannot be exchanged for prizes, and as such, they have no real-world value.
Therefore, by using these free coins, the casino-style games of chance are never directly linked to awarding prizes to the player.
It's also fairly easy to tell the legitimate sweepstakes casinos from the bad ones, and that's down to the licensing. Many sweepstakes casinos have a license from a reputable authority, so if they don't have a licence, run for the hills!
How do sweepstake casinos work?
So if you use free coins to play the casino-style games, but you can’t redeem these free coins in the shop… how on earth do you redeem prizes at a sweepstakes casino? Well, the answer is simple.
When you log into a sweepstakes casino, you'll be rewarded with free coins after a set amount of time. Some sweepstakes casinos award free coins every 20 minutes, some once a day. At sweepstakes casinos, free gold coins can be used to play the slot games in the library.
Sweepstake casinos will have another currency available, usually called sweepstake coins, or sweeps coins. Very original, we know. These free sweeps coins will then be awarded as a bonus to players, such as when they buy free coin packs, win tournaments or complete certain tasks. However, and most importantly, you won’t ever be able to buy these sweeps coins directly - they can only ever be given away or handed out as a reward.
The sweepstake coins are given out much less frequently than free coins, due to the fact that they are used to redeem prizes. As such, you may have several million free coins, and only a handful of sweeps coins at any given time.
Being awarded these sweepstakes coins isn’t enough though, you’ll need to play through them at least once before you can redeem them. This means that you’ll have to use them in a casino-style game, where you could either lose them entirely or win more in return. Once you've reached the set playthrough requirement for the sweeps coins at a casino, then you can use them in the shop.
Can you win real money at sweepstake casinos?
You can redeem sweeps coins for real-world prizes, such as merchandise, vouchers, and sometimes straight cash. However, it can be legally troublesome to say that you can win cash from sweepstakes casinos, which is why it’s often worded very particularly, like in this article.
Do you have to pay to play at sweepstake casinos?
You don’t have to pay to play at sweepstake casinos, in fact, you can remain entirely free-to-play if you wish! There are plenty of ways to get coins for free, whether you collect log-in rewards, complete missions, participate in social media giveaways or redeem codes. Some of the best sweepstakes casinos in the US will often update their bonus codes, so make sure you check regularly so you don't miss out on any freebies.
That being said, there will always be ways to buy more coins if you want to - after all, these casinos are a business! Coin packages will usually be as low as $0.99, but can go as high as $500, depending on how many coins you want to buy at once.
The amount of sweeps coins you receive as a bonus will also scale with the amount you choose to purchase. For example, you could receive one sweeps coin in a $0.99 free coin package, but you could get a total of ten sweeps coins if you bought a $100 free coin package.