What is the SPGA? Also known as the Social and Promotional Games Association, the SPGA is an advocacy group for social and promotional games, whose mandate is to provide industry best practices and present a unified voice with policymakers and the public.
Social and promotional games, or sweepstakes games, are, pardon the pun, sweeping the nation. This novel gaming experience has exploded in popularity, with approximately 55 million Americans playing sweepstakes games and generating $8 billion in revenues for the industry.
That explosive growth has brought negative attention from state regulators in the form of cease-and-desist requests, forcing operators to band together through the SPGA to protect their industry.
How Is The SPGA Impacting The iGaming Landscape?
Already, the SPGA is seeing wins across the industry by organizing and speaking up. Arkansas, Maryland, and Mississippi tried to ban sweepstakes games through legislative action but failed.
Arkansas's Bill 1861 was withdrawn for further study by bill sponsor Matt Duffield. The SPGA had commented weeks before Duffield withdrew his bill that HB1861 was broadly punitive and requested that lawmakers engage with stakeholders to create "balance [and] informed policy".
A similar win took place in Maryland, where SB860 wasn't voted on after the SPGA argued that a ban would stop all sweepstakes games. That includes ones run by McDonald's and Starbucks, such as the Monopoly game and Starbucks for Life.
These legal wins have been vital for an industry under heavy attack from state regulators. But the SPGA is getting more than legal 'dubs'; it is also creating legitimacy for these widely popular games. Specifically, in the eyes of lawmakers who have wrongly characterized these games as happening offshore.
Who is the SPGA
With the meteoric rise of social and promotional games across the US, operators found it necessary to form a group to protect their interests. Thus, the birth of the SPGA.
Their focus is primarily on legal guidance through "regulatory developments" such as updates on various legal challenges to the industry and providing its perspective to lawmakers across the US. That focus has proven fruitful lately with wins in Arkansas and Maryland.
While there are no immediate plans for the SPGA's future, ideally, the group can secure the legal integrity of its industry through its ongoing advocacy efforts with lawmakers and bring even more members into its fold.
While ten of the biggest sweepstakes games are already members of the SPGA, VGW, which owns Chumba Casino and Luckyland Slots, two incredibly popular online social casinos, is not yet a member.
SPGA Members
While VGW is not yet a member of the SPGA, many of the most popular social casinos are. Every SPGA member is a "US-facing" legal platform that offers games to the US market. Per the SPGA's website, each member has "established the legality of their games and platform through a thorough legal and regulatory analysis".
| Members | Brands/Sites |
|---|---|
| 10 Ten Gaming | Smiles Casino |
| Blazesoft | Fortune Coins Zula |
| Fliff | Fliff Social Sportsbook Sidepot Casino |
| FSG Digital | JefeBet |
| Gold Coin Group | Punt Chanced |
| High 5 Entertainment | High 5 Casino High 5 Casino Classic |
| KHK Games | KHK Sports Clubs Poker New Wave Poker |
| Kickr Games | Kickr Casino Kickr Sports |
| Octacom | N/A |
| Rolling RIches | Rolling Riches Casino |
| Woopla gaming | Funzpoints |
More Fighting Left
There is much more work for the SPGA to do with several states still considering some form of outright ban or restriction on sweepstakes games:
- New York: Senate Bill 5935 has advanced to a third reading in New York's Senate. The bill would "prohibit the operation, conduct, or promotion of online sweepstakes games". The SPGA is critical of how this bill has been rushed through the Senate with three readings in three days and calls SB5935 "economic self-sabotage".
- Louisiana: Senate Bill 181 also seeks to ban sweepstakes games, defining them as "illegal gambling by computer". Once again, the SPGA points to how industry stakeholders were not consulted before drafting this bill. It also points to how studies have shown that sweepstakes games do not compete with real-money Casinos, of which Louisiana has 24.
- New Jersey: New Jersey is also looking to ban these games through Bill 5447. The SPGA asks the Garden State regulators, who've "led the way in gaming regulation," to take a balanced approach to regulating sweeps rather than rush to prohibition.
- Pennsylvania: In the Keystone State, 18 sweepstakes operators were served with cease-and-desist letters. The SPGA points to the three states already rejecting cease-and-desist letters for sweeps operators and that Pennsylvania should follow this approach instead of "broad regulatory action that is out of step with legal precedent".
What Does This Mean For The Future Of Sweepstakes Casinos
With so many challenges, the future of sweepstakes casinos balances upon the edge of a knife. A position that the SPGA is working tirelessly to solve, thankfully for them, a few legal wins have put momentum on their side.
What occurs in the four aforementioned states, as well as lawsuits against Stake in California, will decide on which end of the knife the future of sweepstakes casinos falls.
What's Next For Sweepstakes Casinos?
For the games, the future is all about innovation and who can offer customers the most exciting and engaging experiences. That could be growing live dealer offerings or new prizes, like NFTs.
Better yet, rather than reinvent the wheel, operators can improve on fundamental aspects of their business, such as payouts. Payouts generally take 1-5 business days to deposit into your account. Reducing that wait time to mere hours would be revolutionary in the industry and set any operator above the crowd.
Sweepstakes Caisnos
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