Chumba Casino Founder Laurence Escalante Departs VGW Permanently
Laurence Escalante, the Perth-based billionaire who founded Virtual Gaming Worlds in 2010 and built it into the dominant force in the American sweepstakes casino market, has resigned as chief executive and executive chairman with immediate effect.
VGW confirmed the departure on July 3, stating that Escalante would step away to focus on personal affairs and private business activities managed through his family office. Acting CEO Mats Johnson, who previously served as the company’s president and chief marketing officer, will continue in the interim role while VGW conducts a global search for its next chief executive.
The resignation ends a five-month leave of absence that began in January, when Escalante was arrested in Perth on charges stemming from an alleged assault of his former partner and a police raid at his residence that produced what authorities described as trafficable quantities of cocaine, MDMA, and other controlled substances. He now faces a total of 26 charges, including aggravated assault, aggravated home burglary, persistent family violence, and multiple counts of possessing prohibited drugs with intent to sell or supply. He has contested the charges, and no trial date has been set.
Pioneering the Sweepstakes Model
The company Escalante is leaving behind is considerably larger than it was when he stepped aside in January. VGW reported revenue approaching $7 billion in fiscal year 2024-25, built almost entirely on three brands targeting American consumers: Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, and Global Poker. The sweepstakes model that Escalante pioneered used a dual-currency system, allowing players to participate in casino-style games for free with virtual chips while offering a parallel currency redeemable for prizes, structured to avoid legal classification as gambling under most state laws. Escalante described the model plainly in an early company presentation as an attempt to “combine social gaming with gambling.”
That model powered remarkable growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, when VGW’s social media advertising push on Facebook and other platforms expanded its monthly user base from roughly 10,000 to more than one million. At peak, VGW served an estimated one million daily users in the United States, making it a significant competitor not only to licensed iGaming operators in the handful of states where online casino is legal, but to the broader category of gaming entertainment that competes for leisure time and discretionary income across the country.
Escalante completed a buyout of VGW’s minority shareholders in August 2025, taking the company fully private through his family office at a valuation of approximately AU$3.2 billion. The timing, just months before his arrest, means VGW now navigates one of the most turbulent periods in its history without public disclosure requirements and without its founder in a management role.
Escalante Departs as Sweepstakes Casino Legal Battles Continue
Escalante’s departure arrives at a particularly difficult moment for VGW and the sweepstakes casino industry more broadly. The company has withdrawn its dual-currency products from more than ten states, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Tennessee, and West Virginia, as state regulators and legislators have moved to restrict or ban the sweepstakes model. California passed legislation restricting the model. Indiana and Tennessee have taken steps toward similar bans in 2026.
The Kentucky Attorney General’s lawsuit, filed in June, targeted VGW alongside Kalshi and Polymarket, treating all three companies as operators of unlicensed gambling products under state consumer protection law. As we noted when covering that case, the decision to bundle a sweepstakes casino with federally regulated prediction market platforms in a single enforcement action reflected a political framing more than a legal equivalence: the AG’s office was making a statement about companies using novel legal structures to offer gambling-adjacent products without state licensing, regardless of the distinct legal theories each company relies on.
That framing is becoming more common across state governments, and it creates a commercial environment VGW’s interim leadership will need to navigate without the founder who designed the original regulatory architecture around which the company’s business model is built. Mats Johnson’s statement credited Escalante with pioneering a new social gaming category. Whether the category survives in its current form through the regulatory scrutiny now bearing down on it from multiple directions is the question VGW’s next permanent CEO will inherit along with the job.
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