Florida Attorney General Pursues Sweeps Casinos and Their Payment Facilitators
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed two lawsuits on August 19 against the country’s largest sweepstakes casino operators.
In what could be extremely significant for the sweepstakes industry, the complaints this time don’t stop at casino brands. Filed in Hillsborough County Circuit Court, the suit names VGW (Chumba Casino, LuckyLand, Global Poker) and Stake (through Sweepsy Ltd, Easygo, Medium Rare, and Kick Streaming, plus co-founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani individually) for running illegal gambling operations under Florida law and the state’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
That part of the story we’ve seen before. States have chased the sweepstakes model for years because of its dual-currency structure: buy Gold Coins, get Sweeps Coins free, and redeem the Sweeps Coins for cash. Uthmeier’s framing was simple. “If it looks like a casino, takes real money like a casino, and pays out like a casino, it is a casino,” he said in the release announcing the suits.
He added that the conduct is illegal under Florida law regardless of what the platforms call themselves. What’s new is who else got named alongside the operators.
Five Payment Processors Named as Co-Defendants
The VGW complaint names Yodlee, Trustly, and Worldpay. The Stake complaint names Praxis and Breeze Labs. According to the filings, Yodlee linked player bank accounts to the platforms, Trustly moved the money, and Worldpay processed the card transactions. Praxis and Breeze Labs performed the equivalent role for Stake.
None of these five companies operate a casino. They’re the financial infrastructure sitting between a player’s bank account and the platform’s cage, and naming them turns a gambling case into a banking case. It also exposes them to the same FDUTPA penalties Florida is seeking from VGW and Stake directly: up to $10,000 per willful violation, up to $15,000 per violation involving a disabled consumer or someone over 60, plus disgorgement and full restitution of player losses.
A cease-and-desist letter to a casino brand is a cost of doing business that operators have absorbed for years. A civil suit naming the processor directly, with per-violation penalties attached, is a much harsher and different calculation, and it’s one these companies have not had to defend before.
Florida’s Legislature Already Failed to Pass This
Uthmeier isn’t filling a gap the legislature left open. A bill from state Rep. Berny Jacques to tighten Florida’s internet gambling prohibitions died in committee in March, as part of a broader run of gambling-crackdown bills that failed to pass as the legislative session ended.
That failure is what makes the AG’s approach worth watching. Uthmeier argues Florida’s existing gambling statutes already cover sweepstakes casinos and the companies that move money for them, so he doesn’t need new legislation. He needs a judge to agree with his reading of the law already on the books, and it’s a legal-savvy move that may just work. If it succeeds, it opens a pathway for AGs nationwide to go after sweepstakes casinos.
Kentucky Set the Template in June, Florida Doubled-Down
Florida is following a strategy Kentucky tested first. Kentucky sued VGW, Kalshi, and Polymarket in June, skipping the cease-and-desist step entirely and filing directly in court. The logic behind that move was straightforward: a warning letter gives an operator time to lawyer up and respond slowly. A filed complaint forces an immediate decision: fight the case or leave the state.
Florida borrowed the sue-first instinct and extended it downstream to the processors. If more attorneys general start treating payment companies as co-defendants instead of witnesses, those companies will have to weigh their litigation exposure in every state where sweepstakes casinos operate, not just the ones that have already filed.
This suit hit a company already pulling back. VGW is shutting down LuckyLand Slots on September 14, a decision it announced on its own terms before Florida filed anything. Chumba Casino founder Laurence Escalante left the company permanently earlier this year, one more sign that VGW’s US operation has been shrinking on multiple fronts at once.
A company already shedding products and executives has less room to absorb a new legal front, and less leverage to negotiate a quiet settlement before this becomes public record for months.
Payment Processors Have More at Stake Than Any Casino Brand
A sweepstakes casino can rebrand, relaunch under a new entity, or exit a state outright. This industry routinely does all three. Payment processors don’t have that flexibility. Yodlee, Trustly, Worldpay, Praxis, and Breeze Labs each serve gambling-adjacent clients across dozens of states, and a Florida judgment against them won’t stay in Florida. It becomes a data point every compliance department at every other processor has to account for.
If even one of these companies decides sweepstakes merchant accounts aren’t worth the legal exposure, every operator that relies on it loses its banking rails overnight, in every state it operates, not just the one that sued first. That’s a bigger threat to the sweepstakes model than any single state’s ban, and it’s the part of this week’s filing worth watching most closely.
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