VGW Pays New York $8m to Settle Chumba, Global Poker and Luckyland Claims

Attorney General Letitia James says the "free" sweeps coins were sold at about a dollar apiece from 2012 onwards. The settlement carries no admission of liability and lands as Florida pursues the same company in court.

• VGW Holdings and its affiliates will pay New York $8 million in disgorgement, penalties and costs to resolve claims that Chumba Casino, Global Poker and Luckyland Slots were unlawful online gambling, the Attorney General announced on 9 September
• The Office of the Attorney General's investigation found players could buy "sweeps coins" at roughly one coin per dollar spent, despite VGW's position that the coins were free and therefore not gambling
• VGW had offered the platforms to New Yorkers since 2012 and stopped selling sweeps coins in the state after a cease-and-desist letter in June 2025; Governor Hochul signed a statutory ban in December 2025
• The agreement is an Assurance of Discontinuance with no admission of liability, according to Focus Gaming News
• It follows the Attorney General's 2026 suits against Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini over prediction markets and against Valve over gambling in video games, and Florida's lawsuit against VGW and its payment processors

The Largest Sweepstakes Operator Settles With the State That Stopped It First

New York has extracted its first money from the sweepstakes casino sector, fifteen months after it ordered the largest operator out of the state.

Attorney General Letitia James announced on 9 September that VGW Holdings Pty. Ltd. and its affiliates will pay $8 million to resolve allegations that they unlawfully ran online gambling platforms in New York. VGW's Chumba Casino, Global Poker and Luckyland Slots let users play slots, blackjack and poker with virtual coins that could be exchanged for cash or prizes. New York law prohibits online platforms from offering gambling that involves risking something of value, including redeemable virtual coins.

"Our state's gambling laws are designed to protect New Yorkers," James said. "Online sweepstakes casinos like Chumba Casino, Global Poker, and Luckyland Slots posed a dangerous threat to New Yorkers and their financial and mental health. My office took action to stop these illegal platforms last year, and now we are holding VGW accountable for the damage done."

According to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), VGW began offering online gambling to New Yorkers in 2012 through Chumba Casino and added Global Poker in 2016 and Luckyland Slots in 2018. All three offered "sweeps coins", which VGW claimed were provided free and therefore did not constitute gambling. The OAG's investigation found that players could obtain them the same way one might buy chips in a casino, receiving approximately one coin for every dollar spent on the platform. The office said some New Yorkers lost tens of thousands of dollars, and that sweepstakes casinos are not subject to the audits and oversight applied to licensed operators, so players cannot know whether games are fair or whether a winning bet will be paid.

A Cease-and-Desist, Then a Statute, Then the Bill

The OAG sent VGW a cease-and-desist letter in June 2025, part of a wave of letters that stopped 26 sweepstakes operators selling coins in the state, and VGW ended the sale of sweeps coins to New Yorkers. In December 2025, Governor Kathy Hochul signed New York's formal ban on sweepstakes casinos into law. The $8 million now agreed comprises disgorgement, penalties and costs; Focus Gaming News reports the settlement is structured as an Assurance of Discontinuance and includes no admission of liability. The matter was handled by the OAG's Bureau of Internet and Technology.

The release places the settlement in a longer list. James sued Kalshi in July 2026 for running an illegal gambling operation in New York, sued Coinbase and Gemini over prediction markets in April, and sued the video game developer Valve in January over gambling promoted to children and teenagers.

Eight Million Dollars Prices the Sweepstakes Era, and the Price Is Low

Thirteen years of operation in one of the largest states, three brands, and losses the Attorney General describes as reaching tens of thousands of dollars for individual players, resolved for $8 million with no admission. Measured against what the platforms are likely to have taken from New York over that period, that is a modest figure, and the structure explains it: the OAG had already achieved its practical objective in June 2025 when VGW withdrew, and the legislature closed the question in December. What remained was a negotiation over the past, and an operator that had already left had every reason to pay for a clean exit rather than litigate the meaning of a "free" coin. The settlement is nonetheless a finding, in substance if not in law, that the sweeps-coin model was a dollar-denominated purchase of gambling credit. That reasoning is portable. Florida is suing VGW and four payment processors on the same theory, and every state that has enacted a sweepstakes ban this year now has a worked example of what the operator will pay to leave.

The Attorney General's List Is the Story of Where Enforcement Is Going

The release does not just announce a settlement; it catalogues a year of James's actions against Kalshi, Coinbase, Gemini and Valve alongside VGW. Read together they describe a single position: any product that lets a New Yorker risk money on an outcome without a New York gambling licence is a target, whatever it calls itself. Sweepstakes casinos called their currency free; prediction markets call their contracts derivatives; a video game called its loot a cosmetic. New York has treated all three identically, and the sweepstakes case is the one that has now produced a payment. The prediction market defendants are better funded and have a federal regulator on their side, so their cases will take longer and may end differently. But the sequence New York has followed with VGW, a cease-and-desist, a statute, and then a settlement for the historical conduct, is the same sequence its Kalshi and Coinbase suits are designed to complete.

VGW has bought its way out of New York's past. The next operators on the Attorney General's list are still arguing about the present.