Wyoming Committee Backs Felony Ban on Online Sweepstakes Casinos for 2027 Session

Wyoming's Select Committee on Gaming has voted to back a draft bill that would make running an online sweepstakes casino, or knowingly supplying one with payments, geolocation or game content, a felony. Its definition of sweepstakes currency is wider than California's, but the bill still needs a sponsor the committee may not be able to supply itself.

• Wyoming's Select Committee on Gaming voted unanimously at its 5 and 6 October meeting in Rock Springs to sponsor draft bill 27LSO-0098, which would make operating an online casino or sweepstakes game a felony, according to WyoFile
• The draft also covers anyone who knowingly provides geolocation, payment processing, server hosting, platform services, gaming content, data services, promotion or advertising for those games, and exempts people who only play
• Its definition of a "representative of value" reaches single-currency, dual-currency, multi-currency, free-play and promotional-play systems, wider than the dual-currency language in California's AB 831
• A competing draft, 27LSO-0200, would have authorised online sweepstakes subject to eight player controls and sales tax, with no licence; no report says the committee advanced it
• Select committees created by the Legislature's Management Council cannot sponsor bills without express authority, and a 2026 bill to give this one that power failed, so the ban's route into the January 2027 general session may depend on the council

Wyoming Lawmakers Back a Felony Ban After Stalling in July

Wyoming's six-member Select Committee on Gaming, co-chaired by Senator John Kolb and Representative Jayme Lien, voted unanimously at its meeting in Rock Springs on 5 and 6 October to sponsor 27LSO-0098, "Online casinos and sweepstakes prohibited", according to WyoFile. We could not find published minutes. The vote reverses the outcome of 30 July, when lawmakers decided they lacked the information to advance the same draft, Wyoming Public Media reported.

The text posted for the October meeting is unchanged from July. It adds a third limb to Wyoming's definition of professional gambling: operating an online casino or sweepstakes game for another person, or knowingly providing services to operate, offer or promote one, with geolocation, payment processing, server hosting, platform services, gaming content, data services, promotion and advertising all named. Anyone participating "solely as a player" is excluded. Professional gambling is already a felony under W.S. 6-7-102, punishable by up to three years in prison, a fine of up to $3,000, or both, and the staff comment notes that existing seizure rules for gambling devices, records and proceeds would also apply.

A covered game is any internet game, contest or promotion that involves risking "property or a representative of value" for a chance to obtain property, and that enables or simulates gambling. A representative of value is any unit in "a single-currency, dual-currency, multi-currency, free-play, promotional-play, sweepstakes-entry or similar system" that can be used to obtain property or a chance at it. Activities already excluded from Wyoming's gambling definition, or authorised by state or federal law, are carved out. The bill would take effect on 1 July 2027.

A Regulator Caught Between Two Agencies

Nicholas Larramendy, executive director of the Wyoming Gaming Commission, told lawmakers that sweepstakes complaints go round in a "constant cycle" between his agency and the state's Consumer Protection and Antitrust Unit, according to WyoFile. "So this bill definitely makes it very clear that this is illegal gambling," he said. In May 2025 the commission warned that no online casino, iGaming or sweepstakes site is licensed in Wyoming, and that enforcement is difficult because most operate from outside the United States.

Bill Gantz, an attorney for VGW, which he said has offered sweepstakes games in Wyoming since 2012, called the language "over broad" and said it conflicts with the lawful use of sweepstakes alongside purchases, WyoFile reported. Former state Senator Affie Ellis, representing Bally's Corporation, told the committee that online casinos and sweepstakes can look almost identical but are "two fundamentally different products". We could not find a published response from the Social Gaming Leadership Alliance, the sweepstakes trade body.

The committee also had before it 27LSO-0200, "Online sweepstakes authorized", which would have exempted compliant sweepstakes from the gambling definition. Sponsors of casino-style games would have had to limit players to one account, bar under-21s, offer self-exclusion and account closure, display problem gambling information, protect player data, verify location and allow time and spending limits, and collect sales tax. Neither WyoFile nor Gaming America reports that it was advanced.

About $2.7 billion was wagered across all legal forms of gambling in Wyoming last year, and Larramendy expects more than $3 billion in 2026, according to WyoFile.

The Route to the 2027 Session Is Not Settled

A 2017 law bars select committees created by the Legislature's Management Council from sponsoring bills unless expressly authorised. SF0111, which would have put this committee in statute with the power to sponsor legislation, failed in the House by 16 votes to 36 in March. The October agenda listed "Management Council Sponsorship" as a closing item, and any individual legislator can still file the bill for the general session in January.

Wyoming Is Drafting for the Next Product, Not the Last One

California's AB 831 names dual-currency systems as its target in its own statement of intent, and Indiana's ban covers dual and multi-currency models. Wyoming adds single-currency, free-play and promotional-play systems, closing routes a redesigned product might otherwise take. That breadth is the draft's strength and the basis of VGW's objection: on Gantz's argument, a definition that captures any promotional unit redeemable for a prize could reach ordinary retail sweepstakes. The drafters' answer is the carve-out for activity lawful under existing rules, which leaves the line between a supermarket prize draw and a sweepstakes slot to prosecutors and, eventually, the courts.

The Fine Is Small, but the Felony Reaches the Supply Chain

A $3,000 maximum fine is modest beside California's $25,000 misdemeanour ceiling or the $100,000 maximum Louisiana set in May 2026 under HB 883, a year after its governor vetoed an earlier bill. The felony label matters more. Wyoming's own regulator says offshore operators are hard to reach, but payment processors, geolocation vendors and game studios are often regulated businesses with far more to lose than an offshore site. California, Louisiana and Florida, which sued VGW and four payment processors in August, have all pulled the same lever. For a supplier, felony exposure in one small state is a reason to geofence it out entirely.

The Regulatory Alternative Was Too Thin to Win

27LSO-0200 offered no licence, no regulator with approval powers and no gaming tax, only operator controls and sales tax. A committee that had just heard complaints described as bouncing between two agencies had little reason to prefer an option that created no new oversight. The channelisation question remains: Wyoming does not license online casino, so a sweepstakes ban leaves offshore sites as the only casino-style option for players who want one. Indiana heard the same argument from the industry and chose prohibition anyway.

Wyoming has moved from uncertainty to a felony draft in one interim. Whether that draft reaches the floor in January depends on the Management Council as much as on the committee.