Image credit: Source: Florida Attorney General's Office news release. Never imply stock depicts the actual event.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed two civil lawsuits on August 19 in Hillsborough County Circuit Court, accusing Stake and VGW Holdings of running illegal, unlicensed online casinos disguised as sweepstakes. The suits name VGW's Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots and Global Poker, and Stake's sweepstakes product, plus four payment processors that move money for them: Worldpay and Trustly for VGW, and Breeze Labs and Praxis for Stake.
Both suits target the dual currency model at the center of the sweepstakes-casino category. Players buy bundles of "Gold Coins" that come with free "Stake Cash" or "Sweeps Coins," a second currency that plays like real-money wagering credit and cashes out for crypto, gift cards or cash after minimal play. Florida's complaint says that structure is a casino with an extra step, not a sweepstakes promotion, and argues it violates the state's gambling statutes and its Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
"These so-called 'sweepstakes' and 'social casinos' are illegal online gambling operations," Uthmeier said. "If it looks like a casino, takes real money like a casino, and pays out like a casino, it is a casino, and it is illegal under Florida law. These companies have been preying on Floridians, including minors and seniors, with deceptive marketing, and 24/7 access, while dodging our state's licensing, taxation, and consumer-protection requirements. They must be stopped."
The state is asking the court for permanent injunctions barring both companies from operating or soliciting in Florida, disgorgement of what it calls ill-gotten gains, civil penalties, restitution for consumers and its own attorneys' fees.
The processors are the exposed flank
Florida is not the first to move. Kentucky's attorney general sued VGW in June over the same Chumba and LuckyLand structure, and California moved to ban sweepstakes casinos outright through AB 831. Florida adds scale and a wider net: naming Worldpay and Trustly alongside VGW, and Breeze Labs and Praxis alongside Stake, turns an operator problem into a payments problem. A processor moving money for a platform a state calls illegal gambling carries its own exposure.
The suits land inside a pattern this desk has tracked all year: US iGaming legalization has stalled at eight states, and sweepstakes casinos have expanded into the gap those laws leave open, drawing scrutiny over how they advertise alongside licensed operators.
Neither Stake nor VGW had filed a public response as of this week. VGW told Kentucky's press in June it would "vigorously defend" its business and has "lawfully operated in the US for more than a decade." Watch for whether other states follow now that a second, larger one has gone after the payment rails, not just the platforms.
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