News: Maryland Sends Cease & Desist Letters To Some Sweepstakes Operators
I am going to break from my regular schedule to cover some news this morning. Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency published an overview of operations today. In that document, the MLGCA said it had asked 11 operators to stop serving Maryland customers because they believed they were offering “illegal online gaming.”
The Closing Line contacted the MLGCA this morning, and they provided this list of operators who had been issued a cease and desist letter. Notably, some of these operators are sweepstakes casinos or sportsbooks:
The following six companies responded:
Golden Hearts
Zula
McLuck
REBET
Fortune Coins
StakeUS
Letters were also sent to the following, with no responses:
BETUS
BETNOW
SlotsAndCasino
Everygame Sportsbook
BetAnySports
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The six that responded are all sweepstakes operators. Notably from that list:
Stake.US is the sweepstakes/social platform of the larger Stake.com operation that operates internationally.
Rebet is a startup that announced it was offering a sweepstakes sportsbook in 47 states about a year ago.
It’s not immediately clear how these six operators were selected for C&Ds out of a universe of more than a hundred sweepstakes operators that serve Maryland and much of the United States. Sweepstakes operators have insisted they follow all state and federal laws, while opponents have accused them of creating a work-around to offer real-money gaming.
The other five listed operators appear to be offshore sportsbooks and/or casinos.
According to MLGCA, none of the 11 operators have stopped serving Maryland.
The actions in Maryland come after a trickle of actions at the state level against a limited number of sweepstakes operators in 2024 and earlier. Bovada has been the target of C&D’s in several other states in 2024, but it had already left Maryland.
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