The legal gaming industry's chief lobby group is hoping that the recent call for a federal crackdown on offshore betting sites will lead to another “Black Friday” for certain internet gambling operators.
- Fifty U.S. attorneys general are urging the Department of Justice to crack down on offshore sports betting and casino sites, with backing from an American Gaming Association that hopes the effort could lead to something like online poker’s “Black Friday.”
- The AGA wants to see enforcement efforts against both offshore gambling operators and onshore sweepstakes casinos.
- AGA-commissioned research suggests enforcement is effective, citing findings that states taking action against sweeps see a 53% drop in users.
Tres York, vice president of government relations for the American Gaming Association (AGA), said Wednesday that the call by 50 attorneys general for the U.S. Department of Justice to take action against offshore gambling operators was a "collective effort.”
That effort, he said, included leaders at the National Association of Attorneys General and industry partners such as Las Vegas Sands.
A "bipartisan coalition of 50 attorneys general" is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to crack down on offshore gambling. They want websites blocked, assets seized, and access to banks and payment processors cut off: pic.twitter.com/s32QnrmTA1
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) August 5, 2025
The letter sent this week to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi cites AGA research on the estimated size of the offshore gambling market, York noted, but it also points out that similar enforcement measures have been taken before by the federal government.
York pointed to the 2011 crackdown on the online poker industry, when charges were laid and internet domain names seized.
“So this is something that, again, the Department of Justice has done before,” York said during the Indian Gaming Association’s “New Normal” webcast. “We just want them to do it again.”
The comments suggest there is some serious intent behind the latest request for federal intervention against offshore sports betting and casino gambling sites.
While it remains to be seen if Bondi and the DOJ will take up the request from the AG coalition, the fact that it is also being made by a bipartisan group from all over the U.S. could carry more weight.
“This is and should not be a controversial issue,” York said on Wednesday. “Illegal offshore gambling is illegal by definition, and none of the protections that the legal industry provides in the U.S. are followed by any of these people. They're blatantly black market.”
The AGA and state-level regulators of online sports betting sites in the U.S. have been pursuing offshore operators for years now, sending cease-and-desist letters and periodically calling on the federal government to assist.
Nevertheless, offshore sportsbooks and casino gambling sites are still doing brisk business in the U.S., partly because not every state cares as much about them as others. This has left a patchwork of enforcement that illegal operators can get around.
You DO have to make a federal case of it
The AG coalition wants the federal government now to use its tools, blocking access to sites and payment systems, and deal a real blow to the offshore gambling sector.
“The federal government has immense authority, and they have the technological expertise to do a lot of those things, which, at the end of the day, would really be the types of enforcement actions that would have a real difference in the fact that you could actually shut these guys down,” York said Wednesday.
It’s not just offshore sportsbooks that state-level regulators and the legal gaming industry have an issue with at the moment, though.
Sweepstakes casinos are another target, as those sites offer an alternative to wagering at a brick-and-mortar casino or online sportsbook.
Some states have issued cease-and-desist letters to sweepstakes casinos, while others have introduced legislation to prohibit sweeps, such as a proposed law in California.
Victor Rocha, one of the hosts of the New Normal and the Indian Gaming Association’s conference chairman, said Wednesday that the “back-channel talk” he’s hearing about the California sweeps bill is that it is “gaining strength.”
The @AmericanGaming Association coming in hot this morning with survey data that suggests a big majority of sweepstakes casinos users view it as, well, gambling. pic.twitter.com/CauFvq7x1L
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) July 31, 2025
Meanwhile, recent survey data compiled by the AGA found that 90% of sweeps users believe they are gambling and 69% see those sites as somewhere to wager real money.
Moreover, 80% of sweeps players surveyed were spending monthly, "without the safety nets offered by regulators operators," the AGA said.
“This research was really designed to kind of provide actual evidence that A) rebuts the arguments that the other side has made and B) gives [regulators and lawmakers] an idea of the types of people that [sweeps are] targeting,” York said.
York added later that one of the other findings that jumped out at him was that there were 53% fewer sweeps players in states that have taken action to limit access.
“So the actual states that are going after these guys issuing cease-and-desist letters, whether it's from the gaming regulator, the [attorney general], and certainly from states that are passing legislation to ban them, you are seeing a sharp decline in the amount of players that are actually playing,” York said. “Which is clearly … re-emphasizing the case that enforcement works.”
