New Jersey may have passed a law banning online sweepstakes casinos from operating in the Garden State, but that doesn’t mean legislators are done with the unregulated form of gaming.
Key Takeaways
- S1500 wants to bring dual-currency operators into New Jersey’s internet gaming framework.
- Sweepstakes casino operators would have to be licensed and partner with a casino licensee.
- Sen. Joseph Cryan introduced similar legislation last year.
A bill wants to legalize dual-currency platforms and bring them into New Jersey’s internet gaming framework. Sen. Joseph Cryan (Democrat) introduced S1500 on Tuesday, legislation that would regulate, license, and tax sweepstakes operators.
One year after New Jersey banned online sweepstakes casinos by statute, a new legislative effort has emerged to regulate, license and tax sweepstakes casinos as part of the state's existing iGaming framework.
— Daniel Wallach (@WALLACHLEGAL) January 14, 2026
SB 1500 (filed by Sen. Joseph Cryan): https://t.co/E57LtH2hpu pic.twitter.com/R9Xf4FasBO
If licensed, a sweepstakes casino operator would, like New Jersey’s legal internet gaming companies, have to partner with a casino licensee and obtain a gaming permit. S1500 was referred to the Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee and is pending technical review from legal counsel.
This is Cryan’s second attempt in the last year to make New Jersey the first-ever state to regulate sweepstakes gaming. A bill he introduced in 2025 died in the committee.
A similar bill to S1500 was introduced in the Assembly last January and supported by the Social and Promotional Games Association, but the bill was withdrawn from consideration in April.
Enjoying Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account
More about the bill
S1500 defines an online sweepstakes casino as “any platform available via an Internet website or mobile application that (1) provides participants with an opportunity to play authorized gambling games or provides an experience equivalent to, or with similar statistical odds of winning as an authorized gambling game, except that the game does not require any initial monetary investment on behalf of the participants to play and instead is played primarily with free currency; and (2) awards to participants at random, as a bundle with the purchase of free currency, or upon the completion of certain specified tasks, currency or promotional gaming credits which can be wagered on games and are redeemable for cash, prizes, or other things of value.
An online sweepstakes casino may additionally offer tokens, coins, chips, credits, or other forms of currency for purchase or exchange that are directly redeemable for cash, prizes, or other things of value.”
Online sweepstakes tokens and coins were also amended into a section of the gambling laws on legal promotional gaming credits.
Last year’s prohibition
Gov. Phil Murphy signed A5447 into law in August, adding New Jersey to a list of several states last year that made dual-currency gaming illegal.
The Garden State prohibits sweepstakes operators that use “a promotional, advertising, or marketing event, contest, or game, whether played online or in-person, in which something of value, such as a prize or prize equivalent, is awarded, either directly or indirectly through means such as a dual-currency system of payment that allows a participant to exchange the currency for a prize or prize equivalent.”
The law gives the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement the ability to stop online sweepstakes casinos from operating and to fine those companies $100,000 for a first offense and $250,000 for subsequent violations.
