VGW faces more pressure in Mississippi

VGW, the operator of some of the biggest sweepstakes and social casino websites in North America, including Chumba Casino, Global Poker, and LuckyLand Slots is potentially in more legal trouble after a lawsuit was filed in Mississippi last week, alleging that the company had offered a form of illegal gambling and would have to, under state law, reimburse players.

VGW is accused of running illegal gambling in Mississippi

The mass claim filed by plaintiff Makayla Darrielle Saulny and her lawyer is not the first time the same party attempted to challenge VGW’s legality of operating sweepstakes and social casino products in the Magnolia State.

Not much else is known about the Mississippi case just yet, other than the fact that this would be the 11th federal case that VGW is defending in the United States. The company has come under a lot of pressure and scrutiny, although it is not necessarily VGW that is in the wrong.

As a whole, there has been a distinct pushback against the sweepstakes model in social casinos, which many have questioned the legality of, despite decades of operation.

Although consumers habitually challenge social casinos that offer sweepstakes, no such case seems to have set a precedent in proving that companies in the sector had been actually offering an unregulated gambling product.

A recent video briefing by the newly-formed SPGA, an association of social and sweepstakes gaming sites, has insisted that the sweepstakes model used in social gaming sites is in fact legal. However, others have objected.

The American Gaming Association (AGA) has issued a damning note in which it lambasted the model and its stakeholders as a whole. VGW also recently faced a challenge in Delaware, after experiencing similar roadblocks in Idaho, Washington, Michigan, Florida, and Tennessee.

More companies get tangled in mesh of social and sweepstakes casinos

In Florida, a lawsuit filed against the company has also named Worldpay, a payment processing company as a co-defender, making it clear that plaintiffs could seek to attack not just the gaming companies they accuse of illegal gambling, but also the payment providers that help facilitate those payments.

The sector as a whole has not bucked, but there have been chinks in the armor. Papaya Gaming, another social games operator, was handed a cease-and-desist letter by the Michigan Gaming Control Board earlier in October for example and the AGA remains unyielding.

For its part, the SPGA has said that it is prepared to talk to AGA and discuss some of the claims made in its industry memo which criticized the sweepstakes-slash-social-casino sector. In the meantime, however, VGW would have to fight yet another case.

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