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State database · MD · verified 2026-10-03

Sweepstakes laws in Maryland

No sweepstakes-casino statute found; ban bills died in 2025 and 2026, and the gaming regulator has sent cease-and-desist letters to VGW, McLuck, Stake.us, Pulsz, High 5 and others.

Disclosure: this site's publisher, Luck Incorporated LLC, operates Chance Infinite, one of the apps in these databases. Its entry is built from its own documents under the same rules as every other entry. This is reference information, not legal advice; official rules and statutes control.

Last verified October 3, 2026. On October 16, 2026 an automated check re-opened 30 of its 31 sources and found no change. Every line below cites a document; numbers in brackets point to the source list.

Status
Regulator or attorney-general action
Enforcement actions on record
8
Ranked free apps open to residents
6 of 6
Sweepstakes-casino brands and Maryland
9 exclude it, 0 limit it, of 18 tracked

Bills

  • HB 1140 (2025 session): no action after House Ways and Means Committee hearing; session adjourned sine die April 7, 2025. [S7]
    What the bill does

    Gaming - Prohibition of Online Sweepstakes Games and Revenue From Illegal Markets, sponsored by Delegate Ebersole. Per its synopsis, it would prohibit a person from operating, conducting or promoting online sweepstakes games or supporting them, and require the State Lottery and Gaming Control Agency to deny or revoke certain licenses. Its last recorded action was a House Ways and Means hearing set for March 11, 2025.

  • SB 860 (2025 session): passed the Senate 47-0 on March 12, 2025; no action after House Ways and Means hearing; session adjourned sine die April 7, 2025. [S8]
    What the bill does

    Cross-file of HB 1140, sponsored by Senator Corderman, with the same title and synopsis. After Senate passage it was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, with a hearing set for March 20, 2025, and recorded no further action.

  • HB 295 (2026 session): passed the House 105-24 on March 20, 2026; no action after Senate Budget and Taxation hearing; session adjourned sine die April 13, 2026. [S3]
    What the bill does

    Gaming - Prohibition on Interactive Games and Revenue From Illegal Markets, introduced by the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee by request of the Lottery and Gaming Control Agency (introduced in 2025 as HB 1140). The third-reader text would bar any person from operating, conducting or promoting an interactive game in the State, defining an interactive game as an internet or mobile game, contest or promotion involving consideration, chance and reward that uses multiple currency systems of payment allowing the player to exchange the currency for a reward and simulates casino-style gaming, lottery games or sports wagering, with a misdemeanor penalty of up to 3 years or a fine of $10,000 to $100,000, or both, for a knowing violation. Its last recorded action was a Senate Budget and Taxation hearing set for April 1, 2026. (Status: S3; text: S4.)

  • SB 112 (2026 session): no action after Senate Budget and Taxation hearing; session adjourned sine die April 13, 2026. [S6]
    What the bill does

    Cross-file of HB 295, introduced by the Chair of the Budget and Taxation Committee by request of the Lottery and Gaming Control Agency. Its last recorded action was a Senate Budget and Taxation hearing set for January 28, 2026.

  • HB 1226 (2026 session): passed the House 135-1 on March 23, 2026; no action after Senate Budget and Taxation hearing; session adjourned sine die April 13, 2026. [S1]
    What the bill does

    Maryland Illegal Online Gambling Enforcement Act, sponsored by Delegates Bartlett, Conaway and Woods. Per its synopsis, it would prohibit knowingly operating, offering, conducting, engaging in or promoting illegal online gambling in the State, or supporting it, and authorize the Attorney General and prosecutors to act. The third-reader text defines online gambling to include sweepstakes games, meaning games that use a dual-currency system of payment exchangeable for prizes, cash or cash equivalents and that simulate gambling, including casino-style games. Its last recorded action was a Senate Budget and Taxation hearing set for March 31, 2026. (Status: S1; text: S2.)

  • SB 652 (2026 session): no action after Senate Budget and Taxation hearing; session adjourned sine die April 13, 2026. [S5]
    What the bill does

    Cross-file of HB 1226, sponsored by Senators Waldstreicher and West, with the same title and a nearly identical synopsis (its synopsis lacks the word "knowingly" before "operating"). Its last recorded action was a Senate Budget and Taxation hearing set for March 11, 2026.

Enforcement

  • May 7, 2024, Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency: letter listed among the agency's cease-and-desist letters against McLuck. Status: issued. [S18]
    What the record says

    The letter says it came to the agency's attention that "McLuck, is offering and conducting online gaming activity in Maryland without legal authority to do so" and asked for a response by May 31, 2024.

  • May 7, 2024, Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency: letter listed among the agency's cease-and-desist letters against Sweepstakes Limited d/b/a Stake.us. Status: issued. The letter, headed as concerning Stake.us business in Maryland, says it came to the agency's attention that Stake.us was offering and conducting online gaming activity in Maryland without legal authority. [S19]
  • March 12, 2025, Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency: letter listed among the agency's cease-and-desist letters against VGW US, Inc. and VGW Games Limited (RE: VGW d/b/a Chumba Casino and Luckyland Slots Business in Maryland). Status: issued. [S14]
    What the record says

    The letter states that the only online gaming permitted in Maryland is mobile and online sports wagering and online fantasy competitions, that online casino gaming is not permitted, and that the Commission has no record of a VGW license or registration, and asks VGW to respond by March 27, 2025.

  • March 18, 2025, Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency: letter listed among the agency's cease-and-desist letters against High Entertainment, LLC d/b/a High 5 Casino. Status: issued. The letter says it came to the agency's attention that High Entertainment, LLC d/b/a High 5 Casino was offering and conducting online gaming activities in Maryland without legal authority. [S20]
  • June 3, 2025, Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency: letter listed among the agency's cease-and-desist letters against Yellow Social Interactive Limited d/b/a Pulsz. Status: issued. Headed "RE: Yellow Social Interactive Limited d/b/a Pulsz Business in Maryland"; one of a group of letters the agency's list files under June 2025. [S21]
  • November 18, 2025, Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission: Notice to Cease and Desist against Chumba Casino. Status: issued. [S15]
    What the record says

    The notice tells Chumba Casino "to immediately cease and desist conducting all unauthorized online gaming activity in Maryland." It says the site offers "online poker, casino gaming, and sweepstakes" available to people in Maryland, that "These offerings contain the elements of gaming: consideration, chance and prize", and asks for a response within 10 days with a wind-down plan.

  • November 18, 2025, Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission: Notice to Cease and Desist against Lucky Land Slots. Status: issued. The notice tells Lucky Land Slots "to immediately cease and desist conducting all unauthorized online gaming activity in Maryland." [S16]
  • December 19, 2025, Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission: Notice to Cease and Desist against Real Prize. Status: issued. [S17]
    What the record says

    The notice tells Real Prize "to immediately cease and desist conducting all unauthorized online gaming activity in Maryland" and says the site offers online casino gaming available to people in Maryland. The agency's list shows other letters with file names dated December 19, 2025, including those labeled Funrize, FunzCity, Fortune Wheelz, Lonestar Casino, No Limit Coins and TaoFortune.

Rules for any sweepstakes in Maryland

  • Sweepstakes disclosures and prize notices (Md. Code, Commercial Law section 13-305): [S22]
    What the rule requires

    A person offering a contest, sweepstakes or other sales promotion that awards prizes by chance must disclose in writing the exact number of each prize, each prize's retail price, the odds (or that odds depend on the number of entries), whether all prizes will be awarded and when winners are determined, any conditions for receiving a prize, where a list of winners of prizes over $100 can be obtained, and that receiving the prize may not require a purchase, a payment or submitting to a sales promotion. The same section bars telling a person they have won a prize when they must buy, pay or submit to a sales pitch to get it, subject to stated exceptions.

Free sweepstakes apps open to Maryland residents

Our ranked apps, by what each one's own official rules say about Maryland. Chance Infinite is operated by this site's publisher.

AppOur rankMaryland
Chance Infinite1, 81/100Open
Coinnect2, 71/100Open
Prizes by GAMEE3 (tied), 54/100Open
Winsome Rewards3 (tied), 54/100Open
PCH+5, 51/100Open (app listed unavailable)
PCH Lotto6, 48/100Open (app listed unavailable)

Sweepstakes casinos and Maryland

What the 18 sweepstakes-casino brands in our database say about Maryland in their own documents. These lists give no grade; some of these brands pay SweepstakeReport a commission through the links on their fact sheets. We do not judge whether any brand may operate in Maryland, and documents change often.

146 sweepstakes casinos' own terms do not exclude Maryland: see the casino list for Maryland.

Regulator

Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency

Notes

Read the 5 research notes
  • The agency's online-gaming page says that licensed sports wagering and registered online fantasy competitions are the only legal online gaming options and that "No other forms of real-money online/mobile gaming or wagering are operating legally in Maryland." Its cease-and-desist list linked 96 letters on 2026-10-03 and states that it "only represents the operators to which Maryland Lottery and Gaming has issued cease-and-desist letters" and is not comprehensive. Labels on the list include Fortune Coins, Zula, Golden Hearts, Sunflower Limited (Crown Coins Casino), Platinum Panther (Legendz), MW Services (WOW), Regal Technologies (Sweepslots), SSPS (Spotzino), Woopla (Funzpoints) and Chanced. (S13)
  • The November and December 2025 notices cite Md. Code, Criminal Law section 12-113, under which a decision by the State Lottery and Gaming Control Commission is the final determination of whether a gaming device being operated in the State is legal and lawfully operated. (S15, S17, S23)
  • The last recorded action on each of the six bills is a committee hearing (for SB 860, HB 295 and HB 1226, a hearing in the second chamber after passage in the first), and none reached the Governor. The 2025 session adjourned sine die April 7, 2025 and the 2026 session on April 13, 2026, per the Department of Legislative Services calendars. In the General Assembly's gaming subject index for 2025 and 2026, these are the only bills whose titles concern online sweepstakes games, interactive games or illegal online gambling enforcement. HB 1418 (2025, "Criminal Law - Gaming - Online Gambling and Betting") would have stated that gambling and betting offered or conducted online in the State are prohibited except as authorized, without mentioning sweepstakes or dual currencies; its last recorded action was a House Ways and Means hearing set for March 4, 2025. The internet gaming authorization bills HB 17 (2025) and HB 1343 (2026) would have directed the Commission to study unauthorized online gaming content such as online sweepstakes; their texts contain no other mention of sweepstakes. None of these is counted above. (S9, S10, S11, S12, S27, S28, S29, S30)
  • The City of Baltimore filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on March 4, 2026 (case C-24-CV-26-001646) under the City's Consumer Protection Ordinance against VGW Holdings Limited d/b/a Chumba Casino and Luckyland Slots, B2Services OU d/b/a McLuck, Yellow Social Interactive Limited d/b/a Pulsz, Sweepsteaks Limited d/b/a Stake.us, PTT, LLC d/b/a High 5 Games d/b/a High 5 Entertainment LLC, and Blazesoft Ltd. d/b/a Social Gaming LLC d/b/a Fortune Coins. The complaint alleges that the defendants run illegal gambling operations through online social casinos; these are allegations. Per a docket listing on Justia (secondary), the case was removed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on April 23, 2026 (No. 1:26-cv-01591), the docket lists an amended complaint naming affiliated entities, and the City moved to remand on May 21, 2026; no ruling on that motion appears in the listing, which Justia last retrieved on June 10, 2026. The case is pending as far as we could determine. It is a city action, not a state regulator or Attorney General action. CBS Baltimore reported the suit in March 2026. (S25, S26, S24)
  • Comparison with our crackdown timeline: it says Maryland's regulator "ordered VGW out in March 2025 and again in November, per press coverage of the orders." The primary letters are now on the agency's site. The March 12, 2025 letter from the Agency asked VGW to respond by March 27, 2025, stated that online casino gaming is not permitted, and asked VGW, if it was offering such games, to acknowledge that it would cease within 10 days; its text requests a response rather than ordering VGW to stop, although the agency's list files it among its cease-and-desist letters; the November 18, 2025 documents are Commission notices to cease and desist addressed separately to Chumba Casino and Lucky Land Slots. The timeline's listing of Maryland's 2025 and 2026 bills as failed matches the bill records. (T1, S14, S15, S16)

What we could not establish

  • The agency's letters are image-only PDFs with no text layer; dates and wording were read from the page images (first pages only), and file hashes are recorded in the evidence file.
  • We found no Maryland Attorney General action aimed at online sweepstakes casinos in a web search on 2026-10-03; the Attorney General's own site search did not return readable results to our client, so the office's release archive was not searched directly.
  • We did not access PACER or the Maryland Judiciary Case Search; the Baltimore case status rests on the complaint as filed and the Justia docket listing last retrieved June 10, 2026, so later developments, if any, are not reflected.
  • We did not check for 2027 prefiled bills; an earlier check for our October 3, 2026 Modo article found the site returned errors for 2027 bill pages.

Common questions

Does Maryland have a law on online sweepstakes casinos?

We found no statute in Maryland that names online sweepstakes casinos in the sources we checked, last verified October 3, 2026. Status on this page: regulator or attorney-general action.

Which ranked free sweepstakes apps accept Maryland residents?

Per their own official rules, Chance Infinite, Coinnect, Prizes by GAMEE, Winsome Rewards, PCH+ and PCH Lotto accept residents of Maryland. Chance Infinite is operated by the publisher of this site.

Do sweepstakes casinos accept players in Maryland?

Of the 18 sweepstakes casino brands in our database, 9 exclude Maryland and 0 limit it in their own documents, last verified October 3, 2026. Documents change often, so read the current terms first.

Sources

  1. S1 Maryland General Assembly, HB 1226, 2026 Regular Session (Maryland Illegal Online Gambling Enforcement Act), retrieved October 3, 2026
  2. S2 Maryland General Assembly, HB 1226, third reader text, 2026, retrieved October 3, 2026
  3. S3 Maryland General Assembly, HB 295, 2026 Regular Session (Gaming - Prohibition on Interactive Games and Revenue From Illegal Markets), retrieved October 3, 2026
  4. S4 Maryland General Assembly, HB 295, third reader text, 2026, retrieved October 3, 2026
  5. S5 Maryland General Assembly, SB 652, 2026 Regular Session, retrieved October 3, 2026
  6. S6 Maryland General Assembly, SB 112, 2026 Regular Session, retrieved October 3, 2026
  7. S7 Maryland General Assembly, HB 1140, 2025 Regular Session (Gaming - Prohibition of Online Sweepstakes Games and Revenue From Illegal Markets), retrieved October 3, 2026
  8. S8 Maryland General Assembly, SB 860, 2025 Regular Session, retrieved October 3, 2026
  9. S9 Department of Legislative Services, Dates of Interest, 2026 Session, retrieved October 3, 2026
  10. S10 Department of Legislative Services, Dates of Interest, 2025 Session, retrieved October 3, 2026
  11. S11 Maryland General Assembly, Subject index: Gaming (C7), 2025 Regular Session, retrieved October 3, 2026
  12. S12 Maryland General Assembly, Subject index: Gaming (C7), 2026 Regular Session, retrieved October 3, 2026
  13. S13 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, Legal vs. Illegal Online Gaming, with the list of cease-and-desist letters, retrieved October 3, 2026
  14. S14 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, Letter, VGW d/b/a Chumba Casino and Luckyland Slots Business in Maryland (March 12, 2025), retrieved October 3, 2026
  15. S15 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission, Notice to Cease and Desist, Chumba Casino (November 18, 2025), retrieved October 3, 2026
  16. S16 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission, Notice to Cease and Desist, Lucky Land Slots (November 18, 2025), retrieved October 3, 2026
  17. S17 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission, Notice to Cease and Desist, Real Prize (December 19, 2025), retrieved October 3, 2026
  18. S18 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, Letter, McLuck's Business in Maryland (May 7, 2024), retrieved October 3, 2026
  19. S19 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, Letter, Stake.us' Business in Maryland (May 7, 2024), retrieved October 3, 2026
  20. S20 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, Letter, High Entertainment, LLC d/b/a High 5 Casino Business in Maryland (March 18, 2025), retrieved October 3, 2026
  21. S21 Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency, Letter, Yellow Social Interactive Limited d/b/a Pulsz Business in Maryland (June 3, 2025), retrieved October 3, 2026
  22. S22 Maryland General Assembly, Statutes, Commercial Law section 13-305 (prize promotions), retrieved October 3, 2026
  23. S23 Maryland General Assembly, Statutes, Criminal Law section 12-113, retrieved October 3, 2026
  24. S24 CBS Baltimore, Baltimore sues 6 major online casinos, claims illegal gambling disguised as free games (updated March 6, 2026) (secondary reporting), retrieved October 3, 2026
  25. S25 DiCello Levitt LLP (counsel for the City of Baltimore), Complaint, City of Baltimore ex rel. Ebony Thompson v. VGW Holdings Limited et al., Circuit Court for Baltimore City, e-filed March 4, 2026 (copy hosted by the City's co-counsel), retrieved October 3, 2026
  26. S26 Justia Dockets, Docket, City of Baltimore v. VGW Malta Ltd et al., No. 1:2026cv01591 (D. Md.), last retrieved by Justia June 10, 2026 (secondary reporting), retrieved October 3, 2026
  27. S27 Maryland General Assembly, HB 1418, 2025 Regular Session (Criminal Law - Gaming - Online Gambling and Betting), retrieved October 3, 2026
  28. S28 Maryland General Assembly, HB 1418, first reader text, 2025, retrieved October 3, 2026
  29. S29 Maryland General Assembly, HB 17, first reader text, 2025 (Internet Gaming - Authorization and Implementation), retrieved October 3, 2026
  30. S30 Maryland General Assembly, HB 1343, first reader text, 2026 (Internet Gaming - Authorization and Implementation), retrieved October 3, 2026
  31. T1 SweepstakeReport, The sweepstakes casino crackdown: a dated timeline (site page, compared against primaries) (secondary reporting), retrieved October 3, 2026

Related: All 50 states and DC · The crackdown timeline · The app database